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Judge Parker, 5/3/24

Hey, guys, remember Pavel, a Russian crime boss and the first interesting new character Judge Parker introduced in years? In the old days of the strip, after threatening some ultra violence against our heroes for a few weeks, he would’ve quickly become their friends, but in the year 2024, he instead died when April’s mom suicide-bombed him. But the good news is now we can have plenty of strips where Randy and April can “just be together,” day after day of them sitting together on the couch and being their boring-ass selves, can’t wait.

Mary Worth, 5/3/24

Fellas, if you’re ever in a scenario where you’re supposed to pay for something but don’t have the money, just ostentatiously turn your pockets inside out like this! It’s a delightful bit and everyone loves it, so it’ll really cut the tension. If you can arrange for some moths to fly out, all the better, but that’s not strictly necessary.

Gasoline Alley, 5/3/24

“Really, Rufus, nobody in this strip ‘passes’! Why, you and I have been in this strip for at least fifty years and are no closer to death’s sweet release! We’re here forever. Forever!” [echoing, sinister laughter]

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Mary Worth, 4/14/24

Are you feeling down, my friends? Depressed? Abandoned? Do you worry that nobody loves you, simply because, in many ways both large and small, you have with your own actions made yourself unloveable? Well, just think about this: maybe someday you’ll rudely bump into a child because you’re deep in your own internal pity party and not watching where you’re walking, and in doing so save that child’s life. Wow! Really makes you think! Or, it would make you think if you even notice that it happens, which you won’t, because you are, and I can’t emphasize this enough, incredibly self-absorbed.

Judge Parker, 4/14/24

Look, I wish no ill upon Judge Parker. I hope it continues to grace the funny pages, both physical and virtual, for years to come. But I will say that, if any comic strip, soap opera or otherwise, decided to wrap things up, there are a lot worse ways to write the final chapter than a rogue CIA agent preparing all the other characters for a murder-suicide pact.

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Gasoline Alley, 4/10/24

You know, after all these years, I still experience the joy of discovery from reading the newspaper comics. Or, well, at least sometimes I read something like today’s Gasoline Alley, sigh heavily, and then Google “gasoline alley family tree” in hopes of making sense of it, but then am just a little bit charmed when I find a graphic like this:

That comes from a page on Hobbylark dot com that also includes an annotated timeline of important events in the strip lore, such as “Wilmer admits to being a sap, a wart, and a drip, but claims the Army did a job on him!” (November 20, 1945), “Corky and Hope move into a new apartment – landlord is Pert!” (May 6, 1954), and “Melba decides to take advantage of leap year to move Rufus along towards a wedding” (July 5, 1976, and yet somehow Melba is now the mayor and still hasn’t sealed the deal). Anyway, from this documentation I have confirmed that Sheezix and Corky are brothers, and Corky runs the diner (in fact, according to that timeline, 1950 was the “year of the Diner”). And because Corky has decided to embrace the town name change, that means that the coming Gasoline Alley vs. Electric Acres civil war will literally pit brother against brother, so I guess I’m finally coming around to being interested in it.

Judge Parker, 4/10/24

“He’s going to kill your mother, April. Then he’s going to kill you! The he goes after Charlotte, your daughter! It never ends! He’ll just keep going after you or your female relatives! Your male relatives will be fine! Certainly any of your relatives who happen to be the title character in the strip are safe! But it’s the principle of the thing!”

Hi and Lois, 4/10/24

Big news, everyone! Trixie seems to have grasped the concept of the linear flow of time! Also, Hi and Lois did a strip without a joke, but I guess that’s not “big news” per se.