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Another Sunday night, another dementedly funny comment of the week!

“I sincerely hope, but doubt, that the fine folks behind Apartment 3-G are hardcore enough to have Luann just die unspectacularly. Then Tommie would kill herself, and Margo would attend both funerals wearing a blue overcoat and a completely indifferent look. She might even boo a little.” –Tats

(This marks what I believe is an unprecedented two-week run for Tats! To prove that no favoritism is involved, I didn’t even notice that Tats had repeated until I went to update the code that puts the quote on the site. Well-played!)

And another dementedly funny list of runners up!

“Why is Dick Tracy giving a thumbs-down in panel two? Has killing the bad guy gotten so routine he now rates their deaths, and decided that Queenie diving headfirst into the exhaust pipe of a tug boat just doesn’t thrill him like it used to? Damn, Dick. Take a week or two of vacation and get your joy in the horrible demise of others back.” –smacky

“I really don’t think Jughead has anything to worry about. His bachelorhood is basically guaranteed as long as he keeps wearing that hat.” –ChefMike

“‘Rex takes his time…’ It’s the strip’s mission statement”. –PTrig

“Mark Trail: It’s like some kind of glorious triptych of deformity.” –Trilobite

“A rockslide begins with the fall of a single pebble. An avalanche starts with a sharp noise. An evening of pig sex that results in a lifetime of herpes and child support payments begins with a single peppermint schnapps. And so, with LizardBreath’s mention of Anthony, begins our delicious misery.” –willethompson

“Aw, c’mon, folks. We all knew this was coming. Liz and the ’Stache will get married right before Lynn transitions the strip to its frozen-in-time state and we’ll get to see them raise his little girl 4Eva. At least until the strip becomes about the talking dog. And we all know that every comic strip eventually becomes about a talking dog.” –mattt

“It’s a good thing that Rusty didn’t offer to take pictures yesterday when Mark and Cherry were getting their LoFo freak on. The result would have been a photographic mess with inflexible torsos and stiffly awkward limbs sticking out all over the place, sort of like if you disrobed a Barbie doll and a Ken doll and smacked them together.” –Paperback Rifler

“Actually, Cedric appears to be slamming the butlermobile into high gear as he smirks that he’s afraid of ‘growing old.’ Manual transmission, fear of loss of sexual potency, and younger women: it’s the official midlife crisis anvil.” –Jill Smith

“Several previous quotes from Michael on this site have made me think, ‘Oh, surely he didn’t say THAT.’ And then I visit the Foob site and find out he did. Gaah! Much as I fear and avoid (DT)GT, at least Clambake doesn’t write a letter every month.” –Poteet

“Check out Vexed Morgan, MD, in panel two, savoring his revenge — a dish best served cold … and sticky.” –SecretMargo

“Lovely office? Lovely? It’s two bookcases full of files with his bowling trophy and an award plaque from the association of loser Canadian CPAs and a model of a car that manufacturers give to dealers by the thousands. It’s a soul-sucking place, which is why Granthoy is so happy there. A normal human being would be drinking bourbon through a straw inside of a week.” –Professor Fate

“WANTED: Female accountant for an unbelievably expanding auto dealership chain. Must have plot device experience.” –Mibbitmaker

“I think ‘A nice girl’ and ‘We get along well’ is code for, ‘She is receptive to my unwanted, inappropriate sexual advances at work. Oh, and I told her she’d lose her job if she didn’t come with me.'” –martin

“I think we’re all forgetting the dark horse in this race: Gap-Toothed Starey ‘Hoooo!’ Guy. We all know GTSHG is the way to go. He’s personable, has a minimum of two actual friends, is jovial, and, um … thinks sex is funny? I don’t know where I was headed with this.” –Spoony Bard

“Gosh, I can’t think of anything more entertaining, more adventurous than following Mark along as he goes from office to office. Each day I wonder, ‘What will the desk look like?’ ‘Will there be any artwork on the walls?’ ‘Will I be able to spot a pencil sharpener or stapler lurking around?’ And, most importantly, ‘What sort of hairstyle and facial hair will Mark discover today?’ I’m so glad that Mark Trail is available to ‘guide’ me through the fascinating world of White Collar, White Man America.” –Laura Jane

“Lu Ann isn’t really dying; she always gets a bit panicky when she’s drowsy. Sleep is a confusing and frightening process for the terminally dense.” –Theominousoat

“This Roger Avery is making Heather look like a savvy business veteran. This idiot is planning to steal the corporation from his own stepmother and the sum total of his research on her is asking the moron driver who couldn’t even find his own car about her? And he believes every word of it? He’d have lasted about five minutes as Chairman of the Board before somebody bought his shares for a handful of magic beans.” –Dave H

“‘In the Restaurant of the Young’ — isn’t that a Raymond Carver short story? That would explain the waiter’s naked contempt, the blank walls, and the fact that the girl is a double amputee.” –Jim Anderson

And another opportunity to show some love to our advertisers:

• Bobbie Faye’s Very (very, very, very) Bad Day: This southern-fried, laugh-out-loud caper is “pure adrenaline!”
• 28 Weeks Later: The follow up to “28 Days Later” picks up 6 months after the virus has annihilated Britain. The rage virus is not dead and the fight for survival begins!

To find out more about advertising on this site, click here. You might note that the Top Spot is free for the first time in months — click here to reserve your place at the top of the left-hand nav bar! And! Also! You may not be aware of it, but you can also buy ad space at the top of the page, just under the search box, where the Google ad sits now; e-mail me for rates.

