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Hey kids! I’ve frequently gotten requests to link the comments of the week to the strip they refer to, so as to provide a richer context for their snark. I’ve done so this week, at least for those that referred to strips I have on my site, and hope to do so in the future, providing it doesn’t turn into an enormous pain in the ass. Anyway, here’s this week’s to comment:

“‘Curious Conclusions’ sounds like the kind of board game Mary Worth would play on a Saturday night with a few friends, a mug of cocoa, and some good old-fashioned apple crumble. The loser, of course, would be immolated.” –Tats

And the hilarious runners-up:

“Dear Amazing Spider-Man ghost-writer and artist: You know what would make it a lot easier for me to believe that the setting is ‘night — in the shadow of the Los Angeles Coliseum’? If it were actually night-time in the picture. Or if the Coliseum cast a shadow, for that matter.” –GG

“Amazing how Liz manages to regress at an alarming rate, while simultaneously Ellie-aging in her appearance. By September, she’ll look to all the world like a 120-year-old wrinkled, bed-ridden crone, but she’ll really be, in fact, a fetus verging on embryo status. And then the abortion and euthanasia debates will really intersect!” –Mibbitmaker

“The level of detail in Slylock Fox is both astonishing and completely pointless. If the purpose of comic art is to tell a story, the story here is one of ritalin. Not enough ritalin.” –Proteus

“I love Ted bluing out in that panel. It’s like Ted is Patrick Swayze, and he’s finally walking into the light as Sally Forth, tears in her eyes, whispers ‘Ditto,’ and then drops her eyes back down into that half-lidded smirk I hate so goddamn much.” –jake!

“Note the frisson between Max Mouse and Tiffany Fox, their eyes locked in mutual fascination. (‘How does one go down a one-way street without breaking the law?’ Max asks suggestively, his meaning barely coded.)” –Old Bean

“I can’t wait until the end of this thrilling ‘bird-strike’ plot line when Mark punches out a 767.” –reader-who-posts

“Mary Worth has been at basically the same pace as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, she talked to a guy by the pool for two years.” –Yitzchok

“Margo didn’t try. There, I said it.” –Montag

“And in the department of unreasonable expectations, my leg is bigger than Cherry’s waist. She must have sold her internal organs on the black market.” –fizzy logic

“You can tell their love is unpure and evil since the little hearts above their heads are black. Which kind of goes without saying since this is Marvin, which itself is little more than a montage of the unholy and repugnant.” –Potato

“I was just looking at Jughead, and thinking about how I always think he’s going to grow up to be Dagwood. Then I thought how maybe he’s going to grow up to be the Joker. Either way, these are the best years of his life.” –Phil

“Honestly, how many people did ‘Snuffy’ Smith have to kill to earn that name?” –Harold

“That’s some smooth pillow talk [Darrin]’s got there. Apart from the fact that it’s so indirect it takes a flow chart to figure out what he means, I like the way it manages to work fraudulent medical research, obesity and heart disease into the act of telling someone she’s hot.” –Albtraum

“After reading the 4/26 Apartment 3-G, I realized I loved Margo. I love her for doing all that my id desires and all that my superego thwarts. She’s a finger-quoting, Tommie-bashing, and probably embezzling marvel, since these balloon and streamer galas suggests some money is being pocketed somewhere.” –MsChicken

“I wish the Dennis the Menace artist would put as much time into Dennis’ poor hands (typically rendered as flippers) as he does into Mr. Wilson’s ear. It’s like, of course Dennis is menacing, he’s fuckin’ part dolphin.” –RaJ

“FW: ‘Now why wouldn’t I think you’re sexy, when you look exactly like me but with long hair?’” –Squawk

“Is it possible for someone with facial hair in Mark Trail to NOT make everything sound sinister? Replacing an old, obsolete building with a new one is pretty sensible, but it reads like they’re going to toss newborn babies into jet engines.” –Citric

“400 years / 20 Phantoms = 20-year crime-fighting careers. What do the old Phantoms do during their 30-year retirement? Design pants, perhaps?” –Dean Booth

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Beetle Bailey, 4/29/07

The last four panels of this strip make up one of the saddest and most poignant little vignettes of homoerotic longing you’ll ever see. Denied their one outlet of physical contact, Beetle and Sarge take a long, wordless walk away from the base that defines their lives, through the countryside, through an enormous ice field in the middle of the city, and finally to some incredibly starry place of refuge. C’mon, guys, you’re miles away from anyone. You can at least let your hands touch.

