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Mary Worth, 9/10/09

It’s easy for Scott to be patient, because once you’re as fucked up on Special K as he appears to be in panel two, the flow of time no longer has any meaning for you.

Phantom, 9/10/09

“She’s being attacked by some purple-clad freak and his two diminutive diaper-wearing minions! Argh, I’m too late!”

Pluggers, 9/10/09

Pluggers think that “electronics superstores” still sell things out of catalogs in 2009, for some reason.

Ziggy, 9/10/09

Ziggy is about to be sodomy-searched over the phone, because nobody wants to deal with any of Ziggy’s nether parts in person.

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Marvin, 9/6/09

You know, I’m pretty much a prematurely jaded cynic, but sometimes the comics can still surprise me. Marvin in particular always manages to surprise me with the new depths of horror it reaches every week. Let’s review today’s trauma:

• This strip introduces entirely new characters, two bees drawn with the enormous noses that defile the faces of most of the human males populating this feature.
• The bees believe that their purpose in life is to sting people for no good reason by the end of the summer; if these are ordinary honeybees, this is of course a suicide mission.
• The bees are intensely focused on stinging a human on the buttocks, which they refer to as a “rear assault.”
• The bees attempt to sting Marvin on the buttocks, but are prevented by his “padded armor,” which, this being Marvin, presumably includes a layer of feces.
• The bees are crushed to death by Marvin’s ass.

And then, the ultimate insult: the Stars and Stripes, dragged unwilling into the opening panels as some kind of attempt to justify this atrocity. Why does Marvin hate America?

Apartment 3-G, 9/6/09

As is its wont, Sunday’s Apartment 3-G provides us with relatively little new information, but I do think that it throws a couple of important facts into stark relief:

• The Professor is prescribing powerful sleeping pills to Ms. Merrill after she mentions that another doctor gave her some years ago, and is thus violating professional ethics and several laws, because he wants to bone her.
• Margo is almost insanely insensitive. “Yes, I haven’t been to the gallery that Eric owns since he died. So many bad memories there! Not like you, who only associate this place with good thoughts about your dead boyfriend.”

Pluggers, 9/6/09

OH SNAP SINISTER ALLIGATOR/VULTURE MAN-BEASTS! You don’t lay off someone with a nationally syndicated comic unless you want to suffer nationally syndicated comics wrath five months later! I am charmed enough by the righteous burn that I will pass over the laughable notion that any plugger would work in a cubicle job. HEY AFGHAN LADY I BET YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BE SUCH A SNOB ABOUT FREE SAMPLES FOR DINNER ANYMORE, ARE YOU?

Funky Winkerbean, 9/6/09

“Which makes sense, when you consider that it’s not really funny, at all.”

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Mary Worth, 8/7/09

You know, I’m beginning to suspect that the creators of Mary Worth don’t have a particularly clear idea of what exactly it is a philosophy professor does for a living. Picking an actual professional philosopher essentially at random, one can say that it is unsurprising to find a philosophy prof who’s a beardy fellow and who write papers on things like “Determinism, Laws and Predictability in Principle” and “Metaphor and Theory Change.” In contrast, in my experience philosophers are not particularly prone to standing on stage in a rust-colored suit in front of an enormous sign bearing their own names, arms stretched out to receive adulation of the cheering, clapping masses, who are so eager for the briefest of contact with their idol that security must keep constant vigilance lest they degenerate into an unruly mob. I believe somewhere along the line “philosophers” have been confused with “motivational speakers” or “cult leaders.”

Pluggers, 8/7/09

Two possible explanations for this cartoon:

1. Pluggers are ignorant solipsists who believe that nothing that happened before they were born could possibly be important or worth knowing about.
2. Pluggers are almost unfathomably old.

Family Circus, 8/7/09

Ha ha! The vacationing Keanes will leave their campsite reeking of urine!

Marmaduke, 8/7/09

But hey, at least Billy isn’t letting Barfy devour a hapless fast-food cashier.