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Apartment 3-G, 6/20/07

I’m very excited that Apartment 3-G has torn itself away from Roommate In A Coma to instead explore some queasy-making intrafamilial sexual ick. It’s becoming clear that Nora Mills, who as near as I can tell is supposed to be the widow of Eric’s brother, has clearly got a taste for Mills men that only another Mills man can satisfy. Questions remain: Is Eric’s Katy’s real father? Did Eric choose Margo as a romantic partner because she and Nora essentially look exactly alike? Will Nora and Margo settle this with icy glares and cutting remarks, fists, or shivs? Is that RING RING RING the most exciting panel-to-panel transition in Apartment 3-G history? And, what with Katy’s hair having grown back, is it possible that Margo’s party planning actually cures cancer?

Dick Tracy, 6/20/07

So Dick Tracy is onto a new baffling and anger-inducing storyline, which so far involves:

• A wizened old Baron who’s an ex-Communist spy or something
• His bizarrely leather-faced granddaughter in peril, Gretchen
• Some bewildering and totally made up post-Soviet pretend politics and intrigue
• A CIA headquarters building with a “CIA HEADQUARTERS” sign visible from miles away

None of that has been enough to rouse me to comment. However, I do have to say that I appreciate the artist’s bold choice in the third panel to focus the action squarely on Dick Tracy’s crotch.

Mark Trail, 6/20/07

Man, it’s hard to count all the things wrong with today’s Mark Trail, but let’s start with Mark’s casual posture and shit-eating grin in panel one. It says “I’m all relaxed and ready for some phone sex” and not “I just almost got killed and then spent an hour rooting around inside a duck’s intestines.” Then there’s the idea that a two-seater private plane running into a bird is somehow big enough news to travel all the way back to Lost Forest — presumably everything Mark Trail does or says is front page news in the local paper — and the fact that Mark himself didn’t bother to be the one to relay said drama to his wife. There’s the par-for-the-course emphasis problem in Cherry’s first word balloon — that should be “how are you”, not “how are you” — and someone in the syndicate has clearly bowdlerized “that whore” into “the young lady” in panel two. But mostly I’m just disturbed by Cherry’s melting nightmare of a face. PLEASE MARK DON’T MAKE HER SAD ANYMORE IT’S FREAKING ME OUT.

Mary Worth, 6/20/07

More proof that Mary and Jeff are very much not ever getting it on: if Dr. Corey Junior thought for a single moment that there was the slightest sliver of a chance that he might accidentally walk in on the two of them having sex, you can bet that he’d be knocking, very loudly.

Actually, Mary’s pretty lucky that her not-boyfriend’s son arrived when he did. Dr. Jeff really doesn’t want to go this party, and in panel one he’s pretty clearly sizing up his cane as a potential weapon.

Spider-Man, 6/20/07

In any marriage, there’s a certain amount of give and take, compromises two partners have to make so that they can both get what they want, even — or perhaps especially — when it comes to sex. Clearly the Parkers have just finished off a rousing session of healthy marital relations, and, as is their custom, they left the TV on throughout, due to Peter’s insistence on bitching at and about it at all times.

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It is I trust a shared opinion here, no matter where you fall on the merits of the Spider-Man franchise as a whole, that the Spider-Man newspaper comic strip is in fact almost unspeakably lame. There are occasional laments about the low state to which it has fallen; however, faithful reader Eden, who was helping clean out some junk from her parents’ house, uncovered evidence that it has ever been thus, if by “ever” you mean “since at least 1978, the date of this newspaper she found.”

So many wonderful things here, including but not limited to the following:

• Peter Parker’s massive, Neaderthal-style brow ridge
• Peter Parker only fights crime so as to get laid
• Crypto-right-wing undertones (“liberation” — clearly code for “sinister commie terrorism”)
• The idea that the plotting of left-wing terrorist groups on campus might constitute “ripped from the headlines” drama in 1978

Tana is clearly a member of the terrorist group — no doubt its full name is the “Stereotypical Mysterious Gypsy Women Liberation Front.”

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Apartment 3-G, 6/17/07

To honor the professional nature of the setting and somber tone of the occasion, Blaze has finally taken off his moronic cowboy hat.

Hi and Lois, 6/17/07

The artist of Hi and Lois has had secondhand accounts of hippies relayed to him, but has never actually met one, or seen a picture of one.

Judge Parker, 6/17/07

Sam finally admits it: Sophie is smarter than he is.

Spider-Man, 6/17/07

Spider-Man believes that throwing his wife into the air constitutes foreplay.