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Mary Worth, 4/7/10

Sweet Christ, if the sight of Mary grunting out the words “FINAL PARTING” through clenched teeth as she snips off the head of that flower doesn’t chill you to your very core, then you’re a much, much braver soul than I am. “Why wouldn’t her husband talk? He was quiet! Too quiet! Quiet people get their [snip] fingers [snip] cut [snip] off!”

Apartment 3-G, 4/7/10

For a while now people have been trying to figure out who the least essential person in this storyline is, since he or she will clearly the one who’ll end up on the business end of Bobbie’s gun. Most of the characters in the story are regulars or semi-regulars and it would be shocking to off them — but what if Bobbie plans to end her marriage by shooting herself? Having decided that her pill-addled life isn’t worth living, she can at least feel sure that the ghastly sight of a hallway decorated with her brains will traumatize Martin and Gabriella so much that they’ll never be able feel comfortable together again, knowing the consequences of what they’ve done. What she hadn’t counted on was the presence of Margo, whose inability to feel human emotions will throw a monkey wrench into her melodramatic suicide plans. Who could bear to end it all under Margo’s sneering, disdainful gaze? I’d be too ashamed.

Beetle Bailey, 4/7/10

There’s something about Miss Buxley’s expression in the final panel that I actually find quite poignant. She most definitely did not sign up to participate in the Halftracks’ spectacularly dysfunctional marital dynamic. The general’s ham-handed sexual advances are probably preferable.

Family Circus, 4/7/10

I’m pretty sure the last few Family Circuses have been straight-up re-runs, given some subtle differences in the art, so I’m assuming that this one is from the feature’s brief “experimental” period in the ’70s, when it eschewed jokes and humor of any kind and went for mundane slice-of-life realism. Yup! Egg salad again! Ha ha … huh … eh.

If I had to guess as to what in God’s name this is about, I’d say, based on some kind of half-remembered material floating around in my midbrain, that, back when only men worked and all women stayed home to keep house (i.e., in the ’50s, on television) and wives made their husbands’ lunches before said husbands headed off to the office, there was this cliché/running joke where said husbands would open up said lunches at work and, whaddya know, egg salad again! Isn’t that just like a woman, to make me a lunch that I don’t appreciate! And see, it’s like Billy’s gone into “the office,” which is school, and see, his lunch is … oh, hell, even assuming all these suppositions are true, it still isn’t funny. What I really want to know is this: Billy has a sandwich in his lap. Billy’s friend is holding a sandwich. WHERE THE HELL DID THAT OTHER SANDWICH COME FROM?

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Funky Winkerbean, 4/6/10

A layperson might believe that Funky Winkerbean has already extracted the maximum amount of misery possible out of its characters and settings, but rest assured that the Pain Scientists over at Westview Industries are working hard at pushing the envelope of pure torture. It is of course pathetic that this grease-stained fast food subchain is the only place where FW characters can be happy (presumably they’re mistaking the sated albeit somewhat bloated feeling that comes from eating the pizza, combined with the absence of immediate physical pain, for “happiness”), but it’s all they’ve got. And now even that’s being taken away from them! Montoni’s will go bankrupt and all of you losers will be forced to morosely pick through dumpsters for sustenance! Ha ha ha!

One of the fascinating things about today’s strip is that it contains the structure of a joke without any even nominal humor content. It would have maybe worked if Funky (and yes, it took me a minute to work it out, but I’m pretty sure that’s Funky calling from the accountants’ office, and not some accountant placing a mafia-style phone call with no proper nouns and vague, unspecified threats) had claimed that Montoni’s was “guilty of insolvency” or something. As it is, it appears that Funky and Holly are each deploying a mismatched half of a desultory pun-couplet of the sort that marginally leavens the bleak horror of the Funkyverse, leaving them (and us) confused as well as depressed.

Crankshaft, 4/6/10

Meanwhile, over in the “fun” Funkyverse strip, suddenly single Crankshaft has decided to look for love online. The expression settling on his face in panel two as he realizes that nobody likes him is utterly priceless.

Judge Parker, 4/6/10

Speaking of priceless expressions of despair, check out Sam slowly morphing into a sad-eyed Margaret Keane painting in panel three. “He’s wearing the same color of minty green as I am … but he looks so much more attractive and carefree in it than I do! Damn you, you handsome, leonine-haired young buck!”

