Life is very long when you’re Blondie
Post Content
Blondie, 9/13/25
Blondie began in 1930, in a world now mostly alien to us, but it was originally a story about urban hipsters: a young woman who the artists imbued with every characteristic of trendy youth culture, and her beau, the slumming, dissolute scion of a wealthy family. You could see a scenario where the strip tried to stay true to those origins while updating to match the changing cultural specifics over the ensuing century. But that’s not how things actually work: instead, a strip’s readership ages and wants something different, and their creators age alongside them. That’s why Blondie in the year 2025 is your go-to for the pettiest boomer gripes about everyday suburban life imaginable, put into the mouths of characters who have completely forgotten that alien world and in their current form have never been cool a day in their lives.
Judge Parker, 9/13/25
Meanwhile, in Judge Parker, Neddy, who was never cool even when she was living in Los Angeles and trying to break into the entertainment industry, has returned home in failure and shame. Abbey has tried to soften the blow by turning their dining room into a simulacrum of a fast food restaurant so Neddy doesn’t feel trapped and isolated on the Spencer Farms compound, but the staff has been unable to reproduce the crispy-edged “smashburger” form so popular in LA, and Neddy is not having it.
Six Chix, 9/13/25
In a strip where people dry-hump sandwiches, the idea of ghostfucking seems frankly pretty tame. It’s like a Gothic novel! There are literary antecedents!
63 replies to “Life is very long when you’re Blondie”
JP:
Another day, another argument, another set of pouty faces.
Six Chix:
“Why don’t they dis Melchior or Balthasar instead of me for a change?”
Blondie: Dustin’s dad is reading this and going “Testify!”
Six Chix:
“If the authors here were flying together on a plane, would that make them ‘Ghost Writers in the Sky’ ?”
JP: “Listen, Neddy. You better get up and get to work. The landscapers have started calling you Señorita Muslos de Trueno (miss thunder thighs).”
Blondie: Dagwood is a married adult with a house and kids — it’s sad that he has to pick up random drugstore products and donate to some weird charity, just so no one notices him buying condoms.
Judge Parker: The way Neddy is holding that hamburger with just the tips of her fingers is unrealistic for real life, but exactly the way they do it in burger commercials — so the product appears bigger than it actually is. (I’m pretty sure that works in porn, too.)
Six Chix: If we’re going to be that literal about the terminology of modern romance, I hope these two never try speed dating.
H&L: Fat lazy slob with man boobs in a wet golf shirt —In case you wondered how Irma gets her freak on.
Blondie – This forced charity is killing Dag. He’s heading for the last roundup….
JP – You know what would put a smile on Neddy’s face? How ‘bout a little of the old In & Out burger….
6C – It’s better than being demonized, though….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@BigTed: Yes, yes, they do do that in porn! So I have, um, heard.
JP. Neddy’s mad because Abbey didn’t notice how much better her photoshop skills have gotten, with creating standup hand and cheeseburger displays for her future career in computer graphics. Abbey did notice, but can’t bring herself to tell Neddy that AI has taken that job.
MW: Getting dogs to like you isn’t really a magical feat. Generally speaking, dogs are pushovers.
H&L: That move dates back to the Stone Age. How did Chip manage to piss off his girlfriend with it?
6Chx: If a ghost ghosts, is it really ghosting?
Chix (sic): Ghost fucking is the worst!
“Then you’re not doing it right!” —Gates McFadden.
S4th: ‘Listen, Hil, you’ve already alienated your friends, you’re well on your way to alienating us, and you already have a boyfriend who can miraculously still bear to be in your presence, so why don’t we just nip this in the bud, shall we?
JP: ‘….and where’s my g-d$@*&% avocado for this burger??!?!?’
RMMD: They mucked up the italicizing in panel two. With that squinched, constipated face on Spudson it should be ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world, *Dad*…’
JP: This is the equivalent of a Tuesday Chik comic about how she can’t think of anything to make into a comic.
Blondie: Dagwood falls to peer pressure like the chump he is.
