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Herb and Jamaal, 8/1/12

Herb’s mother-in-law Eula, who both lives and works with him, is always on his case, constantly. One could write this off as just part of the eternal conflict between a mother-in-law and her child’s spouse, or, perhaps more accurately, as a tired, stereotypical retreading of the supposedly eternal conflict between a mother-in-law and her child’s spouse. Or, as today’s strip demonstrates, it could be that she’s terrified by Herb’s obvious emotional and sexual connection to his “best buddy Jamaal,” and will do anything to distract him from it, in the vain hope that she can keep her family together.

Lockhorns, 8/1/12

Call the Lockhorns hackneyed if you must, but it can still take us to depths of relationship hell that we never imagined existed. I mean, just think if you were at a place in your marriage when you thought, “God, I wish we had gotten that murder-suicide pact nailed down when the time was right. But what’s the point, now?”

Marvin, 8/1/12

It’s Marvin’s 30th anniversary, and from this day forward, I will no longer think of him as a horrible brat-child glorying in his inability or refusal to poop in a toilet. Instead, I will pity him as a victim of a capricious creator who for whatever perverse reason delights in forcing him to stew in his own excrement.

Shoe, 8/1/12

You may be alarmed to learn that Shoe is having sex with his golf clubs. Personally, I’m even more unsettled to discover that he’s getting emotionally attached to some of them.

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B.C., 7/31/12

Hey, everyone, have you heard about the Olympics, which are in England, which is foggy, sometimes? Anyway, this is hilarious because if the rowing events were taking place on the Thames (which they aren’t) it would be foggy and there would be antics anOH MY GOD SHERLOCK HOLMES’ CORPSE IS FLOATING IN THE THAMES OH MY GOD HE’S REALLY DEAD YOU MONSTERS

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/31/12

So, quick poll: What’s creepier, addressing your spouse (while the two of you are alone together) as “[Honorific] [Your last name]” or as “[Nickname by which one of your descendants would address him or her]”?

Gil Thorp, 7/31/12

“It’s not that you have one arm too few, it’s that you have one arm too many! I’m a pointing top, you see. I’m the only one in a relationship who’s allowed to point at things, like so! No, don’t try to imitate me, you’ll just enrage me further.”

Mary Worth, 7/31/12

Wilbur may be about to tumble to his death, but at least he’s going out as he would have wanted: with his bulbous crotch looming at us menacingly.

Spider-Man, 7/31/12

Meanwhile, in Spider-Man, everyone is literally just sitting around killing time until the title character decides to show up.

Wizard of Id, 7/31/12

And in the Wizard of Id, a witch is puking into a bag.

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Mary Worth, 7/30/12

In a truly great Mary Worth storyline — of which I now officially deem this one — you can’t predict the ending from the opening days’ plots. Who would have guessed that, back when Dawn was moping around on the couch watching TV because some dumb boy dumped her, we’d eventually see her and her father clinging to a pole on a listing cruise ship, people in the background hurling themselves into the sea, as Wilbur makes peace with his impending death? The question now is whether Mary Worth actually intends to kill off the elder Weston. Usually such Very Special Deaths are meted out to particularly beloved characters, so as to pull at the heartstrings of readers; and while I love the Wilbs (so much so that I’ve given him a secret mental nickname, “the Wilbs”), my affection for everything Mary Worth is so far down a weird hole of pomo irony that I can’t guarantee that it’s a reflection of emotions held by normal humans. Still, I will be unironically sad if Wilbur dies. Don’t despair, Wilbur, you can do it! 100 yards is really not that far to swim! The Mediterranean is warm and pleasant this time of year! There are so many delicious panini on that island! HAVE FAITH IN YOURSELF!

Ziggy, 7/30/12

A few years ago, we had a minor mouse problem and our cat was completely useless in dealing with it, a fact that became clear when she walked into my office with a tiny mouse in her mouth, dropped it on the floor, and watched it run off. “Bye, friend!” she was probably saying. “I hope we can play together again tomorrow!” Later I figured out that the mice were actually being drawn to her bags of cat food, which I stored on our back porch, and as soon as I started putting those in a rubber bin, the mice vanished. So not only was she not getting rid of mice, but she was indirectly responsible for their presence in the first place. What I’m trying to say is that maybe you should listen to the bipedal talking rodent, Ziggy, he’s making a certain amount of sense.

Family Circus, 7/30/12

Nice try, Billy, but your adorable malapropism can hardly hide the fact that you are angrily raging against the majesty of God’s creation and directly questioning His omnibenevolence. A few hours in the Keane Kompound hot box will hopefully save you from an eternity in hellfire later!