Blondie: Look! I finished my Christmas list!

If there's a question mark next to someone's name, you haven't actually finished your Christmas list. So this set-up really doesn't make any sense. What's weirder is that it's entirely superfluous. It's not as the comic needed begin with, "Look! I finished my Christmas list!" It could just as easily have begun with, "I'm not sure what to get you." And yet.

Marmaduke: He got some sort of stimulus package.

This cartoon is hilarious because it mentions the phrase "stimulus package," but the usage of the phrase within the context of the cartoon is entirely inexplicable. Are we to take it to mean that Marmaduke has received money from the federal government? If so, for what? And why is what I presume to be a check arriving in a large box? Or is it just a regular package that Phil is humorously labeling a "stimulus package"? Or is it euphemism for some sort of bizarre animal sex toy?

Really, the moral of this cartoon is that Marmaduke should never go topical, as doing so inevitably ends in disaster.

Red and Rover: No, it's ARF-ARF-WOOF-ARF-WOOF-WOOF-ARF-ARF.

Far be it for me to question the fevered delusions of a young boy's mind, but if Rover can form words, shouldn't he also be able to form the letters from which those words are formed?

Off the Mark and In the Bleachers: I just don't know if I can get used to a Dustbuster!

These cartoons annoy me for slightly different reasons.

Off the Mark annoys me because, while its premise--the proliferation of green technology among witches--has potential, it falls apart in the follow-through when it ceases to make any sense. A broom would be greener than a Dustbuster, after all.

Meanwhile, In the Bleachers annoys me because it seems to have betrayed the entire concept of the cartoon. Unless being a knight has randomly become a sport, that is.

Mark Trail: I doubt that they wanted to kill him...he wouldn't be any good to them dead!

I'm sure he's right, because the outcomes in Lost Forest are just ever so slightly rigged in his favor, but I'm curious as to how Mark can be so certain that the shooter didn't want to kill CEO lady's brother. Wouldn't killing the doofus prevent him from telling anybody about the details of their illegal activities?

As to Mark's claim that "the shooter could very easily have killed him if he wanted to," this seems unlikely and overly modest. After all, Mark was standing right there. The shooter may have managed to get one shot by him, but there was no way he was going to get another one off without Mark catching the bullet in his hand and throwing it back at the shooter with such force and accuracy that the shooter would stand no chance of surviving.

The Phantom: A criminal stops to help an injured motorist? No way!

Because, of course, Bad People like criminals are incapable of even occasionally doing good things, just as Good People are incapable of ever doing bad things.

Shoe: What is the best thing about your mortuary business?

This is a very old joke, but it doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense. While the dead may not be able to complain, the relatives of the dead surely can.

Rubes, Close to Home and Strange Brew: Internal logic in single-panel cartoons.

While single-panel cartoons tend to work by accentuating the absurd, it is nevertheless necessary for them to have a certain internal logic. Take Sunday's Rubes, for example. The premise of the cartoon is the old adage that a man's home is his castle. Taken to absurd literalness, it makes perfect sense within the world of the comic that homes would therefore come under siege from Hagar the Horrible like raiders. It's ridiculous, but the joke flows naturally from the premise.

Yesterday's Close to Home, on the other hand, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The premise is that it's easy to vacuum up toys. The joke is that this particular mother has a hung a sign up on her wall indicating what noises various toys make when they get vacuumed up. But it's not at all clear just why she would hang up such a sign. What use is it, after all, to know the noises various toys make when they get vacuumed up?

The logic in today's Strange Brew is even worse. The premise is the idea of keeping an eye on something. The joke is that the characters in the cartoon are eyes. But that makes no sense at all. If, after all, you were an eye, you wouldn't have an eye. So you wouldn't be able to keep your eye on anything. I suppose you could keep yourself on something, but that doesn't sound right. And so the cartoon isn't so much amusing as it is perplexing and stupid.