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Funky Winkerbean, 4/26/14

Plantman’s secret … REVEALED! I’m not, of course, referring to a secret about his motivation for killing Jess’s father, the discovery of which was why she arranged this jailhouse interview in the first place but which he’s always been pretty upfront about. No, he’s apparently known for years that Jess’s father, John Darling, was cheating on Jess’s mother, Jan, based on a very oddly constructed set of last words. Will this send Jess into a devastating downward emotional spiral? Will she spend the next several months or years researching this “new lead,” eventually discovering that Plantman has wildly misinterpreted the phrase and it actually means something fairly innocuous? Will she then conclude that her father wasn’t a hateful asshole after all, even though all available evidence indicates pretty strongly that, no, he really, really was?

Beetle Bailey, 4/26/14

Read left-to-right, the final panel of today’s Beetle Bailey is quite an emotional roller coaster! At first, I saw General Halftrack’s sad facial expression and read his dialogue and assumed he was desperately trying to carve out some autonomy within his own life. His wife may find his emotional investment in sports silly, but darn it, he enjoys them, and the outcome really does matter to him. Then I read her sullen response and realized, oh, he’s just worried about having his legs broken by his bookie’s enforcers.

Lockhorns, 4/26/14

Congratulations to everyone who had the Lockhorns in the “Most Disturbing Image In Today’s Comics” pool!

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NEW YORKERS, AND PEOPLE WHO ARE GOING TO BE IN NEW YORK CITY ON SUNDAY, MAY 4! Would you like to see me and other funny people read from unintentionally hilarious movie novelizations? Of course you do, it will be very funny! I will be reading the sexiest parts of the novelization of Star Trek: Generations, which is obviously not to be missed. It’s 6 p.m. in Baby’s All Right in Williamsburg. Buy tickets now! Why wait?

And now! Your week’s top comment!

“On the other hand, the fish in Heathcliff seems completely into these shenanigans. ‘RIDE, YOU GLORIOUS BASTARD,’ the fish thinks to itself, unaware that Heathcliff is just going to use him as a baseball bat or something completely stupid. ‘YES. RIDE, UNTIL WE ARE BUT A STORY WHISPERED TO CHILDREN IN LEGENDS.'” –Tophat

And the runners up! Very funny!

“So Rex is about to find out that his little girl has been blackmailing her babysitter. He’s going to be so upset … wait, is that one of the emotions that Rex is capable of experiencing? I know he can feel smug and hungry, but I’m not sure that he developed to the point of feeling shame and sadness.” –pugfuggly

“Yes, Nikki, tell me more! You say ‘nothing happened’? I don’t like the sound of that. I want to hear of teens getting it on in freaky ways. On my couch. And I can’t promise that I won’t be telling my wife about it, either. You were making out … right … something tells me there is more to this story.” –hogenmogen

“So today’s Heathcliff caption was provided by the editor’s margin notes?” –sporknpork

“Ha, ha! Somewhat distorted versions of things I have absolutely heard of!! Who says the comics are a dying industry, my friends?” –The Rt. Venerable Pasdordan

Luann: “Here’s hoping these wonderful teens end up strolling into the town’s superfund site and gaining superpowers from the various chemical wastes. Wait, did I say ‘superpowers’? I meant aggressive terminal cancer and/or radiation poisoning.” –merde

“Buzz > Fuzz” –nescio

“I think I’ve finally figured out the underlying story driving the current Apartment 3-G arc. Tommie managed to bore herself to death, Margo told Lu Ann that Tommie had gone to ‘live on a farm’, and what we’re seeing is Lu Ann’s mind’s eye view of how this would work. Go ahead, prove me wrong.” –dmsilev

“Thank goodness ‘ripping the ball’ is a made-up sports term instead of what I thought it was: a made-up sex act.” –Alex Blaze

“Mark, that’s just going to make him enragedier!” –Bootsy

“Last week we had Mark driving around Lost Forest gushing about how lucky he was to live in such a beautiful example of nature at its finest. This week we have Mark attacked by a raging bear. Next week: Mark puts down a deposit on a 650-sq. ft. apartment in SoHo.” –cheech wizard

“The dialogue in today’s Beetle Bailey was just a quick substitution for the original unprintable joke, which began, ‘I heard the Army lifted the ban on clowns married to cross-dressing dogs,’ and went downhill from there.” –Chyron HR

“Man, does anyone else love Blondie’s stiff, awkward pose in panel two, seemingly the result of being caught off-guard by the scene set up by Dagwood and Elmo? Okay, she thinks. I walk in. Dagwood is asleep with a big sandwich and I make some vague wisecrack about him being lazy. But then she’s forced to suddenly improvise with this new scenario. Fuck! she thinks Uh … uh … Elmo is in kindergarten! Yeah that’s it! She then leaves the scene, with the liquor cabinet key ready.” –Irrischano

“‘How can we help Tommy get a job?’ Well, did he inherit your owl-like head-swiveling ability? He could list that under ‘special skills’ on his résumé, I guess.” –Doctor Handsome

“3. Capture the Golden Hind of Artemis. 5. Clean the Augean stables in a single day. Despite the unorthodox order, I for one am really looking forward to the rest of the Labors of Tommie!” –Matt

“Woo-hoo! Day 34 of Tommie wearing the same pink turtleneck! If something smells in the barn, don’t blame the horses.” –Oregonian

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! And, just as an advertising program note, I’ve started using BuySellAds as a platform for you to buy ads directly on my site on a CPM basis. To find out more, you can go to my BuySellAds page or just click here.

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Mary Worth, 4/25/14

Oh, Mary! How could we ever doubt the nobility — and the complexity — of your intentions? It seems Mary never had any intention of meddling Tommy into a job at all. I mean, she’s not against Iris’s son finding gainful employment — whatever gets him out of Charterstone is fine by her! No, Mary is after something much, much more difficult than helping an ex-con with dumb hair find a fulfilling career: she’s trying to find love for Wilbur Weston. She recognized when Iris had reached the state of emotional desperation necessary to be receptive to Wilbur’s advances, and has even left the possibility open that Wilbur himself might help solve a difficult problem and thus boost his self-esteem. Truly, Mary never tires of challenging herself with seemingly impossible meddle-quests.

Blondie, 4/25/14

Speaking of awkward and weird, Dagwood is reading a broadsheet paper that features the 1754 Join, Or Die cartoon on the front page, for some reason? And he expects it to be of interest to an actual, literal five-year-old? Also, Elmo is only five, and yet his parents are never seen and he seems to wander freely back and forth through the neighborhood between the Bumsteads’ house and wherever it is he lives? This seems like a lot of trouble to go through to trash-talk Dan Piraro.

Apartment 3-G, 4/25/14

OK, we can all agree that Tommie and her pet deer needed to get out of the apartment and see some changed scenery, but the look of sly satisfaction on Jack’s face indicates that she’s stumbled onto some kind of BDSM scene here that I’m not sure is really what the doctor ordered, you know?

Dennis the Menace, 4/25/14

Bringing Joey into his mother’s bedroom and narrating the action as she stands paralyzed in terror by the unstoppable march of time and its effects on her body? I deem Dennis’s behavior today: pretty menacing!