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So here I am, a week from my last post, desperately trying to stave off a comment-based insurrection. Not by actually putting up a new comic or anything, but still. J-to-the-osh is behind, is casting aside the old comics as he takes the recycling out, and will be back with new stuff tomorrow. Typical excuses: busy with the cursed work and social life that molds my trenchant wit and yet keeps me from my muse. Curses! Meanwhile, I hope the new comment of the week is some small consolation to you all.

Oh yeah, and one other thing: in order to stave off comment spam, my ISP has put some kind of tougher server-side controls in. That means that some comments, for reasons I’m not quite clear on, are going into a comment queue that I have to moderate. If this happens to your comment, do not panic: I will do what I have to do to get it on the site in short order. In particular, do not attempt to post the same comment, like, a kajillion times.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/4/05

You people are all so clever and quick about this sort of thing that I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned this.

Buck’s real name is Charles.

Charles can be shortened to Chuck.

Who can unkempt pseudointellectual humanities students impress with their unkept pseudointellectuality more than high school girls? And what better way to avoid one’s paternal responsibilities than to sleep in the back yard of kindly local medicos, suturing up one’s own hand and muttering about lost Indian tribes?

As for the savage beating — I think Fence Post Frank is an innocent man. As if we needed any more proof, the evidence is now clear: don’t piss off Margo.

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The Phantom, 5/3/05

So it turns out that the Phantom is not going to defeat his enemies by shooting them in the back of the head. Instead, much more humanely, he’s going to avail himself of non-FDA-approved “Bandar medicine” to brainwash them, leaving them with shattered Manchurian Candidate-style psyches and glimpsed half-memories for the rest of their miserable lives.

The men at least are lucky: they’re just going to be dragged off to a filthy hut somewhere, be injected with the essence of God knows what quasipoisonous tropical root, and have their minds cleansed in a quick and business-like fashion. Mina, however, seems destined to first be brought (blindfolded, natch) into the Phantom’s waterfall-shrouded Love Cavern. Trust the Ghost-Who-Puts-The-Moves-On: no one will be harmed, but someone might have to listen to R. Kelly’s Chocolate Factory and deal with some scented candles.

A new artistic team recently took over The Phantom, and it’s good to see that they’re sticking to the strip’s proud tradition of baffling punctuation marks. Most people would have been satisfied with some wacky onomatopoetic noises in panel three, but I like the fact that they’ve rendered Sputt! as an exclamation, but Blubb!? as a question. “Blubb!?” Yes, Mina: blubb.