Family Circus, 4/29/07

I am an unapologetically misanthropic bastard, but even I’m not such a sneering, above-it-all crank that I will hate on this cartoon. I will state now and for the record that I am and always have been pro-hugging. However, I do question the “silent performance” selling point of hugs that I’ve highlighted for you above. Is the fact that hugs are relatively quiet really one of their advantages over other forms of affection? Is their silence to be understood as their differentiator from loud, sloppy tongue kissing or boisterous slaps on the back? What if you and your intended hugging target are wearing raincoats, or pleather clothing, resulting in hugs that are squeaky? I’m all for hugs, but I’m just not sold on this angle, is what I’m saying.

Judge Parker, 4/29/07

Cedric is being remarkably blasé about the fact that his wife is a crazy crazy stalking lady, and whoever the word balloon on the right is coming from is way too ready to file her away under “good stalker,” but this cartoon is eight kinds of awesome for Neddy’s “Uh.. define insanely!” line. “Holy cow … I just got here” is a good runner up. “I mean, I was planning on cutting a swath through every married domestic in the Île-de-France région, but 48 hours a little fast even for me.”

Doodles by Mac and Sack, 4/29/07

I’m not going to get into the fact that this stupid damn koala (who is apparently named “Bosco” for some reason) has gotten himself tangled up in yet another larger, meaner beast’s digestive tract, or that, I wouldn’t have chosen Benedict Arnold as an archetypical liar (though I admit that his traitorous behavior probably involved a certain degree of dissimulation), or that what the Lying Lion is doing looks less like lying and more like smugly contemplating how exactly he’s going to prepare Bosco — in a nice white wine reduction sauce, perhaps — before devouring him. No, I want to point out, with disgust and disdain, the “what’s missing” panel, which I won’t even dignify with the name “puzzle.” Hmm, I wonder what’s wrong with this lion? Right number of toes … full, lustrous mane … two eyes … a tail … nope, I’m not seeing it.

Mark Trail, 4/29/07

God, first birds, now frogs. Sunday Mark Trails are a never-ending stream of filthy animal porn. I like to imagine that the formulation “a little romancing” was the end result of lengthy Pibgorn-style battle with the editors over acceptable content.

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Family Circus, 4/28/07

I wasn’t aware that there was some Papally proscribed prayer posture, with more knees denoting more Christian sincerity. I’m also not sure how Dolly can tell Jeffy’s only doing half an Ave Maria if he’s still in the midst of it — is he only doing every other word or something? If he is treating his faith a little lightly, maybe it’s because he just found out that the Vatican has done away with Limbo and that little children can now make it into heaven without being baptized, so why’s he jumping through a bunch of hoops like a sucker?

By the way, Dolly, not even Jesus likes a tattletale.

Apartment 3-G, 4/28/07

For “this city,” read “cocaine.” And for “somewhere,” read “towards my connection.” There are good reasons why Alan moved away from New York, and not just so he could wear a baby blue V-neck sweater over a black mock turtleneck without being snickered at.

Mark Trail, 4/28/07

Wait, are these the county commissioners who were involved somehow in last year’s epically boring road demolition/eminent domain/casino scam snoozefest? I’m sort of curious, but not so curious that I’m going to wade through my archives and relive the dullness to find out. Mainly what I want to say is that, if your county is too cheap to spring for separate offices for each of its commissioners, it probably can’t afford even a single airport, let alone two.

Pluggers, 4/28/07

I’m beginning to figure out one of Pluggers‘ more devious strategies. Since this feature drives any right-thinking person into an insane, hateful rage, it needs to keep broadening the definition of “plugger” so that just about anybody can be seen as one, thus shaming readers into believing that they too are pluggers and staving off anti-plugger pogroms. Today, for instance, we learn that virtually all men and probably a significant number of women are pluggers. God have mercy on our simple, down-home souls.