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Spider-Man, 7/27/13

Whew, the Amazing Spider-Man has escaped from another tight situation, everybody! I sincerely hope that our sassy pilot/flight attendant/epaulette enthusiast was carefully watching Spidey make his getaway over the Costa Verdan’s shoulder, drawing out his sentence with an unnatural pause between “you” and “that,” making sure that he didn’t say Spider-Man was off the plane until his body was completely out the door. That way he won’t get in trouble when he’s dragged off to one of this thuggish dictatorship’s torture chambers! Technically, he wasn’t lying.

Hi and Lois, 7/27/13

Hi’s dead-eyed stare really takes this from “gentle suburban family antics” to “man in the grip of a debilitating addiction.” “I promise, I promise I won’t get out of the car,” he mumbles. “I just want to see the prices. Look, if we pull up to the curb, we can see the prices. Just let me look. Just let me look.”

Herb and Jamaal, 7/27/13

The absolute best thing about this extremely sad/hilarious (sadlarious?) Herb and Jamaal is that I think what we’re supposed to take from Herb’s wistful gaze at the phone is that his mortgage company hasn’t called him back either. Look, Herb, we may be out of the worst of the housing collapse, but there’s still a huge backlog of mortgages in arrears and foreclosure, so your lender doesn’t have time to attend to your emotional needs, especially if we’re only talking about one missed payment here.

Pluggers, 7/27/13

Wow, is this the most depressing Pluggers ever, more depressing than “Rhino-Man Hocks His TV?” “Pluggers will achieve the upper-middle-class status they wistfully yearn for only after they die.” Or maybe I’m misreading it. Maybe the panel is about plugger contempt for modern striving values. “Pluggers think your sad walled-off suburban development is a vast cemetery, your McMansion a 4,000-square-foot tombstone.”

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Mark Trail, 7/23/13

Guys, our sinister fake big game hunters have finally noticed that famous nature writer Mark Trail has literally gone “undercover” at their fake hunting lodge without wearing a disguise or even using a fake name. I guess they finally got that free trial issue of of Woods and Wildlife Magazine they signed up for, which they planned to leave lying around their fake hunting lodge to make it look more like a real hunting lodge? I like that Mark’s picture is prominently displayed at the top of the page; I assume this means that his editor Bill Ellis has given him a monthly column, where he offers his wooden, awkward thoughts on issues of importance to the outdoorsmanship community. Or maybe this is actually a copy of Outdoors Reporter, a trade magazine for nature journalists, and this a wooden, awkward interview with Mark instead.

Pluggers, 7/23/13

I’m going to mostly ignore the fairly baffling joke in today’s Pluggers (“ha ha, all you ELITIST LIBERALS are going to get LUNG CANCER from the SCIENCE CHEMICALS in your FANCY CARS, your so-called GREEN HYBRID is less ECO-FRIENDLY than you think”) and instead point out this plugger’s license plate appears to read “PLUGGRZ”. Which is problematic, because the s-for-z orthography is well known to derive from the rap music, which is anathema to pluggerdom. Perhaps it actually reads “PLUGGR2”? Just imagine our poor bear-man at the DMV, all excited as he waits in line by the idea of getting a plugger-themed license plate, then sighing heavily when he finds out that someone has beaten him to the punch and trying to decide if it’s still worth it or if he should just give up on it all together. I’m just a plugger, he thinks to himself. I guess I don’t deserve any little joys in this life, because I’m not quick enough. Then he goes back to his car and breathes in the plugger equivalent of those toxic fumes from a non-plugger’s new car interior. (The plugger equivalent is plugger farts.)

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Heathcliff, 6/16/13

Somewhere, deep down in the bowels of my long-term memory, there’s a little glimmer that tells me that, yes, Heathcliff’s father has always been a notorious hardened criminal in the strip. I’m not sure what the significance is of the fact that he wears his prison uniform even as he walks the streets a free man. Are we meant to understand that he’s only just escaped from the joint and hasn’t had time to change yet? Is this an act of defiance against the government that once put him behind bars? Mostly his uniform just serves to draw uncomfortable attention to the fact that Heathcliff is walking around stark naked.

Dennis the Menace, 6/16/13

A rare double menace from Dennis today! In the throwaway panels, he waits until Margaret comes into earshot before letting everyone know that he doesn’t like her and is only hanging out with her for her cooking; and then he uses this twee little Father’s Day exercise as a chance to inform the other children that his father loves his family, unlike theirs, who will take any excuse to get away from them and enjoy their “hobbies,” alone.

Mary Worth, 6/16/13

Haha, the look on Beth’s face in the final panel is priceless and has made this entire storyline worth it. “Tom! Wait, you want to … what? We never … no. No. Not in front of … are you kidding me, Tom?”

Panels from Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/16/13

Sorry, everybody, I have been remiss in keeping you up to date with Rex Morgan, M.D.! Anyway, remember when Sarah wanted to sell her horsey art, for money? Well, now an actual museum wants to buy that horsey art, to use in a gift shop book! It was way too easy. “Wow … that was too easy!” thinks Sarah. She’s right. Sarah can smell a trap anywhere.

Pluggers, 6/16/13

Pluggers don’t understand that the structure of our global capitalist system ensures that fluctuations in equities and derivatives markets have major and sometimes painful results in the real day-to-day economic life of ordinary citizens. Also, they are very clumsy and often bump into things.