Penny and Aggie/Heartwarming

• "Hugging feels good. Children's TV taught us that. I'd forgotten."
• When Aggie gets in trouble with the principal for commandeering the P.A. system to announce her candidacy for student council president, she asks her father whether he's angry with her. Nick's affectionately ironic response: "Standing up to authority for principle, trying to reach the kids who think like you...Your mother and I are furious."
• Lisa reaching out to, and making friends with, a downcast Aggie, through the power of music-sharing.
• The title characters putting aside their rivalry to stop the bullying by Karen and her clique. A particularly powerful moment, as it came at the end of the comic's most gut-wrenching chapter up to that point, with both characters at their lowest ebb.

Penny: Ready to save the world, you post-ironic post-yuppie?

• • Also their moving from allies to genuine friends in these strips.
• Melody, in Aggie's dream: "The best part of me...is standing right beside me."
• Charlotte, finally on the road to self-acceptance and inner peace, setting Duane free with a kiss. Doubles as a Tear Jerker, given the circumstances that brought her there.

There's only one person who ever treated my existence as a net gain for the universe. God gives me strength, now. You make me ask for it... You're a good man, Duane. Go find a good girl.