JP: It’s a contest of who can pull off the best Resting Bitch Face except Abbey also looks like she smelled something unpleasant. Most likely Neddy’s body odor.
MW: Greta and Max are pretty much the bottom tier of animal characters since they have no charisma and are purely subservient. They’re no Libby and Pierre, that’s for sure.
“For your information, I would like to inform you that your use of ‘ghosting’ is very offensive to the life-challenged.”
RMMD This whole week feels like the artist turned a page in the Big Reference Book O’ Facial Expressions and has been trying out random ones.
MT So a few days of water tests and interviews could have blown this wide open back when it was still possible to change this resort plan and make the environmental plan better and you didn’t do anything about the huge construction stuff practically in your backyard?
“You either die a hipster or live long enough to become Dagwood”
Judge Parker: Neddy’s one or two steps away from holding her burger like this.
Fundraising for the ‘wild snails of the archipelago,’ eh? I assume this is like ‘give it up for the brothers’ was in Irish pubs back in the 80s. Can’t wait until the Feds bust that pharmacy as a front for some Malaysian terrorist organization and charge Dagwood and all the others with material support. Let’s see how much of that prison food your insatiable maw can handle, Dag.
DtM:
Dennis tells Joey to go home and tell this to his parents.
Ruff in the pet shop
All day long he sits and stays
All day long he stays and sits
Blondie is it just me or does ‘Wild Snails of the Archipalago’ sound like somethung from a fantasy novel? I really like the idea of this strip taking place in the suburbs of a magical kingdom. It certainly would go a long way towards explaining all the weird trolls like characters we encounter here.
6Cx So…he died? Is that what I’m understanding? They were dating and he died and she doesn’t care for that? A but harsh, frankly.
Plugger Dads don’t understand why all those years of beating and ignoring their children left them alienated.
@Baja Gaijin: That right there is the most punchable Wilbur face. Especially when you consider that he was just randomly inserted into a storyline that had nothing to do with him whatsoever.
MW: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
JP:
“The garnish on this hamburger evokes a line from Dylan and Hendrix that applies directly to this conversation we’re having, Abbey.”
“Really? What line is that?”
” ‘So lettuce not speak falsely now/The hour is getting late.’ “
RMMD-And thus the story ends. Join us Monday as we begin a new story with identical looking people.
FC-“How much toxic waste should I spill on the turtle until it starts talking?”
Six Chix-“How dare this guy I met online not be a scammer trying to get my money.”
@Charterstoned: It’s so hard to comment on Mary Worth because I am sick of Meddling Mary, sick of Saul the Mole Man, sick of Eve the Giant Wimp, and especially sick of Olive the Psychic Snowflake. There’s a reason why Wilbur gets clicks and it’s because his narcissistic idiocy is like going to the sideshow and watching the geek bite the heads off chickens.
Blondie:
“Wild” snails of the archipelago? — is there such a thing as “domesticated” snails?
It’d be a little more convincing if Dagwood wasn’t in an old timey pharmacy buying Blondie sanitary pads in the vintage, blue Kotex box.
Blondie: If you want Dagwood to donate to save the snails, it helps to call them “escargot.”
Crank: Ooooh, a callback to the great 1950s plotline known as “What’s Up With All These Juvenile Delinquents?” featuring Flattop, Jr. and Joe Period, when Gould pictured teenage hot-rodders driving around in what was essentially an RV. It’s under copyright, so I hope to hear the Dick Tracy people are suing Batuik’s pants off.
Dagwood: Dagwood doesn’t realize the people behind him have worked out how their final bill will be an even dollar amount, the dope.
JP: That burger looks like an “art asset” from outside the artist’s usual toolbox.
6C: The guy literally died and is now a ghost, and these two are just maligning the crap out of him. The afterlife sucks.
Why is it “ghosting” anyway? Aren’t ghosts known for perpetually hanging around?
@Bob Tice: Well, there are farmed snails for gourmet food.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Are you thinking of stabbing Don Abundio with that knife?”
“Yes… He should be punished for his tyranny!”
