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Herb and Jamaal, 9/8/09

Perhaps stung by allegations of rampant nonspecificity, Herb and Jamaal has decided to go the political cartoon route and just start labeling the crap out of things. For instance, while Herb’s coffee mug has long been designated as such by a label that reads Herb, Herb’s mother-in-law has traditionally drunk her morning pick-me-up out of a mug decorated with a triangle-ish shape that looks vaguely like the Star Trek logo. However, it seems that, having gotten tired of people asking her if “that’s the logo from the science fiction TV show first broadcast in the ’60s that everyone’s talking about,” Eula has traded her old mug in for one that simply has “STAR TREK” written on the side of it.

Alternately, it could be that her name is actually Star Trek, and Eula is just a nickname, a shortened version of what she said to her parents when she finally got the nerve, which was “You lunatics named me ‘Star Trek’?”

Family Circus, 9/8/09

Boy, Billy and Dolly sure look depressed, don’t they? And the reasons are obvious: they have to dress nicely and troop off to school for the day, but, as we can see from Jeffy’s appearance, if they got to stay home they could just wander around in their underwear, covered with filth.

Mark Trail, 9/8/09

I’m not some kind of big expert on killing and skinning alligators, but I question the utility of that tiny little knife that sideburnsy #1 is brandishing in panel two, unless he’s planning on tickling the great thick-skinned beast.

Mary Worth, 9/8/09

Isn’t this what we all hope for when we pop the question to that special lady? That she recoil from the shock, and cover her mouth so that she doesn’t splatter you when she vomits in terror?

Gil Thorp, 9/8/09

So these are the protagonists of our Gil Thorp football-season adventure: a kid who’s learned that he doesn’t need alcohol to have a good time, and a marginal athlete who likes to come up with nicknames for himself. Pretty thin material to work with, but things should get more exciting upon the arrival of the invasion fleet of spherical alien spacecraft that you can see in the background of panel one. Once Milford’s inhabitants have been rounded up to toil in the Zyrgt mines back on Planet Nebulon VI, there’ll be all sorts of interesting dramatic possibilities.

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Your comment of the week coming shortly, but first: enjoy this fine video, sent to me by faithful reader Mr.???. Stan Freberg urges you to read the Sunday comics … if you know what’s good for you. Featuring the Spectacular Spider-Ass!

And now, your comment of the week:

“If you need your wife’s permission to be a poacher, you probably aren’t cut out to be a poacher. Just sayin’.” –smacky

And your runners up! So funny!

Re: Marvin’s apparent lack of genitals: “Sadly, I suspect Marvin procreates by other means, probably by implanting his larvae in the brain or chest of some poor unsuspecting human.” –TheDiva

“I believe Adrian’s boyfriend has mistaken her for some kind of gigantic whiskey decanter and is trying to unscrew her head to get at the sweet, sweet liquor inside her neck.” –Joe Blevins

“Aristotle Papagoras/Sees the trees, but not the forest/ He’s just a drug-prescribin’ monkey/ For every eyebrow-batting junkie.” –Uncle Lumpy

“Who would have thought that the cop from the good family would prove to be a modern day Salome? Too bad we missed the Dance of the Seven Ugly Neckties.” –Nekrotzar

“In a further effort to reach out to its target audience, today’s Momma was specifically drawn to be enjoyed by people with cataracts.” –NoahSnark

“I think it’s funny that several people chose to assume the gender-neutral names were those of guys, even though there’s plausible deniability. Francis’s possible bisexuality doesn’t manage to make the strip funny or interesting, but it’s like we’re desperate to get it there somehow.” –junk science

“I don’t ever do the Jumble. I just go holler the four scrambled words out my front door and pretend I’m a trailer park Mom on Mars.” –Dancing Bear

“Look, if she’s staring at the wall while she’s talking to you, maybe you ought to think twice before prescribing narcotics.” –commodorejohn

“Fascinating. We all know it only takes your average man a few seconds to ‘turn’ his ‘microwave knob,’ while women usually require a bit more time. But this is the first information I’ve seen on the sexual proclivities of shapeless orange blob-things.” –ratnerstar

“The Professor recommends that Ms. Merrill double the dosage of her drugs, so that she will forget seeing his name and face on that ‘Wanted’ poster in Athens, where he is being sought for crimes against the electromagnetic spectrum by wearing that necktie with that jacket.” –seismic-2

“First compliment his physique, then get him drunk … is Brock reading directly from Handbook for the Desperately Closeted Teammate? ‘Duncan, I rented a dirty movie, wanna see? Oh my God, they the rental store must have totally mixed up the tapes! Hey, let me show you my new wrestling moves!'” –teddytoad

“Ooh! First sexting came to Milford, then stalkers and now it’s hipsters! I can’t wait to see see the poorly-drawn confusion on Gil’s face as he learns that Duncan doesn’t actually like Sonic Youth and is just wearing the t-shirt ironically, and also that Sonic Youth is some sort of rock and roll band.” –Rachel K

“Poor Dick Tracy; normally his cases are so easy to solve. Just find the person with some freakish genetic abnormality who has a name that describes that abnormality and make sure they die in some agonizing fashion. Now that he’s surrounded by freaks with corny pun names he might actually have to use real detective skills to crack that case. Well, at least after today we know someone will eventually be eaten by a tiger.” –Rob

