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Apartment 3-G, 4/7/11

Abandoned by her roommates, Margo is forced to bathroom on her own! That’s kind of an oddly drawn toilet brush; at first glance, I thought it might be some sort of archaic feathery masturbatory aid, but surely Margo is far too self-actualized to refer to self-pleasure as “dirty work.” Anyway, whether we’re talking cleaning the commode or rubbing one out, Margo doesn’t need to do it because Trey’s shown up. Have fun, Trey! Hope you don’t have to go to the bathroom, I hear it’s gross.

Mark Trail, 4/7/11

The Mark Trail drug-smuggling plot has ended rather anticlimactically, with Mark guiding his stolen plane to a nearby commercial airport, dropping off his escapee passengers, and he idle small talk with his government handler, who I assume had written him off for dead weeks ago. “Oh, hey,” he remarks casually, “there’s an island within a day’s boat-drift of U.S. soil where a narcotics kingpin rules with an iron fist and keeps people as slaves. You might want to look into that or whatever.”

I also look forward to the confused encounter between Lonnie and the Coast Guard that will result from Mark’s brush-off in panel two. “Your family? Uh … do they live near a coast?”

Dennis the Menace, 4/7/11

Ha ha, this is exactly the sort of thing that would normally send Mr. Wilson into a rage! But his pupils are invisible because his eyes are rolled back behind his drooping eyelids, indicating that he’s been in a dissociated state for hours. If Mrs. Wilson wants to call that “senility,” that’s fine, I guess; whatever keeps him out of her hair, amiright?

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Marvin, 4/6/11

Ha ha, “delayed job stress syndrome,” what a whimsical concept! Wait, you say that this is actually a serious condition, that it’s called “post-traumatic stress disorder,” and that, depressingly enough, bomb-sniffing dogs sometimes do suffer from it? Thanks a lot for bringing everyone down, Marvin. Next time stick to poop jokes, why don’t you?

Funky Winkerbean, 4/6/11

Speaking of whimsy, Funky Winkerbean is casting its narrative eye back to a time when it was wacky and cancer free. Here’s a delightful episode from Les’s high school days, when he was so terrified of being physically assaulted that he pissed himself. Those were the good old days, huh?

Apartment 3-G, 4/6/11

Meanwhile, Lu Ann and Paul’s romance has slipped into a comfortable pattern, in which each of them subjects the other in turn to a form of entertainment that he or she hates. This will presumably go on until one of them breaks, at which point the other will win. “At last,” Margo thinks, “Lu Ann is in a relationship that I understand!”

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Dick Tracy, 4/5/11

Fans of the last few years of Dick Tracy have one important question now that the strip is under new artistic management: will each storyline end with the villain being killed in a unnecessarily gruesome fashion? We’re still at the very beginning of this story, so we can’t say for sure, but surely it’s a good sign that “Pouch” here got his name by having some kind of “pouch” lurking in the his repulsively slack neck-flesh. It has a snap, this skin-pouch! So delightfully gross!

Apartment 3-G, 4/5/11

Margo starts this strip with such a great quip that it’s sad how quickly she devolves into the state in which we find her in panel two. A quizzical, confused facial expression, an ill-fitting yellow sweatshirt (does she think it shows off her bosom to her advantage? because it does not), and a lurching attempt to escape from a sudden foliage attack — not her best moment. Still, “that bushy-haired, bearded guy who’s always winning Grammys,” ha!

Mary Worth, 4/5/11

Have you ever wanted to see two medical professionals psych themselves up to a sordid quickie in a hospital linen closet by quoting No Fear marketing copy to one another? Then today’s Mary Worth is for you, my friend.