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OK, fine, summer ended weeks ago, but it is balmy in Baltimore! While I enjoy the 80 degree October weather, you enjoy your comment of the week:

Luann: “This comic is best enjoyed with the subtle implications, like Toni’s life being so miserable that she’s talking to a high schooler about her long distance pen pal. ‘So uh … was it a Dingo stamp? Don’t you hang up, I need this! If I get off the phone, Brad will try to sleep with me.'” –S. Stout

And the runners up! Very funny!

“I know! I saw it on Facebook! I monitor your family’s every move online. I’m going to live unnoticed in a crawlspace in your home. I’m going to smell your hair while you’re sleeping.” –Chareth Cutestory

“Les’ look of surprise just screams, ‘You mean that’s been an option all along?! Let’s shoot each other!'” –HAnzMFG

Phantom: “Maybe the lioness just doesn’t see the point of all this any more? Eat sleep kill. Eat sleep kill. And someday, die. I’d think that a man who’s the 20th person in a row to spend his entire adult life enacting and reenacting his 496-years-dead ancestor’s violence-fueled psychodrama would understand how that feels.” –Raspy Cricket

“‘You’re blushing’ — do the cyborg work-slaves who draw and color this strip know what ‘blushing’ is? That it gives light-skinned human faces a noticeably reddish hue? Would this have been an overly difficult visual effect to produce, especially considering it was specifically mentioned by a character as a plot point? Do they know that human sport jackets don’t change color instantly, unlike the skin of the reptilian super-commandos who guard their secret prison? Could someone at least show them a picture of human lower appendages? No?” –geekwhisperer

“I am beginning to think ‘Jim’ from Mary Worth and ‘Steve’ from Gil Thorp are the same person: some remorseless con-man who is bent on milking his missing limb for all the unpaid coaching gigs and frumpy, self-absorbed teenage tail it’s worth.” –TheSilentG

“This man has a diploma. He also believes that Ziggy deserves pain. I trust this guy!” –Izzy

“[Apartment 3-G’s Evan] doesn’t realize that he’s in a door-slamming bedroom farce without bedrooms.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Look, it’s a plugger PDA! And a plugger iPhone! And a plugger’s version of whatever kind of high-tech table those really hip people must use! She’s breathing plugger air, an impoverished and less oxygenated mix that is somehow more honest and virtuous than whatever goddamn ozone those fucking hipsters breathe in Capitol City!” –[Old Man] Muffaroo

“And by way off Broadway, I mean they’re held in a zeppelin moored over Brooklyn.” –Little Blue Bicycle

“It’s not a very funny Shoe, but the last panel is funny when taken out of context.” –parcheesi

“It’s not a thingy, the proper term is ‘penis.’ And that’s not water, it’s blood.” –cheech wizard

“I like how Ed Asner and the dog share a moment, wondering how this became their lives.” –sporknpork

I must thanks to all who put some cash into my tip jar! And we must give thanks to our advertisers:

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Mark Trail, 10/5/12

Sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date on Mark Trail, in which a heavily armed Cherry resolved the whole Rusty-napping situation without Mark ever needing to show up! Given the level of real danger that was involved with Rusty being kidnapped by criminals and threatened with death, I’m a bit puzzled as to what “exaggeration” she thinks Rusty will resort to in recounting the story to Mark. “Mark, I saw these men killing sheep from a plane, and then they kidnapped me, and they were going to turn me into a sheep and then shoot me from a plane, so they taught me sheep language, but I summoned all the other sheep, who ate the men! Plus there were aliens!”

Family Circus, 10/5/12

The Billy (age 7) Family Circuses are usually mostly interesting to me because of the layers of family-narrative artifice involved (Jeff Keane continuing his father’s tradition of pretending to draw as his brother), but today’s family psychodrama is much more straightforward: remember, if you don’t like your mother, your kids will notice.

Spider-Man, 10/5/12

Looks like all’s well that’s ended will in Spider-Man! And now you get to contemplate whether you’d rather make sex to a snake or a spider, yuck.

Shoe, 10/5/12

Ha ha, it’s funny because Shoe is emotionally dead, unable to feel either joy or pain!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/5/12

Meanwhile, in Rex Morgan, the thingy came off and there’s water everywhere and June is pissed.

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Shoe, 10/4/12

OK, fine, you’ve come up with a joke where someone is handed a plate of smoldering food and retorts “Who taught you to cook, [someone with ‘smoke’ in their name or nickname, because this meal is spewing smoke]?” I mean, not fine, actually, because that joke isn’t funny in any meaningful sense, but it’s not actively offensive or anything — until you decide that the smoke-named character that you’ll drop in for the punchline will be one specifically created to urge people not to cause fires. Smokey the Bear would never have allowed this tragedy to happen! He would have counseled Roz to pay careful attention to her oven to make sure her food didn’t burst into flames! Here, here are some other Smokeys that wouldn’t have undermined the joke: Smokey Robinson, Smokey Stover, Smokey and the Bandit. Smokey the Bear, come on, are you kidding me.

Momma, 10/4/12

Say what you will about Francis, but he’s always an optimist! Notice how he’s reaching out for his $40 with both arms extended. This would be unnecessary if his mother were just going to give him a couple of twenties, but maybe he’s imagining that she’ll be handing over an oversized novelty check, or a burlap sack full of nickels with a big dollar sign on the side. You know, just for fun!

Apartment 3-G, 10/4/12

“I hadn’t made plans to go with anyone, but bought two tickets because I don’t like to leave my jacket at the coat check — they expect tips, the greedy little bastards. But if I leave my coat on top of you during the show, it’ll be warm when I put it back on again! It’s settled, Evan, you’re coming with me. You’ll refrain from speaking to me directly, of course.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/4/12

Cindy’s new boyfriend’s sexual prowess is not of the advertised quality.