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Hey everyone, do you know what time it is? That’s right … it’s COMMENT OF THE WEEK TIME!

“‘I came east to help cousin Lu Ann, but I had selfish reasons too, Aristotle.’ Yikes. I just realized the guy’s name really is ‘Aristotle.’ I thought Ruby was just being sarcastic. You know, like: My life in Dallas wasn’t going so well, Einstein. I needed a change of scene, Copernicus. Maybe permanently, assface.” –SmartPeopleOnIce

And the runners-up — extra hilarious, this week.

“It occurs to me that Slylock Fox isn’t so much doing good detective work here as being the douchebag who shouts out how the magician performs his trick. ‘Count Weirdly said that his assistant had dirty ears, and pulled out a shiny quarter to prove it. Slylock suspects the quarter didn’t come from behind the assistant’s ear. How did Weirdly do it?'” –posiduck

“Dawn can seek ultimate revenge by seducing Vera’s alcoholic brother and spending his vast fortune. Or she can just walk over and throw lye in Vera’s face. It’s her call.” –Anonymous

“Prof. Aristotle comes out of hiding to take the weak member of the herd. ‘Hey, you must be feeling lonely and far from home … let me cull you.'” –Frank Parsnip

“That ‘child,’ with its grim, resigned expression and a head ringed with the same dark matter as Les’s, looks less like an adopted orphan or even the product of an ill-advised spree of sperm shopping on the part of Bull, but rather a long-lost elder sister of Les’s who’s been run through a dryer until she’s suitable to play out these two men’s forbidden, androgenetic fantasies. She looks like she’s already calculating the best time to slip outside for a smoke.” –SecretMargo

“I strongly suspect that Mr. Wilson has, on a regular but gradual basis for the past decade or so, spiked his wife’s baked goods, inevitably mooched by Dennis, with either strong sedatives or hallucinogens, or both. Thus why he’s not at all worked up about Dennis and smilingly shoos him out. George Wilson is finally master of his own fate, and if the price to pay is the neighbor kid turning into a spaced out lei-wearing stoner before he’s even 10, so be it.” –Andrew Leal

“If ever there were a couple that did not suggest a sexual attraction or emotional connection, it would be these two. And in a world populated with Garys, Alans, and whatever-the-hell-his-name-is-Margo-is-about-to-kills, the standard for this sort of thing is already pretty darn low.” –A New Day

“I hate to break it to Dawn, but in the first panel Drew’s paper has her rock beat.” –Inspector Dim

“[Drew]’s one tactical opportunity to avoid severe damage to his effeminate features is to run behind Vera and let her take the pulping while he makes a frenzied break for the car. Elsewise he may as well drop into a fetal position and shriek until help arrives, half anticipating the usual shamed look on his father’s face upon seeing his son having been pummeled by a berserk waif in a pink blouse.” –Sunny Mel Blatherscythe

“Nobody needs saving from rain and floods like aquatic waterfowl do.” –Jym

“Men and women are totally different, but their crotches look exactly the same.” –Lisa Simpson

“I think this Sunday’s MT should be on ducks. Ordinary ducks like Shirley, but with unusual and little-known facts like ‘Ducks can swim’ and ‘Ducks can have more than one nest’ and ‘There are too many damn ducks in the world already, and they’re infringing on corporate development, so kill all the ducks you see.'” –Concrete Queen

“YEAH BABY! A TECHNOLOGY JOKE! Technology’s always funny, right? I’m going to make a comic where it’s nothing but a young person saying ‘iPod’ to an older person all day. And I’ll win the hearts of millions.” –Cheeky Wee Monkeys

“Drew, on the other hand, might be in for a rough time. There’s actually some hidden potential for drama in this story, as Mary will have to decide whether her sexless ‘relationship’ with his dad should affect Drew’s punishment for the crime of Not Taking Advice. Will being Jeff’s son let Drew get out of this with nothing worse than losing both his incredibly easy co-ed girlfriend and his ponytailed office-drone inamorata and sitting through the mandatory finger-pointing parade of platitudes? Or will the silver-haired she-beast demand more from him?” –Trilobite

I should add that I have no idea which comic the next-to-last comment, about technology jokes, is referring to, but it’s really pretty much always a timely observation.

Also! Many of you have successfully purchased Bob Weber Jr.-designed Cassandra Cat items from the Comics Curmudgeon store. But do any of you look as adorable in them as the daughter of faithful reader Klipper?

“My wife and I discussed whether the Cassandra Cat onesie would be appropriate for our 10-month old daughter, Zoe. Unfortunately this was after I’d bought it. Ultimately we decided that she has no idea what she’s wearing — if she had her druthers she’d run around naked and covered in poo — and this can’t be any worse than the multitude of pink kittens and bunnies and crap that she has to wear every time we visit the relative that bought her the outfit. And if she does somehow understand it, the Cassandra logo will only influence her to become a strong woman who cuts the balls off disrespectful or otherwise predatory men … and I’m ok with that.” He adds that he also bought an Right Fist O’ Justice magnet, “suitable for all ages.”

Anyway, tons of you purchased Cassandrawear, and while surely none of you look as cute as little Zoe, you should totally send in your pictures anyway.

Finally, would a week be complete if we didn’t give didn’t give thanks to our advertisers? Definitely not!

