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Funky Winkerbean, 9/13/10

Oh, Cayla, this is just getting pathetic, now. Do you think that this new hairstyle will win Les’s heart back from Susan? I mean, have you seen her hair? Les doesn’t prefer Susan to you because she’s young and hip and sexy. He prefers her because she’s a dead-eyed emotional wreck who loves death. You can’t get that from any salon!

Mary Worth, 9/13/10

Speaking of misguided optimism, check out how excited Dr. Mike looks in panel two! He clearly believes that the way to a woman’s heart is through a heartfelt story about how he’s relationship-shy because his father spent decades as a drunken failed vigilante. Perhaps he thinks that he’ll seal the deal by casually suggesting that they have sex in the very bed where his dear old dad finally “found peace.”

Gil Thorp, 9/13/10

What’s really sad is when you see a couple who’ve lost that spark and are really just going through the motions. Gil used to really put his heart into it when he made up contentless answers to Marty Moon’s bullshit questions. Now they’re not even making eye contact!

Also, is it really traditional to put decisions on high school sports captains to a popular vote? That seems like a good way to end up with teams captained by Justin Beiber and Jesus.

Luann, 9/13/10

This is what’s known in the business as “fan service.” Specifically, it’s providing a service to those fans with a keen interest in Brad/Dirk scat-themed slash fiction. They make up a small but intensely loyal group, and it’s nice to see them finally get a shout-out.

Shoe, 9/13/10

I’m on the record as finding the “Shoe birds desperately flirt in a smoky bar” strips crushingly depressing. Today’s installment, in which a depressive is romanced by someone with a presumably domestic-violence-themed restraining order against him, nicely demonstrates why.

Jumble, 9/13/10

Alas, it appears that the Man isn’t ready for Jumble Jeff’s guerilla art installation. But Jeff, why isn’t your “street tag” LUJBEM FEJF, as it is on this blog? Are you afraid that hoodlum graffiti aficionados can’t handle anagrams? You do them a disservice, sir. Jumbles are for everybody!

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9 Chickweed Lane and B.C., 8/22/10

So it turns out that both humans and insects become disgusted and/or terrified when informed of the circumstances of their conception. But is their disgust and/or horror itself amusing enough to serve as the punchline of a syndicated comic strip? Based on these examples, I am going to go ahead and say “no.”

Shoe, 8/22/10

On the other hand, neither 9 Chickweed Lane nor B.C. tried to get a laugh out of bird anuses.

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Shoe, 8/16/10

Upon first glance, you probably found this Shoe comic pretty depressing! After all, it reveals the fact that our hero Cosmo is such a slob that he spilled enough spaghetti sauce on himself to soak through his clothes, or maybe that he simply sits around eating spaghetti with no shirt on, to make cleanup easier; furthermore, it appears that he was so numb to his own slovenliness that the resulting mess went unnoticed for hours or perhaps even days. However, I would argue that he still clings to a shred of dignity, in the form of that towel around his waist. Someone who had totally given up on life would just stand there in the nude while rambling to his doctor on his cell phone, but some feeble sense of modesty causes him to cover his lower bird bits, despite the fact that, given that he’s describing his symptoms verbally, he is presumably not speaking on some kind of advanced picture phone.

Crock, 8/16/10

I first saw this comic as a somewhat smaller graphic, and in that form the Desert Sage’s eyes looked sad to me, and the strip seemed quite poignant: the Sage knew he had to clear the bats from his sand-cave home, but he had grown to love them, and would thus do them one last kindness before euthanizing them. But in this larger version of the graphic, his eyes look downright sadistic, as if he’s cackling with delight at the prospect of drawing the bats’ last days out as long and as cruelly as possible. Then I realized the real tragedy, which was that I was trying mightily to discern human emotions from the meaningless scribbles that make up a typical Crock strip.

Marmaduke, 8/16/10

Ha ha, don’t be silly: nothing resembling “democracy” could possibly be happening in a pack of dogs surrounding by Marmaduke. No, those dogs are raising their paws because they’re pledging their allegiance to their Dark Lord, who will soon lead them in an assault on the poor townsfolk that will leave rivers of gore in its wake.