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Mary Worth, 1/22/10

What an appropriate epigraph for this strip! Just as the silence of John Cage’s 4′ 33″ allows the audience to hear everyday and incidental sounds anew, so too has the mental silence of Mary’s forced forgetting allowed Jill to hear the quiet, clear voices in her head, the ones urging suicide.

Archie, 1/22/10

The Archie gang’s experiment with polyamory does not appear to be going well! Guys, it’s important that you negotiate with your primary partners to establish mutually agreed parameters of relationships with secondary partners if this is going to work.

Luann, 1/22/10

Shannon’s preparation for her future life as a deranged but charismatic dictator is going disturbingly well.

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A couple quick notes before you get your CsOTW: Too Hot For Church shirts exist, and half-priced ads are still available for cartoonists! And now, on with the COTW:

“BUZZ BUZZ! Sorry, Margo, that wasn’t a valid response. Remember, defensiveness does not count as bitchiness. The correct response was, ‘You bumpkins deserve each other!’ Tommie, yawn away ten points.” –Doctor Handsome

And the runners up, very funny!

“In Paleo-Pluggers, does ‘courted’ mean ‘savagely attacked and shook until the neck broke, before carrying the lifeless body back to your own territory to be devoured at your leisure?’ Because that’s where I see that relationship going. A dog with that look on his face and that many hearts floating in front of him is definitely thinking about food.” –Harold

“In fairness to Scott, he IS wearing his dress undershirt.” –Adfella

“‘I’m nervous about venturing too far’? Who talks that way? Is it Santa Royale cop lingo?” –Cayuga

“As bad as this honeymoon trip is turning out to be, I’ll bet it’s still better than the sex.” –Poteet

“Shannon looks like a tiny Mossad agent spotting the last living Nazi officer in Argentina. No need to bring him back alive, Shannon.” –Ed Dravecky

“Fun fact: dog-chicken offspring are born encased in a quivering, soft-shelled chrysalis — it’s not quite an egg, and it’s not quite a placenta, but as any Dog-Plugger will tell you, it’s good eatin’.” –Walker of Dog

“You were ruined by a shady investment counselor? How interesting! June and I were ruined by a shitty inker, so…” –Edgy DC

“Simulating fellatio has become tedious for Tommie.” –Red Greenback

“The new hubby is now repacking the trunk, again. One day he will realize that suitcases can be laid on their side, but not today.” –Neal R

“Today’s Jumble is like ‘Goofus and Gallant Work the Night Shift at WalMart.'” –AndyL

“Yeah, I’m going to have to add Mary Worth to the list of comics best understood as taking place entirely within the mind of someone being hanged at Owl Creek Bridge. The list is longer than most casual comics readers might suspect.” –Spunde

“Tommie thinks that she and Margo are literally in the same boat, as the waters rise past their ankles from Margo’s running an unattended bath. ‘That’s not exactly comforting, Tommie, we’ll all be drowned soon enough, purple robes and all.'” –TheLundbom

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Spider-Man, 1/21/10

I was too bored to even mention it at the time, but yesterday Aunt May passed out and our subterranean clergyman pretended to be a doctor and diagnosed her with “Spelunker’s Lung.” Today, the cave-priest admits to not being a doctor after all, but still insists that his diagnosis and prescribed remedy are accurate. He can’t be certain, but he’s certain she’ll die, unless she gets out of this cave! And Mole Man, emoting so very hard that his gloved hands break out of the third panel, will give up his one shot at love, so that his love may live.

Ha ha, “Spelunker’s Lung,” totally a made-up thing, right? Well, a little Googling seems to imply that this is one of several common names for Histoplasmosis. Let’s learn about this affliction from Wikipedia, shall we?

Histoplasmosis … is a disease caused by the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. Symptoms of this infection vary greatly, but the disease primarily affects the lungs. Occasionally, other organs are affected; this is called disseminated histoplasmosis, and it can be fatal if left untreated.

Yes, that’s right: Spider-man was not able to rescue Aunt May from her underground marriage, so a microscopic fungus had to do it for him. Truly this is his greatest failure in superheroism yet!

Also, if information about this important newspaper Spider-man plot point is not added post-haste to the “Society and Culture” section of that Histoplasmosis Wikipedia article, along with descriptions of references to the disease in episodes of House and Dexter, then everything I think I know about the world is wrong.

Gasoline Alley, 1/21/11

Whoops, it looks like some history-challenged colorist has accidentally dressed Robert E. Lee and his men in Union blue. Hope you enjoy your thousands of angry letters lecturing you about the true history of the War of Northern Aggression, Tribune Media Services!

Family Circus, 1/21/11

From the action and the hairstyles on screen, I’d guess that Mommy has taken Jeffy to a porno, circa 1978. From Mommy’s tiny head and pencil neck sitting atop her impossibly broad shoulders, I’d guess that “Mommy” is some kind of quickly constructed dummy or mannequin, designed to fool Jeffy into thinking that he’s still being cared for long enough for the real Mommy to escape into the night.