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Gasoline Alley, 4/12/24

It’s not news exactly that conflict is the engine of good stories, but I have to say that Gasoline Alley feels like it’s rediscovering this for the first time in years. When it was just Walt and Sheezix on a quixotic quest to stop Electric Acres from happening? Snoozeville. But now that I know it’s turning brother against brother, and fiancé against fianceée? This is it. I’m all in. I hope it devolves very quickly into graphic and gratuitous violence, while Walt wanders around shouting “What’d you say? What’d she say?” until a hurled piece of debris finally puts him out of his misery. It’ll be the sort of thing where Rod Serling steps out of the shadows and explains that this world may be more like ours than we care to admit, until he too is killed in mid-sentence by a hurled piece of debris.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/12/24

And yeah, sure, that sounds like it would be a lot to process, emotionally, but don’t worry, if the anxiety gets too much you can always turn to Rex Morgan, M.D., which just started a storyline about little kids making brownies. It will be extremely uneventful and last six to fifteen weeks.

Mark Trail, 4/12/24

I don’t know, this doesn’t seem like it requires some kind of big investigation. Horses are big and pretty off-putting — they run fast, they have razor-sharp feet, their teeth are real nightmarish if you look too closely at them, and so forth. They’re nice to watch run around, I admit, but I don’t trust them, so why would I want them near my company? And why would it be bad to ask the Bureau of Land Management to help clear them out? The horses are on the dang land that they’re supposed to manage! What do I pay taxes for?

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Hagar the Horrible, 4/7/24

Hagar has pelted this prophetic orb into the Duke’s castle and it has thoroughly demoralized the defenders by showing them their inevitable defeat — but that defeat will only occur because the vision it offers them of the future has caused them to give up all hope! This is proof that, despite being illiterate and unable to read a simple blueprint, Hagar’s deep connection to Norse mysticism makes him a formidable thinker and master of uncanny strategies of war.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/7/24

I’m sorry, did you find this story about the Count’s mobility issues boring? Well, you’re in the minority. A lot of people want to hear about his walking boot! It says so right there in the strip!

Rhymes With Orange, 4/7/24

Good news! Every time you create a snowman, it’s imbued with a soul! Bad news: the snowmen suffer and die every spring as they melt. But, good news: Their souls are instantly transported to paradise upon their death! The question of whether you will be judged when your own death comes for setting in motion this cycle of suffering and redemption every winter is left as a theological exercise for the reader.

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Mary Worth, 3/25/24

Big news, everybody. They did it. They dragged out the Keith storyline and then the Mary and Jeff go on a date transition for so long that here we are at the beginning of a Weston storyline and I’m ready to throw a celebratory party. Maybe it’s just the end of the suffering talking, but I’m actually pretty intrigued that we’re going to get some details on Dawn’s mom! Remember, at least in Wilbur’s feverish memory, she’s an icy Hitchockian blonde obsessed with advancing in high society:

Panel from Mary Worth, 8/4/22

You can check out this post for an in-depth dive into Wilbur’s early ’90s introduction in the strip, when he washed up on the shores of Charterstone as a refugee after being voted out of the house by both his ex and his daughter; but then Dawn discovered that sometimes those who implement a purge during a revolution find themselves similarly purged in a later phase, and she too landed in California. What’s been going on since? What terrible revelations does her mother have to tell her about Wilbur … or about herself? I for one am unreasonably excited to find out!

Gil Thorp, 3/25/24

One thing I don’t feel like I need to know about is Gil’s son’s elite hacking skills. That’s really none of my business and I think it would be very funny if this never gets any follow up, or at least none until the syndicate finally greenlights the Jami Thorp: Cybercriminal spin-off strip.

Alice, 3/25/24

Ahh, first Alice (I will be referring to this woman as “Alice” until proven wrong about it) had to shield her niece and nephews from the horror of alien invasion, and today she learns that she suffers from an awful affliction where she cannot retain memories of happy times, only suffering. Is this strip just a tale of nightmares that never cease?

Daddy Daze, 3/25/24

I like that the opening panel here assures us that the Daddy Daze daddy did indeed take a bite out of this pizza before giving it to his son. I mean, this man is clearly insane, creating an elaborate world where his pre-verbal infant communicates entirely in a series of “ba”s, so it’s totally possible that he lives in a decaying Grey Gardens-style home that is in fact infested with very large mice.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/25/24

Sure, I’ve griped some about this Rex Morgan storyline, but if it ends with this 99-year-old cowboy showing the Count his high-tech mechanical dick, I’m willing to forgive a lot.