“Whatever that shirt says under Duncan’s grotesquely oversized hand, there’s no way it’s ‘Sonic Youth.’ I’d say it’s ‘Comic Mouth,’ a condition that afflicts Duncan’s freakish friend.” –Steve S

“I don’t think ‘yeah I guess I pumped a little iron’ is so much carefully calibrated ambivalence, as it is a more sanitized, newspaper-friendly version of ‘uh … dude, is that a boner?’ Meanwhile, Brock/Robb’s attempt to cover (let’s go drink some heterosexual beer like heterosexuals) is as transparent and awkward as his naked ‘excitement’.” –edp

“You have to give the AJGLU credit when it’s due, and I really like how Reggie is such a complete douche that the fires of Hell are already beginning to consume him during his preamble, before he even gets to his douchey punchline.” –Edgy DC

“The longer I look at this Mary Worth strip the more insanely glorious it becomes! I just hope this time the Nazis manage to actually shoot some of those yodeling Von Trapp urchins.” –sugarpie

“Why is the police chief standing in front of FLOOR PLAN? When he says ‘infiltrated,’ how literal is he being? Are there heroin dealers in the ducts?” –OtherOpus

“The funny thing with Margo and Lu Ann’s exchange in the final panel is that usually it’s the other way around. ‘It gets easier, I promise’ is what Margo whispers to her lovers during their unspeakable sex acts.” –Mr.Death

“Is it correct police procedure for Detective Aryan Butterscotch to pull his weenus out in a restaurant for Adrian, claiming it will make things ‘one step better’? Or is he just reaching to ‘jiggle the handle’ so to speak?” –True Fable

“Just wait until Crankshaft finds out about Marvin’s bee-killing ways, given his known pro-bee sympathies. Maybe Batuik will put together a strip where Crankshaft invites Marvin and his family to an apiary conference to learn more about bees, and sadly they all die from Legionnaires’ disease. Except I won’t be sad at all! Hahahahaha!” –Brock Simpson

“I’m a bit surprised by Dr. Papagoras. Sex for drugs seems rather pedestrian. I figured his usual M.O. to be to get his patients hooked on his own special cocktail of lithium, diamorphine, and mescaline and then, using a combination of operant conditioning, hypnosis, and readings from Nietzsche, disable his ‘patients” moral center and impulse control, turning them into amoral, drug-fueled killing machines. Tommie and Lu Ann, of course, were early subjects of his, and he only succeeding in completely incapacitating their frontal lobes, but Margo — Margo is his masterpiece.” –Comrade Denny

“The key to Spider-Man is surely that the narration box doesn’t say how many seconds. It’s probably at least 3600. Enough time to ‘get her to safety,’ if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Oh wait. This is Peter Parker we’re talking about isn’t it? Make it 300 seconds. That’s probably enough time to get himself to safety anyway.” –fnord3125

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Family Circus, 9/7/09

While my self-respect demands that I ignore Billy’s patented brand of ME ME ME LOOK AT ME idiocy, I am a little curious about just what sort of adult-time activity he’s interrupting. It appears that Mommy and some of her grown-up friends are hanging around the house decked out in what appear to be low-key hipster housewife togs from 1978-ish. The two non-Keanes look somewhat discomfited by Billy’s appearance, and really, why wouldn’t they be; still, I’d like to believe that there’s something vaguely disreputable going on here, possibly involving objects hidden away in those clunky purses, or clandestine ingredients added to the big mugs of International Coffee so casually balanced on the furniture.

Also, I’m curious as to what these ladies are doing over here at Billy’s bedtime. Shouldn’t they be at home reading fairy-tale stories to their own sleepy broods? (The idea that the Keane parents would be associating with non-breeders is obviously unthinkable.) Perhaps it’s actually 3 p.m., which has been established as Billy’s bedtime due to some combination of strict parenting ideas and his extreme obnoxiousness.

Marvin, 9/7/09

I feel like I’m getting kind of repetitive when it comes to Marvin, and I promise to stop the moment it stops serving up nightmare visions that turn my stomach. This strip at least demonstrates a sort of interesting visual effect, which is that all the cues that we associate with cute, adorable babies — grossly oversized heads, short, stubby limbs, a proportionally wider torso — become awful and terrifying when the baby in question is blown up to adult size. The vision of the monstrous Marvin-troll, the same height as his mother but at least three times the mass, with a grossly oversized head and eyes the size of baseballs, is so shocking that it allows us to ignore the even more unsettling fact that he’s berating his mother for dressing all slutty.

Spider-Man, 9/7/09

Since Spider-Man has no super-speed abilities, I question how much safer anyplace he could take MJ to within “seconds” might be. “Sorry, Logan. Had to take the lady to safety by putting her on top of that five-foot-tall pile of boxes inside the same building or place where we’re standing now. Is it a warehouse? I forget. Anyway, you can see her right over there. Let’s wave to her from down here, where it’s ever so much more dangerous!”

Jumble, 9/7/09

I originally read the rather compressed dialogue in today’s Jumble cartoon as “Now they can enjoy their food without sweating.” Because the toxic pesticides these pilots have sprayed all over the picnic tables will cause all of the parkgoers’ pores to close up, a few minutes before their nervous systems just shut down altogether.