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Mary Worth, 7/10/08

Now that Mary’s been dumped, she’s taken off the alluring maroon one-piece belted number she was wearing as part of her seduction strategy, and changed into her lounging clothes, which apparently consist of t-shirts she scrounged from the “Lost and Found” box down at the cruise ship terminal in 1985. The shirt’s unnatural inky blackness should easily mask any butter stains as our jilted biddy eats her seafood scampi with her hands right out of the microwaveable plastic tray while standing over the sink. But will the hot pink island scene be dulled by her tears?

Cleats, 7/10/08

I don’t really talk about Cleats very often, because it resides in that netherworld of “generally not interesting enough to make fun of on my blog, but not actively offensive enough for me to go through the trouble of removing it from my Chronicle custom comics page.” This week’s strips have consisted of typical dull-ish whimsy, about a soccer ball that’s getting a little too warm after being left out on the sunny field during half time — until today, when we’re presented with the horrific image of an inanimate object somehow imbued not just with the power of thought, but also with the biological urges to eat and drink, and yet lacking any of the anatomical equipment needed to meet those needs. I can think of no crueler punishment that a sadistic creator could dish out.

Apartment 3-G, 7/10/08

Alan is turning out to be an even more delightfully incompetent drug dealer than any of us could have hoped. Over the past few weeks, he’s repeatedly violated such well-established Drug Dealer Rules as “Don’t smoke your product,” “Don’t smoke your product with your customers,” “Don’t use your straight job as a drug-dealing den,” and “Don’t let your crackhead customers hang around your straight job smoking crack when there’s a perfectly good alley out back.”

Ray, meanwhile, is showing the lethargic semi-consciousness that’s all too typical of users of depressant drugs like crack cocaine. However, even in Ray’s crack-numbed state, faithful reader Shandyowl recognizes something in the young man: himself. “I have been joking with my friends that Alan using his paycheck to buy some sort of generic non-specific narcotic is based on me and today I find that I am guesting in the strip!” Behold the uncanny resemblance:

“If only I were at home — I would have access to pictures where I am
actually wearing a yellow t-shirt, darn it!” he says.

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Ziggy and Blondie, 7/9/08

I’m not sure which of these two diner-themed comics is more unsettling. Most of the kids today are wholly unfamiliar with castor oil, except as an abstract thing that characters in classic Warner Brothers cartoon are comically terrified of having forced upon them, so let me be the first to tell you that it’s a laxative. Is “Mom” implying that her meatloaf is essentially an enormous colon plug, and that Ziggy’s GI tract thus needs to be prepared if he wants to survive the experience of eating it? Or is she just maternally handing out folk remedies that don’t meet FDA approval to total strangers, seeing as her children have cut off contact with her as a result of their emotionally-scarring diarrhea-plagued childhood?

An even more sinister possibility: in fascist Italy, paramilitaries would often force-feed castor oil to political dissidents as a means of intimidation, so it’s possible that Mom is a war criminal on the run.

Blondie is somewhat more straightforward, as amoral food addict Dagwood looks eager to devour the hashed up remains of some poor hobo.

Mary Worth, 7/9/08

See how easy it is to break up with someone when you don’t know how to feel? Dr. Jeff “Emo” Corey, take note.

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Beetle Bailey, 7/8/08

Let’s forget, for a moment, General Halftrack’s terrible problem with alcohol. Is it standard operating procedure at American military bases for the assembled troops to file by, band playing, while the commanding officer and his adjunct stare grimly down from a raised dais? This to me evokes not so much “America’s all-volunteer military” as “Moscow, circa 1982.” Actually, that does explain a lot about Halftrack’s ashen pallor, and his terrible problem with alcohol.

Luann, 7/8/08

Possible jobs for TJ that would justify his current outfit:

• Extremely natty pimp
• Nathan Detroit in dinner-theater production of Guys and Dolls

Have the DeGroots considered that Brad, who is TJ’s closest friend and who has lived with him for some time, might actually know where TJ gets his money, and that they could ask him without any embarrassment on their part? Ha ha, just kidding, we’ve watched Brad’s attempts at romance over the past couple of years, he obviously knows nothing about anything.

Marmaduke, 7/8/08

“And the way he expresses his dislike for things is with massive amounts of excrement, so you’d better brace yourself.”

Sally Forth, 7/8/08

Hmm, perhaps Alice needs to wait a bit before telling Sally about the hidden cameras. Or about SeeTedInseminateSally.com.