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Heathcliff, 8/12/14

Here’s an amazing fact that maybe you’re smarter than me and it’s not news to you but maybe it will blow your mind as much as it did mine — I think maybe Ryan North’s Twitter feed is where I heard it but I’m not 100% sure. But, anyway: have you ever noticed that nowhere in the Humpty Dumpty rhyme does it mention that Humpty Dumpty is an enormous man-egg? It’s true! It’s not clear from the rhyme’s history whether he was always meant to be an egg — perhaps it was originally a riddle with his eggish nature as the answer as to why he couldn’t be reassembled. Wikipedia says that “the rhyme is no longer posed as a riddle, since the answer is now so well known.” Humpty-as-egg is such a well-known bit of pop culture, in fact, that Heathcliff and his friends have named their new eggcore band “Dumpty,” which nicely fits into the narrow space between whimsically surreal and thuddingly stupid where Heathcliff has found its sweet spot.

Better Half, 8/12/14

Stanley and Harriet yearn for the days when healthy electronic pizza will be a thing. Until then, they’ll just keep on eating enormous blobs of chocolate-chip cookie dough, I guess.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/12/14

Les has finally figured out that probably nobody wants to see a movie of Lisa’s Story and definitely nobody wants to see a comic version of the story of how Lisa’s Story got made into a movie, so he’s now kicked us into a mildly more interesting fantasy sequence instead.

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Slylock Fox, 8/11/14

One of the many questions I have about the post-animapocalypse world of Slylock Fox involves biodiversity: have the newly sapient animals remained restricted to their original ranges, or, like the early members of genus Homo, are they using their smarts to conquer new environments? Today we learn that Australia, at least, is still largely the domain of its unique native fauna, who have in their brief period of ascendency already established an iron-clad hierarchy: the marsupials wear fancy clothes and sell expensive baubles to each other, while the monotremes live on the margins of society and are forced to steal to survive. Unfortunately, the marsupials aren’t equipped to maintain the oppressive social structure they’ve created and have been forced to call in placental mammals from outside to help. If human history is any guide, this is a terrible, terrible mistake.

Judge Parker, 8/11/14

Haha, looks like we’ve reached the real talk phase of Gloria’s exit interview! Anyway, everybody in Judge Parker is doing no work and getting paid for it and now people are getting grumpy about it for some reason.

Dennis the Menace, 8/11/14

I think this is the most I’ve ever seen Mr. Wilson enjoying himself! He’s just going to town on some snacks and then he’s going to pass out on the couch covered in crumbs. Dennis is being a total scold about it, which I deem to be unusually unpleasantly menacing.

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/10/14

Good news, everyone! Despite the fact that Les holds everyone involved in the lowbrow and extremely lucrative (for him) process of turning Lisa’s Story into a cable movie in the deepest contempt, he’s still been able to give everyone little pick-me-ups and sage advice, like “it’s really all about acting,” so I think everything’s going to be OK. The best line here is clearly “Not in a weird way or anything,” because the best way to make sure an attractive actress knows you’ve been masturbating to the pictures on her website is to blurt out, without prompting, “NOT IN A WEIRD WAY OR ANYTHING” after telling her you’ve been looking at her website.

Crock, 8/10/14

Jules Schmeese is definitely one of the more hapless of the damned souls who inhabit Crock, always on the verge of being executed but never actually achieving the sweet release of death. Today we learn that not only is he somehow suspended in his final moments of mortal terror forever, but that, like Franz Kafka’s Josef K., he is not even permitted to know what he has done to merit his punishment.

Hagar the Horrible, 8/10/14

We already know that Hagar looks forward to the day when he will enter Valhalla. Apparently he’s concerned that his entourage in the afterlife won’t be adequate for his status, because he’s planning on taking his entire crew with him whether they want to go or not.

Heathcliff, 8/10/14

Heathcliff killed a shark with a fork, and now he’s going to eat it! That’s the joke, I think?