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Phantom, 4/27/11

I’ll say this for the Phantom: Whatever its questionable history of depictions of Africans decades ago (a little digging will find you some howlers), the current version of the strip makes a reasonable attempt to accurately depict a post-colonial African state. Today’s strips neatly encapsulates the tension between the multiple sources of identity that can compete for the loyalty of citizens of such nations. Most residents of Bangalla probably aren’t more than a generation or two removed from their ancestral villages, where ties of clan and tribe are paramount; yet many of the young have moved to the modern capital of Mawitaan, where they’ve mingled with people from other parts of their country, and have perhaps begun to see themselves more as citizens of Bangalla than anything else. Which I imagine might cause problems for this whole Chatu-wrangling thing. “Wait, you want us to come home and do what now? Uh, yeah, see, we have this nice construction gig thing going here … cool shared apartment down on the lower East side, near some decent Bandar restaurants … why are you guys running a prison anyway? Don’t we pay taxes to the Bangallan government to run a prison system? Oh yeah, that’s right, you don’t participate in the whole monetary economy thing. Well, anyway, I think we’re going to stick around in the city for a while, but thanks for asking! Say hi to Grandpa for us!”

Herb and Jamaal, 4/27/11

Oh, that wacky Herb and Jamaal, unable to bring itself to use such specific terms as “GI Joe” or “soldier”! But this zaniness masks the important issue here: If the information I’m getting from Funky Winkerbean is correct, Herb’s GI Dude will be suffering from PTSD after years left abandoned in that box.

Family Circus, 4/27/11

“Just like all the messages we send to Mommy on Twitter begging her to love us! They never work either.”

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Pluggers, 4/26/11

“Recession” — pluggers hear that word on the TV news or talk radio, sometimes. Seems like it has something to do with the fact that there aren’t any good jobs around here, they guess, not that there were any good jobs for years before the news people started saying the word so much. Anyway, there’s something about the word — or maybe it’s just the way people say it — that makes pluggers think about their own lives, and how none of it worked out the way they should have. “Recession” rolls through their heads every morning, as they stand in their crappy little bathroom and stare into their dingy little mirror and think about how they had hoped not to live in this town anymore by the time they grew up but they still do and every time they see one of the laughing morons they went to high school with at the 7 Eleven or the Arby’s or whatever they die a little inside. They think about how the people on the radio said that they should be grateful for their shitty job, because of the recession, but really they’d be pretty happy if they got to work and found that the place had burned to the ground, or even that they had been just been fired for no good reason. Their little ritual in front of that dingy mirror gets a little bit longer every day. Those radio people will stop talking about the recession someday, but pluggers will keep staring into the mirror and thinking all these terrible things, every day, until they die.

(Wait, this is some joke involving “recession” and “receding,” about the dog-man’s baldness? Ha ha, come on, pluggers don’t know any of the parts of speech of Latin verbs!)

Dick Tracy, 4/26/11

How I’m interpreting Special Officer Pencil Mustache’s comments in the first couple panels here: “Dick, based on your bizarre story and your well-known penchant for brutality, I’m going to guess that you just summarily executed Flyface and the Fifth, but acknowledging that would lead to a lot of paperwork for me, so, eh.”

Mary Worth, 4/26/11

Oh, boy, it turns out the “Dawn is a technology addict” plot didn’t end abruptly — it didn’t end at all! Instead, Mary Worth is tackling its most ambitious project yet: a sprawling, multi-character arc all based around the theme that technology is the Devil’s work. Liza, your patient could have died while you were playing Scrabulous on your unusually large smartphone! I can’t wait until Wilbur is called in to implement kite-based therapy.

Momma, 4/26/11

Has anyone ever wanted to see a real bedroom love scene in Momma? No? Well, too bad, this happened anyway.

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Apartment 3-G, 4/25/11

In a bold departure from the usual Apartment 3-G fare, the current male guest star, Dan Diller, is not a sandy-haired clean-cut young white man, but is rather a sandy-haired clean-cut young white man wearing an obviously fake beard and wig. Thank goodness non-wigged/bearded but still sandy-haired, clean-cut, and white Rick is here to keep us anchored to what we understand to be A3G reality! In addition to being a clean-cut young man in a suit, Rick is also apparently pretty relaxed about telling everyone about the mental health practitioners he’s seeing. Of course, this strip’s only known therapist is notorious quack Professor Ari P., and one assumes that he’s already blabbed to anyone who will listen about Rick’s depression/anorexia/borderline personality disorder, so there’s no point in keeping a lid on it.

B.C., 4/25/11

So the bird has covered the turtle with … sexy feathers? So a bird will have sex with the turtle? Or maybe another turtle, which will be aroused by the feathers? I’m kind of beginning to worry about B.C., to be perfectly honest.

Pluggers, 4/25/11

Even total strangers are pretty psyched about pluggers’ impending death!