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Once again, picking a comment of the week was really tough this week, and while I couldn’t resist another opportunity to link to that ludicrous bear picture, I wanted to acknowledge some quotes that had me guffawing over the past few days.

“I’d like to see a ‘plugger’s wife’ defending her cubs by mauling some extras from Mark Trail. Now that would be comedy. ‘You know you’re a plugger when … your wife completely dismembers random passers-by who get too close to the kids!’ On second thought, that’s not quite depressing enough for a Pluggers panel.” — Darth Paradox

“What was the idea submitted for today’s TDIET? ‘People with cell phones are annoying’? I’m going to send one in re: sometimes people get in the grocery store express check-out with more then 15 items. That ought to rock his world.” –Summerhouse

“But this, of course, is A3G, where the unending theme is the impossibility of happiness, even fleetingly.” –Craigers

“When you die and go to your judgment, and are let into heaven not because you did good, but because a paranoid conscience was your iron master, then you spent your life in Apartment 3-G.” –tefflan

“Is it possible for three people to say something in unison … anything at all … and have it not be laugh-out-loud funny? Imagine the three most serious and important people you can. Say, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Henry David Thoreau, and Nelson Mandela. And they all look at you and say, together… YOU BETTER NOT! I have to admit, I’d laugh. A lot.” –Edward

“‘Devil, What do you think?’ Um, I THINK I’M A FREAKING DOG, Ghost-who-apparently-isn’t-the-brains-in-this-operation. And if it were up to me, we’d be back on the dock, warm and dry with snausages all around.” –SmartPeopleOnIce

“Anthony has got to be either gay, or a Methodist youth minister, or both.” –CBrachyrhynchos

“Here’s an informal challenge: Find me a Pluggers strip that can’t be captioned, ‘You’re a plugger if your abject poverty is slowly destroying your body and sapping your very will to live.'” –Christopher

“I hate Spider-Man with all the hatred I can muster, and that’s a lot.” –bootsybooks

“I feel very strongly that Blondie would have appealed to a younger demographic if, instead of ‘pro-pimiento,’ the phrase ‘pimiento-pimping’ had been used.” –saint ruby

On Ian and Toby Cameron’s sex life: “I see her sprawled naked across the bed like a swastika and him upright on the Persian rug beside it so that he can have sex in his most comfortable position: standing and lecturing.” –Dingo

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Apartment 3-G, 9/18/06

OK, look at the swivel lines in panel three, and compare to Margo’s head position in panel two. Either Margo briefly looked away from Lu Ann, then swung her head back to look at her in a classic doubletake that I feel very cheated for being denied (maybe she indignantly sprayed her coffee across the room at the same time?) or her head has spun completely around on its axis, Exorcist-style. Hell hath no fury like a Hat Man lover scorned!

Also: a stripey purple V-neck under a mauve vest is “dressing up” now? I sure didn’t get that memo.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 9/18/06

I love the fact that the patented TDIET-style outrage is being wielded entirely on the side of the couple who shuns personal interaction in favor of the warm, numbing glow of the television set. “Didjaevernotice: People invite you over to spend some quality time with ya … and insist on talking to you while the TV is on! Wha-a-a-a?”

Popeye, 9/18/06

I know I don’t talk about Popeye very much, but you should be kept appraised of the fact that it’s completely demented. There’s been this long, meandering “generation gap” storyline involving Sweetpea insisting that adults don’t understand him (don’t trust anyone over seven, man!), which, other than the fact that Sweetpea can apparently talk, didn’t faze me too much. But then he ran away from home, and Popeye was disconsolate, and Olive Oyl made a fake Sweetpea doll too fool Popeye and it worked. Today’s deranged strip pretty much speaks for itself in terms of how far around the bend this feature has gone, sort of the way a crazy homeless guy who’s constantly raving about OJ and the CIA and killer monkeys speaks for himself.

Hi and Lois, 9/18/06

My wife says that the joke here is that the baby doesn’t understand irony, but I don’t think that’s possible, because Hi and Lois doesn’t understand irony either.

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No complete strip really grabbed my attention Sunday, so for a change of pace, I thought I’d get up close and personal with three individual panels:

Panel from Curtis, 9/17/06

I’m pretty sure that Dr. Horsehead is almost always referred to as “the evil Dr. Horsehead” in the Curtis comic-within-a-comic, but the relative harmlessness of his crime here gives good reason for leaving the epithet off for once. If he keeps this up, he’ll be downgraded to “that mischievous Dr. Horsehead.”

Panel from Mary Worth, 9/17/06

Of course, we all love this panel because it indicates that Aldomania 2006 is far from over, and could even roar drunkenly into 2007. It also contains what might perhaps be a subtle shout-out to this site (commentators long ago proclaimed Bombay Sapphire the official liquor of the Comics College of Cardinals) and a pair of stalker-stalking, cell-phone-toting busybodies (“Like, oh my GOD, he’s going into the LIQUOR STORE!”). But what I like best about it is the subtle hunch in Aldo’s shoulders. He knows he’s walking into that booze dispensary a broken man.

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 9/17/06

There could be worse omens for your marriage than you having to forcibly remind yourself of your estranged wife’s name in your thought balloon. You could be thinking “Or hopelessly in love with my wife, what’s-her-name.”