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Hi and Lois, 9/25/14

I generally spend as little time around children as I can manage, so I often have hard time either figuring out how old kids are without being explicitly told or knowing what exactly the appropriate behavior and/or cognitive development is for whatever age they end up being. Figuring out the ages of the extremely stylized children of the comics is even harder. I’ve always pegged Dot and Ditto at around … eight? Or ten? Eight to ten, maybe? Anyhoo, I guess what I’m trying to say is that even if Ditto is nine-ish, I’m not sure if that’s an age where you’re supposed to earnestly walk through a Socratic dialogue designed to logically prove that your children should follow the ethical systems you’ve established, of if you should just announce “because I said so” and send them to their rooms. At any rate, I suppose Ditto is perfectly capable at understanding the locally prevailing moral code, considering he’s developed an elaborate persona specifically to circumvent it.

Marvin, 9/25/14

Marvin, for all its other faults, spares you any need to try to map any of its baby-characters onto the real developmental timeline of actual human infants, since it’s less concerned with verisimilitude than it is in creating a horrifying dreamscape of infantilized scat humor. “What could be worse than the strip’s constant focus on diapers?” you might say. “Maybe if the strip’s baby-characters were sexually attracted to each other, and one decided to flirt with another by complimenting her diaper?” you’d say. “That’d be awful,” you’d say. “Surely no punchline to such a strip could make the initial premise worse,” you’d say. You’d be wrong, though!

Mark Trail, 9/25/14

“I’ve heard the horns of those rhinos are aphrodisiacs, and customers in China will pay big money for them! I’ve got to harvest as many horns as I can before the species is driven to extinction!”

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Beetle Bailey, 9/24/14

Hey, who says Beetle Bailey is behind the times? Look, there’s Miss Blips relaying the General’s capricious orders via cell phone, instead of by walkie-talkie or carrier pigeon or whatever long-distance communication method was most current when the strip started. And keeping up with General Halftrack’s slow decline into decrepitude, his new-style sexual harassment is indistinguishable from a request for a sleep aid, since nothing seems more erotic to him these days than a nice, comfortable nap.

Funky Winkerbean, 9/24/14

Speaking of new eras, New Era Funky Winkerbean features a pair of extremely sad sack teens who serve as our viewpoint characters for the teen storylines in the strip. I can’t be bothered to learn their names, so I just call them Sad Sack Hat Teen and Sad Sack Glasses Teen in my mind, when I have to think about them, which I try to do as little as possible. Anyway, Sad Sack Hat Teen has been forced by Bull to do time in the Westview Scapegoat mascot costume in lieu of detention, and I’m seriously wondering who exactly he’s talking to in these panels. Clearly the giggling cheerleaders already know about this head-rubbing thing. Does he think that they can’t hear him in there? Because I’m pretty sure they can hear him. Or maybe he just doesn’t think it matters, because after the game the High Priest will symbolically burden him with the sins of the entire people, and then send him out into the wilderness, never to return.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/24/14

Guys, Sarah, doesn’t just imperiously demand ludicrous things because she’s mad with power and people are terrified to tell her no, OK? She does it because she wants her family to live the opulent lifestyle they’ve become accustomed to even after her baby brother is born. And she wants a pony. Just look at her, wiping away a tear of joy, just thinking about the moment when someone up and gives her a pony for no good reason at all.

Lockhorn, 9/24/14

Leroy’s crinkly smile is usually supposed to represent “drunk” or “drunk and horny,” but here I think it’s supposed to mean … smug? Smug as in “haha, yes, I have thought up the perfect comeback here for her request that we travel sometimes, point: Leroy, and yes, I am keeping track of points, I have been keeping track of points for years and years and years”

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Mark Trail, 9/23/14

Hey, remember Jacob Hickman, the anti-poaching activist who sat out this entire Mark Trail poaching storyline with a sprained ankle? He’s still talking, apparently! And introducing his entire team of fellow anti-poachers, who also didn’t help Mark out. How long are we supposed to sit still for this nonsense? “I’m a bit of an survivalist!” says the guy who never had to shove a flaming branch into a hippo’s maw or behead a snake or listen to a guy with a flattop talk about his relationship troubles and also demand to be called ‘Dirty’ even once.

Apartment 3-G, 9/23/14

So, we’re really, really going to do this? Just a week of Jack and Carol talking to each other, huh? OK, well, uh, let’s look on the bright side, Jack promised when he left that he was going to commune with the spirits of the dead, so at least we’ll get some creepy action out of WAIT WHAT DAMN IT JACK

Judge Parker, 9/23/14

WHEW, at least something is happening in Judge Parker, if by “something” you mean “the Spencer-Drivers are going to motor off onto the highway in their enormous, gas-guzzling, almost certainly non-road-legal motor home.” Seeing terrified poors driving their adorable li’l compact cars into ditches to avoid being smeared all over the interstate by the Road Queen ought to be good for a laugh or two! By the way, Sam, you bought that thing because you and Abbey abruptly decided you wanted one, for sex purposes, and then the first RV dealership you went to was about to go bankrupt and so sold you one dirt cheap.