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Mary Worth, 9/23/07

This week’s object lesson in How Not To Dump A Lady has all in all been pretty satisfying. Admittedly, it could have been much more demented, but, seeing as this is Mary Worth, we really ought to be satisfied with a big smack and some pointin’ and quotin’, and Vera angrily driving off in her tiny, tiny magenta car. And of course there’s still more to come in this plot. Maybe Drew will set the next chapter in motion by doing a little thinking as he stares mournfully after Departing Girlfriend #2: “…wait, ‘that kind of drama anymore’? Didn’t she say that all of her drama was with her brother? Hmm, dodged a bullet there, Cory…”

Apartment 3-G, 9/23/07

As Mary Worth’s drama has hit the afterburners, Apartment 3-G has uncharacteristically spun its wheels, running out the clock with stupid dates involving ancillary characters when we all know that the epic Spurned Margo Moment Of Truth is coming eventually. Presumably King Features feared that if both strips were at maximum awesome simultaneously, the comics-reading public wouldn’t be able to handle the excitement. It looks like we won’t have much longer to wait, though: as soon as she determines that one of the voices she hears is Eric’s and the other belongs to a human female, all portions of Margo’s brain will shut down except for the little red throbbing one in the corner marked “KILL”. Nora’s Majestic Noble Tears power will be no match for Margo’s Savage And Repeated Punches To The Face And Throat fighting technique.

And say, let’s check in with today’s out-of-context suggestive Rex Morgan, M.D., panel!

Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/23/07

Jesus, Rex Morgan, M.D., can’t you at least make this kind of challenging for me?

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Gil Thorp, 9/22/07

And once again, another Milford football season begins with defeat, vandalism, and desperate media spin. I may not know much about football (I went 0-3 this week in my family’s friendly betting league, setting me up to go out of the running altogether next week in some kind of all-time record for futility) but I can tell you that if the coaching staff of Valley Tech or Oakville or Generic WASPy Name High or whoever the Mudlarks are playing next week haven’t worked out that “awful quarterback + vaguely competent offensive line = working on screens and draws”, they’re probably even worse at their job than Gil, and may actually be Europeans who are confused by the odd shape of this so-called American “football”. Thus, Gil’s “off the record” comment to Marjorie (I think that’s Marjorie, right? Snoopy reporter girl? Broke the head-bashing Tyler story wide open, just like Tyler broke his head wide open?) seems particularly pointless, as it’s hard to imagine what she’d do with it, journalism-wise, other than just, you know, report it. Maybe Gil knows that by making her feel like she’s privy to insider information, she’ll remain his pliant media mouthpiece, leaving Marty Moon the only reporter who dares ask the tough questions of Milford’s althetics politburo. It can’t make that much difference in the long run, since the Milford Star, like most high school papers, probably only publishes two or three times a semester, so this interview probably won’t run until the Mudlarks are already out of the running for the playdowns.

Meanwhile, panel three is about the saddest thing you’ll ever seen in your life, as a trio of Milfordians hang their head in shame at the savage spray-painting the front of the school received. There’s nothing more humiliating than losing a football game by 10 whole points, so surely these kids are going to be way too depressed to learn anything today. I do like the fact that, if Gil’s segue is to be believed, the athletic department is responsible for cleaning the graffiti up. I can just see the janitor sneering at Coach Thorp and saying, “I’m not doing it! This never would have happened if your team wasn’t so shitty.”

Family Circus, 9/22/07

You know how sometimes a cat doesn’t seem to know whether it wants to be inside or outside? Oh, that’s always funny when that happens! So it’d be just as funny when a little kid does it, right? Of course! Well, except change “funny” to “indicative of crippling obsessive-compulsive disorder.” Poor Jeffy is hopping back and forth over the door lintel, tormented by an inner drive that he can’t really grasp, only knowing that it’ll only be OK for him to come in the house when he gets it just right. So he goes in, then out, then back in, over and over, until his little thighs get so tired that he just collapses in the doorway, and all Dolly can do is stand there with her hands on her hips and say “Mommy, I think Jeffy’s stupid.” Nice support you get from your family there, Jeffy.

Dick Tracy, 9/22/07

I have to admit that other than the horrible stub-fingered hands that are omnipresent in the strip, I really do like the art in Dick Tracy. It has a very distinct stylized aesthetic that is both unique and unmistakable; Gretchen’s crazy eyes looming menacingly over that wrapped package could appear nowhere else in the newspaper. I also think that events in the individual strips actually have a great internal rhythm. It’s only when you start contemplating the continuity as a whole that it dissolves into a sea of incomprehensible nonsense. I was sort of hoping that Gretchen and her spy flunkies would crash their helicopter directly onto the Baron, killing all four and removing any chance that any of the details of this baffling plotline would ever be clarified. Instead, we’re presumably going to get Gretchen running endlessly towards the Pentagon or whatever for three weeks, following by the bomb going off in her hands and some cryptic explanation from Detective Tracy. At least we’ll get to see someone blown to bits, which is also an event that could be portrayed nowhere else in the newspaper quite as graphically as I expect we’re going to get treated to here.

Marmaduke, 9/22/07

Having failed in all of his other attempts to stop this huge, rampaging hellhound’s reign of terror, the dogcatcher has decided to try to kill Marmaduke with lung cancer.