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Mary Worth, 6/28/14

Mary is taking an interesting tack in dealing with little Olive’s supposed revelations: rather than dismissing them outright and telling her she’s crazy, she’s smoothing down the edges, encouraging her to take the wisdom she’s receiving directly from the Divine and recasting it in the language of a Hallmark card. “Dear, I’ve never had my soul burned by the otherworldly glow of a being from a transcendent plane to whom we would seem to be mere insects, but I still believe we could all do better if we just try a little harder!” she says, as she fills a pie crust with ice chips for some reason.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/28/14

Under most screenwriting contracts, the writer is actually paid in multiple steps: this first and largest chunk is sent upon delivery, but there are additional payments designated for the expected rewrite and polishing work that every screenplay goes through. So, in other words, Les is literally being paid thousands of dollars to write while being put up in one of Hollywood’s most exclusive and storied hotels. Don’t you feel terrible for him?

Wizard of Id, 6/28/14

Do you think “board” is some ancient but still legitimate synonym for “hump,” or was it just the end product of a long and tortuous negotiation between the author and the syndicate about leg-humping euphemisms?

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/17/14

Sarah may have easily defeated an elementary school bully, but now she’s facing a much more difficult challenge: a rich old lady who always gets what she wants, mostly because she’s rich. She’s like Sarah, except a legal adult! In a way, she supposes she does work at the museum, except in the sense that she pays for everything, so the museum works for her, and so does everyone in it, including Sarah. Sarah is right to break out in a cold sweat in the final panel! This is her most difficult adversary yet.

Six Chix, 6/17/14

Six Chix generally offers a vaguely crunchy-liberal take on modern American life, which makes today’s strip a refreshing change of pace. The chickens, of course, are a metaphor for us: while we’ve been led to believe that we should be eating local and organic food and getting in more physical activity like our ancestors did, the truth is those ancestors started driving everywhere and eating processed foods and TV dinners as soon as they could for a reason: because processed food tastes better and physical activity is a pain in the ass. Like caged chickens that remain motionless for their entire lives and are fed an endless supply of corn byproducts, most humans find the idea of not watching TV and eating non-Dorito foodstuffs irritating and pointless.

Wizard of Id, 6/17/14

Wizard of Id is a strip that routinely uses actual torture as a grim punchline, so it’s nice to see it keeping up with the times, I guess.

Apartment 3-G, 6/17/14

Never thought I’d say this, but … where’s Tommie? What’s Tommie up to? I’d sure like to see what’s going on with Tommie, rather than this small-town-gossip thought balloon madness.

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Pluggers, 6/13/14

Boy, pluggers sure are getting in touch with their own inevitable and rapidly approaching death, aren’t they? I certainly hope that the first draft of this panel featured our dog-man hero holding up the suit in question and giving it a good, long stare; maybe there was a thought balloon in which he visualized this last good suit on his embalmed corpse, while well-wishers stood around, not looking at him, telling each other in hushed tones that it was better this way, that he was done suffering and in a better place. This panel was of course sent back to Pluggers HQ by the syndicate with “WAY TOO GRIM DUDE” scrawled across it, but I like to imagine it’s still hanging up over the drafting board, as a reminder.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/13/14

Oh hey Wally and Rachel got married this week, everybody! As you can see, the God of the Funkyverse cannot allow any happy occasion to emerge unscathed, so their outdoor wedding has been disrupted by a sudden freak thunderstorm. They tried their best to finish the ceremony, but as panel two reveals, their friends and loved ones gave up on the event a while ago.

Beetle Bailey, 6/13/14

Beetle’s primary and defining characteristics are that he’s extremely lazy and does a half-assed job at everything, so I refuse to believe that whatever desultory, fumbling, fully-clothed sex act just happened in that parked jeep merited any kind of souvenir.

Edge City, 6/13/14

There are plenty of off-putting running gags in Edge City, but obsessive neurotic Abby Ardin’s occasional attempts to get her husband interested in BDSM are among the off-puttingest.

Wizard of Id, 6/13/14

At last, it’s the Wizard of Id–B.C. crossover strip you’ve been waiting for! It’s a golf joke about getting hit in the nuts.