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Mark Trail, 9/24/13

Mark Trail is tired of only portraying ancient technologies like Ma Bell-supplied bakelite phones from the ’50s, d’you hear? From now on, this strip is future-proof. That’s why today’s installment features a next-generation communications device: a flat, featureless, book-sized object that sits on your nightstand, from which you need to extract a smaller flat object that you talk into. Presumably it only takes 30 to 90 determined seconds to pop out that handset as the flat thingie rings and buzzes, though don’t cut your fingernails too short or else you’ll be in real trouble.

Archie and Apartment 3-G, 9/24/13

I’m pretty sure the comics pages are supposed to be a refuge from the intense and troubling emotional scenarios that bedevil our everyday life. Thus, I deem today’s Archie, in which a teenage girl is so wracked with need for romantic affection that she declares her willingness to throw every other happiness aside for it (declares this, it must be pointed out, directly to her rival for the attentions of her beloved), a complete failure at this core mission. Much safer for teens is today’s Apartment 3-G, in which a girl learns that her beloved dad is deliberately withholding information about his brain tumor from her because he only shares that sort of thing with sexy blondes that he wants to sleep with. That’s the sort of dilemma that none of us can relate to! What a relief!

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Luann, 9/23/13

Congratulations, Luann: for the first time in years, you have caused me to feel actual empathy for your title character! I worked in libraries for much of my high school and college career, and I always enjoyed those gigs and saw them as a haven from the stressful food service jobs taken by many of my peers. I sure would’ve been upset if I had lost that job because of budget cuts, and particularly upset if I had lost that job because the library decided to spend money hiring H.R. Giger to design ever more elaborately phallic Billy the Bookworm costumes.

Shoe, 9/23/13

Usually when you see liver on a menu you’re being offered some kind of bird liver, right? What I’m saying is that this is another instance where Shoe’s goggle eyes of horror are wholly justified. “What am I, chopped liver? No, seriously! Am I to be this lunchtime’s sacrifice, my gut slit open and my organs chopped to bits and cooked for the culinary delight of my fellow bird-men? Has the day when I become chopped liver finally arrived?”

Hi and Lois, 9/23/13

I’ve seen few things in the comics more harrowing than Trixie’s expression in panel two. Her hands folded in her lap are a nice touch. Pretty sure she’s been sitting there, staring at that leaf, rolling the concept of mortality around in her mind, for several hours now.

Mary Worth, 9/23/13

“Hi Mary … it’s Wilbur! How are you? Are you making a sandwich? Are you making one right now? MY SANDWICH SENSE IS TINGLING”

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Marvin, 9/22/13

Happy Sunday! Here are seven panels in which the copious flow of Marvin’s urine is described in intense detail by a trained professional. “Can I get a little privacy here?!” Marvin demands, as he just sits in the middle of the living room peeing in his pants.

Apartment 3-G, 9/22/13

It’s all brain problems all the time day in Apartment 3-G! Man, this strip turned into Funky Winkerbean so gradually that I barely noticed it.