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Judger Parker, 5/4/19

I’m trying to remember exactly to what degree Sam and/or Abbey’s fingerprints would be on any aspect of the Great Norton Caper (in which, just to remind you, Judge Parker Emeritus helped April’s dad fake his death) that’s about to be revealed in a tell-all book, and honestly? I’m not sure that there are any! Which is great — for Sam. He can just quietly hang up the phone and then go back to planning how to charge the rubes $250 a night on AirBnB to stay in Marie’s old servant’s hovel ($175 if they just want to sleep in the horse barn), and start practicing saying “Judge Parker? Judge Parker? Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Mark Trail, 5/4/19

God bless Mark Trail for dedicating an entire day’s strip for establishing how theatrically sleepy all its characters are! The only one missing is JJ. I certainly hope come Monday he gets a whole strip to himself to stretch ostentatiously.

Gil Thorp, 5/4/19

Not gonna lie, folks: I personally relate to few people in the comics more than the guy in panel one, who tried to come up with something complimentary to say to a pretty, popular girl on the softball team and ended up blurting out “Way to … mash … the ball” as he awkwardly high-fives her in the hallway. He’s gonna be thinking about that for years to come.

Hi and Lois, 5/4/19

Hi, she’s … she’s right there, man

I’m pretty sure she can hear you

Not cool

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Hello, joke-enjoying humans! Would you like to see me and many other funny people tell jokes about the Internet one week from today, as is our wont? Well come to the Clubhouse in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California, and all your needs will be met!

And now: your comment of the week!

“All the clues are there. Dan’l, as in biblical Daniel — whom only God judges — is gone, presumably to his judgement. Much like Snuffy’s midnight trek to the mill, sleepwalking leads poor Amina to her near death at a mill in Bellini’s La sonnambula. And when pressed, Snuffy drops the Ace of Spades, the death-card. Yes, Snuff and his card-playing friends have been dead from the start. Truly M. Night Shyamalan’s The Snuff Sense rewards repeat viewing.” –Voshkod

And the hilarious runners up!

“No, Mary, Love Is a comic strip about two naked people. That’s what I want for me and Arthur. I’m sending him that money right now. Thanks, Mary, you’re the greatest.” –Zerowolf

“If you ignore the text in the balloons (you really should), it looks like like Snuffy was facing the difficult choice between starving and eating his dog, but then suddenly decided that he and his dog could eat his wife.” –Ettore

“Like most men who retire before their wives, Alan is visibly disturbed by the prospect of having an on-site supervisor once again. Mark my words: this will lead to nothing but madness, despair, and the completion of house projects.” –pastordan

“As much as I enjoy the ‘sit in a rocking chair in the corner’ punishment trope, I am entirely fixated on whether, at the Gina Ethnicstereotype-o home each morning, after a bracing breakfast of pasta fagioli, the discussion goes, ‘Gina! Don’t forget your headscarf!’ or ‘Ma! Have you seen my headscarf?!’” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“So did Doc dress as a mountie for any particular reason, or is this just part of his fun slide into dementia?” –pugfuggly

“Another theory: Dennis isn’t on timeout. His new thing when friends come over is to just sit in a rocking chair and spout cliches with a look of contempt on his face. Like when Joey comes over tomorrow, Dennis will just glare at him and say, ‘Power corrupts … absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ Pretty menacing, I’ll give ya that!” –Jenna

“Let’s not screw it up! I’m going to show you one more time, slowly and deliberately, how to do the Charleston!” –Ned Ryerson

“I think if the blond-haired guy had just said, ‘You’re welcome,’ this unpleasantness could have been avoided. But, no, he decided to make a flowery little speech about meaningful interactions. He brought this on himself.” –Joe Blevins

“So if Arthur is such a successful scammer, why does he live in such cartoonishly exaggerated squalor? Because that’s no ordinary squalor. It’s meticulously curated dilapidation, the latest fashion trend, for which well-heeled hipsters are paying big bucks to squalor-lifestyle designers and personal dilapidation coaches.” –Peanut Gallery

“You want to make Six Chix even more horrific? Think about why Gargamel would want to eat the smurfs. It’s got be because they’re an aphrodisiac, right? I mean, it can’t possibly be because he likes their taste, since he’s never successfully captured a smurf. There’s about to be three horny campers in the comic strip, is what I’m saying.” –Thelonious_Nick

“What’s up with Snuffy’s infant-sized head? Everybody else in Hootin’ Holler appears to have a normal, if sometimes lumpy, head. Snuffy’s is small and round. Is he the human equivalent of a Pug dog?” –Lothar of the Hill People

“Dying is merely the gateway to another level of existence, according to the 1970s mystical novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which, if that isn’t the birds’ Bible, I don’t know what is. Frankly, I can imagine the Shoe characters in someone’s pad, drinking Scotch and gathering around a hi-fi playing songs from the movie version’s soundtrack, which were written and sung by Neil Diamond. And if Neil Diamond isn’t the Shoe characters’ troubadour, I don’t know who is.” –BigTed

“Roz, her eyes always half-closed in a dismissive state of perpetual ennui that can only be achieved when life has beaten you down and you work almost non-stop in a dead end job where you see some things, wonders why anyone would want to try and avoid the sweet embrace of death.” –Dread

“That withering look! That gun placed close at hand! Alberto Famoni’s second wife: ‘You’ll drop that i from your name, or I’ll shoot it off! Capisce?’” –The Mighty Untrained FOOZLE

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Shoe, 5/3/19

Here’s a question that I genuinely don’t know the answer to, and I ask with no particular malice: do you think Shoe strips like this, which consist entirely of two characters in a well-established Shoe locale talking to each other in vaguely joke-like ways, are drawn to order? Or are there like tons of templates on file where an intern at the Brookins-MacNelly Foundation For Laffs can match up the number of word balloons with the joke assigned for the day and just let ‘er rip? This is, again, not meant to be a criticism of the latter strategy — it’s the only logical and efficient way to approach it, after all. But I’m asking because in today’s trip, there seems to be even less of a connection between the joke and the visuals than usual. In panel two in particular, Roz and her customer are narrowing their eyes and leaning towards each other, almost as if they’re about to launch into a physical fight, which would definitely be more interesting than a “death and taxes” gag.

Dick Tracy, 5/3/19

Anyone who’s ever read a single entry on this blog knows that I can very easily achieve a state of “Oh no, I thought too much about this thing that hate and now I accidentally love it,” and this insanely wordy Minit Mystery is now one of those things. I still refuse to attempt to “solve” the mystery or even get a firm grasp of what the hell is happening, but am I going to lie back and enjoy the sensation of letting this tsunami of backstory wash over me. This plot has it all! Authors Pat Culhane and Austin Black! Suburban slashers! Farm gals who are racist against Italians but marry Italians anyway! Can’t wait to sort of understand whatever happens next!