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Comment of the Week

I know somebody probably just woke her up but I'd be more interested in her as a character if Neddy waited until she was nice and cozy in bed because it soothes her to get Randy all agitated and that makes for a pleasant, restful sleep.

—Tabby Lavalamp
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One-panel Friday

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The Phantom, 8/24/18

So the Phantom’s daughter Heloise has been locked in a battle of wits with her father’s arch-enemy, the Nomad, and it is not going well for her! The Nomad slipped some bogus info to the TSA at the airport where he stashes his private plane to arrange this little interrogation, and I have to say that I find it both hilarious and terrifyingly plausible that some TSA guys would say, “This random guy we’ve never met tells us he’s overheard a teenage girl saying that terrorists … are good??? Set the entire country’s threat level to orange and get ready for a seven-hour interrogation!”

Six Chix, 8/24/18

I’ve noticed that several recent Six Chix strips set in a therapist’s office have included a discreet box of tissues located near the patient’s couch, which I think is a nice bit of verisimilitude. At least it’s something to cling onto here, where we otherwise have to try to figure out whether this hippo (?) is, like … hovering over the bird, or crushing it, or if they’re both on the couch, or what.

Marvin, 8/24/18

“Five! Five is exactly the right number of coffee shops for a city to have.”

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Gil wants YOU (to crack down on those pesky kids)

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Mark Trail, 8/23/18

Welp, it’s taken a while, but this Mark Trail storyline has finally settled into a groove, and that groove is mysterious, silent figures staring at our protagonists from a few feet away, causing a weirdly mild degree of consternation rather than the full-on terror that normal humans would experience. Shadow and light flicker across the scene, seemingly disconnected from any actual light source. It’s a horrifying dreamscape, in other words, and it’s only going to get more surreal and nightmarish as our curious children go deeper into this temple of awful secrets. Also, Rusty, has a new nickname, and it’s “crime dog” for some reason! Ha ha! “Crime dog!” Arf arf!

Gil Thorp, 8/23/18

“Hey, Josh,” you were probably extremely not wondering, “how’s that Gil Thorp golf plot going?” Well, the golf plot turns out to be a plot about golf cheating, which allows Gil to thunder extremely self-righteously about how golf is a sport built on honor, so that’s how it’s going, I regret to inform you. Gil seems beaten down here, longing for just a few short weeks from today, when he’ll be coaching football, a sport built openly on lies and deceit.

Pluggers, 8/23/18

Pluggers feel the icy hand of death on their neck literally every day of their rapidly shortening lives.

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Secretly sexual Wednesday

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Crankshaft, 8/22/18

I’m all for seasonally recurring gags in the comics — since I’ve moved to Southern California, one of the few signals I get that we’re transitioning from summer to fall is when the moms on Crankshaft’s bus route go into their training routine to prepare to get their children to school safely despite the district’s steadfast refusal to fire their most incompetent employee. Still, I feel like today’s strip has lost the plot a little bit? I mean, if you feel like you need to work out your anger towards some overly aggressive personal trainer (or possibly towards some middle aged lady who won’t try hard enough) in your comic, more power to you, I guess, but let’s not forget to include a little Crankshaft content in there!

Dennis the Menace, 8/22/18

Casually mentioning within Dennis’s earshot that Henry and Alice never wanted kids in the first place is one of the more menacing things Mr. Wilson has done in a while, you have to admit!

Funky Winkerbean, 8/22/18

It never took Mr. Dinkle this long to “drive all the way up the east coast,” if you know what I mean! (I mean sex. Mr. Dinkle had sex with Holly’s mom and as a lover was both generous and efficient.)