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Marmaduke, 11/15/11

I don’t usually find little visual flourishes to enjoy in the loopy, face-melting world of Marmaduke, but here one is: Marmaduke’s owner’s license plate bears the single letter “M”. Actually, that ought to make one question whose car this really is. Usually the DMV doesn’t issue license plates with only a single letter on them, unless they’re compelled to do so by a terrifying power beyond their ken, which reinforces the emerging consensus that this vehicle belongs to Marmaduke, its purpose to carry its demon-hound owner wherever He wishes to go, via highway, carpool lane, sidewalk, canal, whatever, so that nosey cop had best do obeisance and walk away slowly, unless he wants to get eaten nice and painfully.

Herb and Jamaal, 11/15/11

“Here, let me set up a really convoluted analogy for you. You know how sometimes you just lose your grip on your wallet, and slips out of your hands and flies into a fish tank? And sometimes that fish tank is filled with pirañas, which are never kept in tanks? That’s what it’s like with the ladies, who take your money and bite you with razor-sharp teeth when you try to take it back!  Ha ha, women, who needs ’em, amiright? Say, want to come upstairs and look at my etchings?”

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Mary Worth, 11/14/11

For someone who had a careful list of all her credit card information on hand in case of theft, Mary sure seems shaken by the fact that her credit cards were stolen. In an ideal world the purpose of the list is to make her feel smug and prepared, and perhaps even allow her to assert her superiority over those who don’t have her foresight. She should never have to actually use it, how gauche!

I’d like to believe that Mary’s thought balloon in the second panel heralds some rethinking of her world view, and an understanding that we do not live in an ideal world, that bad things sometimes happen to good people, or even to the best people (i.e., Mary). But probably it just presages her transformation into a brutal masked vigilante who will hunt down criminals wherever they hide, which, I should emphasize, will also be pretty great.

Mark Trail, 11/14/11

Gosh, Kelly, I’m not sure what it is that Mother McQueen might want to melt, in relation to making her gold goose bands? Gold? Does gold melt? Gold does melt, right? Will someone answer Kelly? Someone? I mean, she is talking to someone, right? Otherwise she’s just talking loudly to nobody in particular while in the process of sneaking around at night, which is clearly ridiculous. C’mon, whoever she’s talking to, get her on the right track!

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Family Circus, 11/13/11

Man, the disgusted look on Big Daddy Keane’s face as he realizes that his daughter views sacred communion with God as just another sordid amusement is pretty priceless. One hopes that he remains so focused on her that he doesn’t notice Billy making a wholly inept attempt to summon up the Prince of Darkness by reading the hymnal upside down.

Crankshaft, 11/13/11

Crankshaft may be old and senile and kind of deaf, and they might have finally gotten some kind of legal mumbo-jumbo that says he isn’t allowed to have all his guns anymore, but he fought the Nazis to save America and by God he isn’t going to let that God-damned Khrushchev and his commies take over his lawn.