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Apartment 3-G, 5/6/07

Yesterday, we saw Lu Ann’s oxygen-starved brain conjuring up images of everyone who had singularly failed to rescue her from her sinister spectral captivity, leaving open the question: who will save her, since actually killing her off would be unthinkable? Today, we get the surprising answer: It’s Margo’s comical immigrant mother, Gabriella! There’s a certain justice to this; she’s the one who essentially told Lu Ann that ghosts were awesome in the first place, so now she’s going to have to knock down that door in her bathrobe, babbling in fake-o Spanish and wielding a fistful of protective charms from the Old Country to save our dim blonde heroine. Remember: do not rely on WASPs to fight against the forces of the Other World. Only ethnics can do so, and the Professor has become far too assimilated to help.

Slylock Fox, 5/6/07

Ah ha! Our oft-harassed beaver, previously seen being victimized by loose women in discos and harassed by humans in airports, at last has an alliterative name of his own: Brendan! He’s also upgraded his wardrobe, sporting a pimpalicious chartreuse suit with matching befeathered fedora. And of course, he’s as hilariously outraged and quick to tattle to Slylock as ever.

By the way, I know it’s almost impossible to read the solution in this graphic, but Count Weirdly is about to be hauled off for the entirely victimless crime of jamming Brendan’s TV so that it only receives the Chess Channel, and the only evidence of wrongdoing is that he’s eating his broth with a fork. Does a little eccentric behavior make you automatically guilty in Slylock Fox’s police state? The man’s name is “Weirdly,” for God’s sake; you can’t expect him to consume soup like a normal person.

I do like the vicious attack stork in the “How To Draw” feature at the bottom of the page. As for the six differences, the most prominent one that I could find is that the kid in the top panel will eventually go on to a successful career as an illustrator and graphic novelist, while the other boy will take “practical” courses in school and go on to a soul-sapping life of quiet desperation as he toils away in a job he despises.

Mary Worth, 5/6/07

If panel three demonstrates a typical battle in the war for the elder Sheilds’ love, I think Vera’s a bit to quick to blame sexism for her low state. Note that her brother is pouring the old man a tasty flute of the finest champagne, while Vera is thrusting a plate bearing two lumpy, shapeless brown things at him. Advantage: Von.

The grammatical set-up Vera uses in panel seven (“when my father’s death occurred”) is quite revealing. Usually people do that sort of thing when they’re trying to deny their own agency in the matter. She’s not explicitly lying, but she knows she won’t keep Mary on her side if she says “Years later, the situation changed when I bludgeoned my father to death.”

Funky Winkerbean, 5/6/07

Oh, Les, you cut-up! There’s nothing that helps your pedagogical strategies like a little public humiliation. We’ll all have a good laugh, at least until the inevitable HIPAA lawsuit.

Zits, 5/6/07

Desperate to extend a moment of happy camaraderie with his son but unfamiliar with the concept of the fist bump, in panel five Walt crosses a line that can never be uncrossed.

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Apartment 3-G, 5/5/07

Oh, poor Lu Ann. We all knew you were boring, but did they really have to rub your face in it with this pathetic display as your boring, boring life flashed before your eyes? For the record, here are the last faces Lu Ann will see before she casts off this mortal coil and is swept up into Albert Pinkham Ryder’s celestial art sweatshop:

• Margo, who has repeatedly failed to check up on Lu Ann when prompted due to laziness and/or self-absorption.
• Tommie, who has repeatedly failed to check up on Lu Ann when prompted due to crippling self-loathing-induced agoraphobia and/or bad cell phone reception.
• Professor Papagoras, who has repeatedly failed to check up on Lu Ann when prompted due to the fact all his time is now taken up screwing a 22-year-old.
• Lu Ann’s cousin Blaze, who hasn’t been sidetracked from checking up on Lu Ann because it never occurred to him to do so in the first place, and who also wears a stupid cowboy hat at all times.
• Lu Ann’s ex-boyfriend Alan, who had a cruel, immature freakout when he learned that Lu Ann had been engaged before he had met her, and who then gave her the keys to the evil haunted studio, and who has repeatedly failed to check up on Lu Ann when prompted due to peripatetic self-hatred. Lu Ann will miss him most of all, echoing Dorothy’s parting words to the brainless Scarecrow.

Figures not pictured in Lu Ann’s death fugue include:

• Her parents.
• Any other family members, including supposedly beloved cousin or niece or whatever Mim.
• Her beloved now deceased husband, Mr. Powers, a fighter pilot shot down over Vietnam years ago.
• Her former fiancé, what’s-his-name the billionaire janitor who went on to marry Margo’s rich client.
• FBI Pete, the boyfriend she stole from Margo, the one with the dyslexic daughter she loved so much.

In fact, Lu Ann’s dying moments have proven a remarkable ability to elide out her former relationships. I guess it will make things simpler when they all aren’t waiting for her in Dumb Girl Heaven.

Momma, 5/5/07

Good lord, but the youth of today irritate me with their twee, retro sensibilities. As if obsessing over vinyl records weren’t bad enough, now they’re all going in for antique cell phones from the mid-1980s, each one the size of a brick and sporting an eight-inch antenna. Damn kids!

Also, note to everybody: STOP THRUSTING YOUR PELVIS AT MARK TRAIL. HE DOES NOT ENJOY SEXUAL RELATIONS. HE WILL NOT RESPOND TO YOUR ADVANCES.