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For Better Or For Worse, 7/11/08

You know what it’s been way, way too long since we last did? A little bit of What They Say And What They Mean!

Apartment 3-G, 7/11/08

Jack may sound concerned about the possibility that riff-raff might be pillaging the Mills Gallery, but his facial expression in panel three conveys to me a certain growing sadistic glee. I predict that a certain trio of crackheads are about to be on the receiving end of a savage and righteous keying. Perhaps Jack’s inner vigilante has been frustrated for years by modern New York’s low crime rates, or, more likely, he may realize that an act of shocking violence is the quickest way into Margo’s affections.

Mark Trail, 7/11/08

One look at that second panel will show you why Kelly Welly is considered the sex symbol in this strip. Oh yeah, baby, roll that right eye a little further towards the side of your head while staring straight ahead with the left. Mmm-hmm, that’s the stuff.

Pearls Before Swine, 7/11/08

Oh, Mr. Pastis, I ignored you when you taunted Lynn Johnston. I ignored you when you tried to kill Jeffy. But Masky McDeath? Oh, well played, sir.

Gil Thorp, 7/11/08

More proof that illegal immigrants do the sort of dirty cleanup work that Americans won’t! Steve Rosen probably refused to drive in the winning run unless he got dental insurance and overtime pay. You wouldn’t have gotten that kind of lip from Elmer.

Ziggy, 7/11/08

Ha ha, Ziggy’s killed his only friend with off-brand dog food!

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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.