Hi and Lois, 4/6/10

Ha ha! It’s funny because they’re going to be sleeping in their car!

Pluggers, 4/6/10

Pluggers could die at any time, anywhere they park their lazy asses, and nobody would care much, or even notice.

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Your COTW coming momentarily, but first: I have been utterly remiss in not linking to faithful reader yellojkt’s annual March Madness-themed comics smackdown! The theme this year is the “National Crappy Comics Copy Cats”, and voting is still open for Calvin Clones, Faux Far Sides, and Doonesbury Dopplegangers. Vote early, vote often!

Also: a plea to elitist iPad users! Are you reading this site on an elitist iPad? 29 of you were yesterday, according to Google Analytics! Anyway, I’d love to hear your impressions on what the site looked like and how it worked on this awesome and terrible new device, so please shoot me an email at bio@jfruh.com, with screenshots, if you can!

And now: your comment of the week!

“‘If you ever need a sympathetic ear’ Mary says, mocking a woman who clearly has no ears, sympathetic or otherwise.” –bunivasal

And the runners up! Very funny!

“Abbey: ‘That’s right. Jules will be sleeping where he’s least likely to have sex with anyone: next to Sam. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an escort to hire.'” –Black Drazon

“I’m intrigued to learn that Sam is a hipster doofus, who may blog about vintage WASP clothing.” –Rusty

“That is the saddest seder ever. And which one of the plagues is ‘Mary Meddles Your Ass’?” –Gabacho

“Because Luann just wouldn’t be Luann without periodic public discussion of teenage girls’ underwear.” –commodorejohn

“What with the problematic real estate market and all, Lois has had to make ends meet by doing a smear job on librarians. Later, in some back alley, an operative from Amazon.com will give her a wad of unmarked bills.” –Jym

“Mary clutches the steaming baking dish in front of her as she talks, as if to entice them to divulge their personal business to her with the promise of its gooey, tan-hued blandness. ‘Just think,’ she whispers, holding it tantalizingly close, and yet just out of their reach, ‘This reconstituted potato-based food substance could be yours … if you tell me everything.'” –Gap-Toothed Starey “HOOOO” Guy

“Dear Rex Morgan Production Team: Sometimes your artwork is a little awkward, but dang how do you manage to peg us SK8RBOYZ so accurately? ’Cause I know there’s nothing I’d rather do than travel from place to place doing pointless manual labour for The Man so’s I can pay back loans from my chick and enjoy a precious Sunday afternoon with my homies stylin’ down the staircase railings over at the Art Museum. It’s like you are inside my mind! Yours truly, Youth With Unbelievable Nickname.” –Mooncattie

“Mary is pointing towards the calendar in order to show Bonnie that, if you wait long enough, all trends come back into style. Specifically, the trend of hot-pink geometrically-patterned curtains next to walls that are painted matte black.” –Patrick

“I think Bobbie is going to shoot Margo, and we’ll have a long-drawn out deathbed scene with rib-tickling histrionics from all the principals until Margo drinks someone’s blood — maybe Tommie’s, since she is probably a virgin — and revives.” –The Divine O’F

“Y’know, putting a shirt or vest on your fursuit just emphasizes its pantslessness.” –Naked Bunny with a Whip

“I’m hoping that someone in A3G gets shot so we can have another round of everyone being surprised that Tommie is working in a hospital.” –Andy L

“Notice how Mark is trying to throw off the Parker Brothers by pointing to the tree: ‘No, leave me, it’s the tree you want!'” –Digger

“Say what you will about this Manley, but that last panel guy’s face takes up an area about 0.75 cm square on my monitor, yet spells out ‘Nice Ass!’ as clearly as if it were the title page of a Reader’s Digest Special Plugger-Friendly Large Print edition (of a book titled Nice Ass!, presumably, which seems a little unlikely now that I think about it, but I’ll let it go).” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“‘And what purpose will that serve? You think such I can be felled by your puny bullets? Haha…ahah…AHAHAHAHAHA.’ Silly Roberta, everyone knows that Margo can only be defeated by the poisonous nectar of human kindness.” –DialMforMerger

“Someone really ought to paint panel 1 of Bobbie and Margo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. They can just paint over whatever’s there now.” –monsieurjohn

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