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Funky Winkerbean, 9/20/11

Have you ever had the experience of seeing a word in print and thinking, “Wait, I thought I knew what that meant, but now I’m not so sure! Did she really steal a piece of metal from the machine shop, spend every night in her cell slowly and methodically carving down one end of it into an incredibly sharp point, and then stab her English paper in the kidney and leave it to bleed to death in the prison yard?” It turns out that “shank” as a verb can also refer to a bad shot in golf, so I guess she means that she screwed up on her attempt to write the paper, because if there’s one thing teenage girls go in for when they’re talking to themselves in their room, it’s golf metaphors!

In other news, remember how after the Funky Winkerbean time jump we were supposed to spend more time getting to know the next generation of high-school aged characters? Instead, we’ve mostly gotten Les being smug and maudlin and self-righteous and lusted after by various deluded women. But at last, we now have a genuine teenage plot! It will involve Crazy Harry’s daughter plagiarizing her English paper off the Internet, which will give Les an excellent opportunity to be self-righteous.

Judge Parker, 9/20/11

You know your opening gambit in a negotiation is the right move when it makes your adversary vomit in terror.

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Slylock Fox, 9/19/11

Good lord, what has that fiend Count Weirdly done now? He’s hypnotized these innocent rodeo dudes and forced them to dance about for his entertainment! And the only way Slylock can free them is to unscramble the magic word, which is … money? Huh. I’m thinking that Weirdly didn’t “hypnotize” the cow-poking gentlemen so much as pay them for their dancing services. You know, rodeoing doesn’t pay the bills like it used to, and if a cowboy has to make a little money on the side by showing off his square-dancing skills for a private customer, well, there’s no shame in that. Why are you trying to get in the middle of this wholly innocent and consensual private transaction, Slylock?

Judge Parker and Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/19/11

Say, what’s up in the Woody Wilson-penned soap strips? Well, it looks like Sam and Abbey will be buying a monstrously oversized three-bedroom behemoth that probably isn’t legal to drive on any road in the United States, and Sam, who certainly doesn’t have the specialized certification needed to operate it, is preparing his trademark negotiating technique that will take full advantage of this rapidly bankrupting motor home dealership’s dire financial straits. Meanwhile, the Morgan family is coming to grips with the fact that they also own an indulgent and impractical vehicle that none of them know how to steer. The fact that Sarah’s egregious act of ass-kissing in the face of all reality results in her immediate promotion goes to show that loyalty is more valued than competence within the Morgan clan, which should result in some nautical good times for all of us as the S.S. Rex sinks in some spectacular and hilarious fashion mere minutes after it hits the open seas.

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Panels from Beetle Bailey, 9/18/11

I have to admit that I’m starting to warm up to the “General Halftrack is an angry and increasingly disoriented old drunk” theme that’s appearing with greater and greater frequency in Beetle Bailey. Today we see that the booze just fuels his paranoia. It’s easy to imagine that everybody hates you when you already hate yourself!

Six Chix, 9/18/11

Like her prudish mother, our protagonist finds the display of the human body shameful even in private, and so is quick to cover her boyfriend’s genitals with a well-placed word balloon.

Pluggers, 9/18/11

I thought I would feel great satisfaction when the befuddled, ignorant man-beasts of Pluggers started to die off, with their corpses displayed for our amusement. Instead, I’m only experiencing a certain shamed emptiness. Let this be a lesson to all of you who yearn for the death of your enemies!