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Mary Worth, 12/10/11

Just think about what a rabbit hole of meta this strip is. Yes, it features a comic strip character complaining that “life already feels like too much of a comic strip”; but, when you think about it, when most people think about comic strips, they think about ones that have jokes and punchlines and such — not Mary Worth, in other words. Who would be the sort of person who would be more likely to use “comic strip” as a shorthand for soap opera strips, in which pointless people slowly live through plots that are simultaneously bland and ridiculous? Mary Worth, that’s who! Wheels within wheels, people.

Herb and Jamaal, 12/10/11

When I read this comic, I snorted dismissively and said “Please, ‘that singer with the high-octave voice,’ why don’t they just say–” but then I realized that I don’t really know who in the current pop cultural landscape “that singer with the high-octave voice” would be. Apparently this is what it feels like to enter the Herb and Jamaal audience demographic. It doesn’t feel good, for the record.

Marmaduke, 12/10/11

Marmaduke’s owner manages to hand his last-ever paycheck over to his wife as Marmaduke starts to tear through his flesh and gnaw on his tasty bones.

***

Side note: here is a thing I meant to pass on from faithful reader ChattyGenes: some comics collections about the aftermath of the tsunami and nuclear accidents in Japan. You should read them if you are interested in these subjects!

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Let’s just jump right into our COTW this week, shall we?

“I really can’t blame Mary. That horrible kerning would be haunting me, too.” –Katie

Also, the runners up! Very funny!

“‘How did you know I have a gun?’ ‘Because I know you’re not that happy to see me.'” –Chyron HR

“It’s funny, because both Anne and TJ can only use sex for evil — pure, pure evil! — so expect TJ’s employment to lead, inevitably, to the hideous two-headed Devil Baby subplot that Luann always seems to promise but never quite delivers.” –MikeyMike

“Mary may have forgotten her sweater, but she remembered her scarf! You could be otherwise nude, but if you’re wearing a scarf, you’re more than well-dressed enough for a fine restaurant or a term in the Senate. (This message brought to you by the Charterstone Scarfery circa 1974.)” –gkl

“Speaking of doodling, making up songs and playing interactive games, when has Mary last had sex with Dr. Jeff?” –Dood

“Crankshaft really is the right choice of a strip to focus on the importance of regular prostate checks, because when I think of assholes, Crankshaft is the first thing that comes to mind.” –Yusaku777

“RE: the hair. The reason it looks wrong is because you use hair to make a ponytail, so there should be less volume of hair underneath the ponytail. Here there isn’t, implying that the ponytail is actually a weave that MJ stuck onto the top of her normal hair. Also that she’s 12 years old in the ’90s.” –Moana

“Hey, now, sad sack receptionist, Westview is happiness-free.” –bunivasal

“Oh I can’t wait until the strip where Summer goes home and she and Les have a bitch off. She can piss and moan that Bull dared to make a joke and take any credit for her rehab. Les will whine about winning a free trip he doesn’t want to go on. It will eventually devolve into Les and Summer alternately yelling at each other ‘Dead Lisa’ and ‘Torn ACL.'” –Marc

“If you’re not reading this week’s Mark Trail with the Star Trek fight music running through your head, I pity you.” –Ed Dravecky

“I’m more interested in the unsaid storyline of today’s Apartment 3-G, where Margo can’t quite figure out what is stuck in Lu Ann’s hair.” –sporknpork

“Oh yay, now begins A3G’s grim, arduous death march back to the status quo. I, for one, was really enjoying the story of how Paul and Lu Ann got engaged, then prepared for a wedding, then broke up. It was even more heart-wrenching than the saga of how Tommie got a job as a songwriter and sort of forgot to do it.” –Snuggs

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Marmaduke, 12/9/11

I don’t think the Marmaduke creative team has ever seen a vegetarian before, or at least they haven’t bothered to come up with some kind of visual shorthand to differentiate vegetarians from one of the run-of-the-mill miscellaneous middle-aged humans flummoxed by Marmaduke. Marmaduke’s mind is boggling anyway, presumably at the concept that any living being can feed without something dying in agony.

Apartment 3-G, 12/9/11

“It’s just that … Paul’s a creepy, controlling weirdo, and he deserves a passive, empty-headed wife who will do whatever he says and not be unsettled by his demands. I thought I could be that wife! But it turns out that sometimes I have opinions.”

Marvin, 12/9/11

Oh, man, cat, you do not want to get into a shitting contest with Marvin. You’re going to regret the day you ever learned to poop in a box, my friend.