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145

Are his wish-granting capabilities all sunflower-focused

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Heathcliff, 5/21/25

Real heads who read Heathcliff daily know that most weeks have a theme of some sort — “dirt week”, “garbage week”, and so forth. This week is “sunflower week,” and the way it’s unfolded is a pretty good demonstration of how the current delightfully deranged iteration of Heathcliff works. Monday’s panel was pretty normal, all things considered: Heathcliff and a baseball manager are sitting in a dugout, Heathcliff is spitting sunflower seeds the way baseball players do, there are a bunch of very tall sunflowers (normal sunflowers without human faces, mind you) growing in the dugout, taking up most of the room, and the manager says “No more chewing sunflower seeds.” You could see a version of this as a New Yorker cartoon. But things have escalated: today Heathcliff is standing in the outfield, summoning a grinning, sunglasses-wearing spirit, the so-called “Genie of the Sunflower Seeds,” from his snack packet. And it’s only Wednesday! Imagine how much weirder this could potentially get!

Mary Worth, 5/21/25

Is it, Belle? Is it cute that Wilbur is admitting, right in front of Willa, that originally he liked Stellan better, and now considers Willa his “best little buddy” only because Stellan died? Because I don’t think that’s cute at all, actually. I think it’s pretty fucked up.

The Phantom, 5/21/25

Some might criticize the continuity strips for their glacial pacing, especially strips that are supposed to be about superheroic action. But if The Phantom were fast-paced, could it afford to spend an entire strip on Kit’s erotic reverie? That’s not a tradeoff I’m willing to make!

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Saturday quickies

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Mary Worth, 5/10/25

God, I really want to hear the withering contempt Dawn is putting on the word “love” here, which is being conveyed orthographically by the quote marks. Not sure if she’s implying that the relationship is purely sexual or if instead she’s seething about Wilbur being genuinely besotted, which is obviously even more pathetic.

Heathcliff, 5/10/25

Does that make it … better? I don’t think it does. I think that when the animals are driving little cars around your supermarket and those little cars are made out of really fresh and delicious food, that’s worse, actually.

Pardon My Planet, 5/10/25

Wow, they finally made a Pardon My Planet that made me genuinely chuckle! It’s about the sex lives of courtroom furniture, obviously.

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Pride, the fall, and so forth

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Heathcliff, 5/7/25

The thing about Heathcliff is that he should be dominant in any situation in which he finds himself, either having established himself as being on top of the hierarchy or doing something that ignores other people’s dominant positions and makes them nervous. Garfield is usually dominant in his strip but sometimes this is reversed for comical effect, but I don’t think that works with Heathcliff. Heathcliff should not be “in deep” with his bookie and currying favor with him by laughing too hard at his jokes! He should be at the top of an attack parabola, ready to descend claws extended onto the face of the starting pitcher of whatever team he’s just bet against.

The Lockhorns, 5/7/25

I really respect that Leroy has absorbed just enough Harry Potter knowledge to know that witches send letters with owls but doesn’t really know or care that many witches and wizards are good guys, they aren’t the kind of comical evil crone-witches he associates with Loretta’s mother, etc. I also respect The Lockhorns for getting the U.S. Postal Service’s logo correct on this letter carrier’s bag, which is more than Blondie, a strip with a recurring mailman character, can say.

Dick Tracy, 5/7/25

The mostly empty tumbler of brown liquor on the desk in the final panel is a nice touch. “Ahh, I shan’t leave this evidence behind!” he thinks, smugly and drunkly, right before whatever electrified net contraption Sam has talked the MCU’s favorite judge into letting them use descends upon him.