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Mary Worth, 5/8/09

Good lord, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any comics character as devastated, as gutted, as Adrian looks in panel two here, staring off into space, that half-eaten cupcake like ashes in her mouth. Then again, her father is nattering on about how they’re going to have dinner with Mary Worth next week and she’s going to offer her “perspective” and it’s going to be so awesome, the only legitimate response to which is a rapid descent into total despair.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/8/09

“You see … uh, Jamaal and I were … um … he wanted me to put my … uh … no, wait … I mean he asked me to do something that I’d wanted him to ask for so long … er … that is, when a man and another man love each other very much … look, it’s not cheating if it’s with another dude, OK?”

Beetle Bailey, 5/8/09

If you think Plato looks intrigued now, wait until Beetle explains the concept of a “safe word.”

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Hagar the Horrible, 5/7/09

Ha ha, that Hagar! Always with the desperate need to pump his body full of as much alcohol as humanly possible! It’s probably legitimate to blame Hagar’s woes on “the economy,” as it’s much easier for a lightly armed and highly mobile group of Vikings to plunder a trading ship than it is for them to besiege a fortified castle; a decline in trade means slimmer pickings for pirates and raiders. Of course, raids from Scandinavian war-bands like Hagar’s, along with similar attacks from Arab raiders from North Africa and Magyar horsemen from Hungary, are exactly what helped nip the modest Carolingian economic revival in 9th century Western Europe in the bud, so it’s hard to feel sorry for him as he sees his economically parasitic life’s work becoming more difficult.

Oh, wait, this is supposed to be about the modern-day economy? Never mind.

Call me obsessed with minute changes in comic strip fonts if you must, but I swear that “this economy” in that final panel is slightly less bold than the rest of the dialogue in that word balloon. This of course brings my mind to conspiracy theories about the original wording, which told us what really Hagar needs to learn to “get used to” without the sweet, mind-killing taste of booze. I hope it was “that creeping feeling of existential dread, that realization that nothing you do in this life matters in any meaningful way.”

Also, does this joke perhaps seem familiar to you? Well, of course it does.

Mary Worth, 5/7/09

Hey, dads out there! When your daughter has just been completely devastated — when she’s just found out that the man who made her feel emotionally complete, the one who she was ready to spend her life with, was a liar and a fraud — do you know what will make her feel better? Cupcakes! Cupcakes with pretty pink frosting! Cupcakes and your assurance that you’ll be running her love life from here on in, so she doesn’t have to worry about exercising that pesky autonomy anymore.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/7/09

“Uh, yeah, that’s right, I’m my mother’s daughter! I’m totally not some 45-year-old male dwarf she’s hired to play the part, for some reason. Now if you excuse me, I have to take care of this five o’ clock shadow.”

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Mark Trail, 5/6/09

Ha, what’s the strange taste in your mouth, Mark? Could it be betrayal? “But … Rusty is my half-neglected ward! Why would he want to go off and become the ward of these other men? Haven’t I done enough for him? I let him wander unsupervised around the forest! I got him that whiny little dog! I’ve convinced him that that toy camera I gave him has a ‘memory card’ inside! Sometimes I let him interact with other humans! Am I a bad quasi-legal guardian? Could he really prefer a man with sideburns to me?”

In the wake of Rusty’s departure, Mark will have to take a good, hard look at his other relationships, and figure out what he needs to do keep them strong. Will he agree to increase the frequency of his marital relations with Cherry to thrice annually? Stay tuned!

Pluggers, 5/6/09

Sex organs aren’t the list, as pluggers haven’t had anything to do with them — not anyone else’s, and certainly not their own, as that’s the devil’s work — for years.

Dennis the Menace, 5/6/09

As one might have expected, Dennis has made the Mitchells’ weekly three-way with their neighbor particularly awkward.