“But I’m afraid I’ll get caught”
“I have an idea that might help”
“Brilliant, Otto! I can stab him with a potato and eat the evidence!”
FC: If they didn’t have Turtle Stockholm Syndrome, they would.
MW: If I trusted Moy, I would assume this is foreshadowing for Olive running away with Saul and Eve’s beloved dogs.
Dustin: You’re sitting less than five feet away from the TV! Having a huge screen would be stupid.
Fudge Packer – I love that Needy is giving Abbey the Loser sign.
MW – Saul is jealous since he has to put peanut butter on his balls to get the dogs to like him.
Luann: He’s not wrong about Bernice.
CS: Jeff is jealous because he wants to use that space to watch Phantom Empire without Pam nagging him or asking a bajillion questions about the plot.
9CL: Ah yes, the Little Rascals, definitely something in the zeitgeist among people supposedly born after 2000.
DKG: The anti boot has been suspiciously absent since being called out.
In panel 1 Neddy delicately holds the burger in her fingertips, preparing to contact juggle. Just off panel two it is rolling across the back of her other hand like the crystal balls in Labyrinth.
@Bob Tice: Six Chix
“If the authors here were flying together on a plane, would that make them ‘Ghost Writers in the Sky’ ?
___________________________
I don’t know about that…but with giant Ws instead of upper frontals they’re “ghost-busters”
Blondie – Which archipelago? This fundraising pitch is obviously phony. I bet the pharmacist’s name isn’t even really Corner!
@taig: re: 9CL: I really enjoyed this because Brooke blew his “Classic Cinema Nerd” facade today.
The original Hal Roach films were theatrical shorts called “Our Gang.” When a teevee distributor bought the rights MGM still held the copyright on that name, so on television they were “The Little Rascals.”
McEldowney wants you to think he was sitting in a 1930s movie palace munching fresh popcorn and watching a prestige feature, a “B” flick, newsreel, and assorted shorts all for a nickel, but he’s just a big 1950s Boomer phony.
@43 Ukulele Ike: Are you a pedant or an epistemophile?
SixChix: I remember that ST:TNG episode…
@Baja Gaijin: I’m an Anabaptist, sir. You don’t need to call me “padre.”
Judge Parker: I’d be pissed if tiny, photoshopped hands were reaching out from underneath the table to steal my burger, too!
Instead it’s foreshadowing for Saul and Eve suffering a sudden simultaneous hospitalization, and Olive having to extend her “mini-vacation” for several weeks to stay in their condo and take care of the dogs.
Blondie: It probably says a lot about the writer of this comic that they’re acting oppressed over having the option to donate to charity while buying groceries. “How fucking dare these liberal pieces of shit expect me to donate to helping children with cancer?! Bastards!”
Six Chix: I don’t know what’s worse. The poor ghost experiencing a microaggression, or the fact that the Six Chix writer may or may not have a fetish for subjecting nonhumans to microaggressions.
I’d look that pissed off too if someone tried small talking me just as I was about to take my first bite of my meal. Neddy’s about to smash that hamburger sandwich into Abbey’s face and who could blame her?
***
No wonder we don’t see Dagwood with many friends his own age. Being this prone to peer pressure he probably long ago realized it’s best to avoid the sort of entanglements that can lead to smoking, drugs, non-marital sex, or improv classes.
Blonde: Wow. The creative team must be updating their pop cultural references. “South Park” only did charity shaming 10 years ago. At this rate, Blondie should be fully up to date by the year 2136.
6C: Hell, with all the romantasy on the market these days, odds are pretty good there’s a book where the heroine gets it on with a ghost. Probably called something like Dark Gavotte or A Whisper of Roses and Gemstones…
Blondie: In my experiences, donation requests at stores are either for large NPOs like St. Jude’s or have something to do with the store’s merchandise: PetSmart solicits for animal shelters, grocery stores for feeding hungry children, etc. Wild snails is pretty niche, especially for a pharmacy–is the owner planning on Tyrian purple making a comeback?
JP: So Neddy just gave up on the avocado toast and decided to have a burger for breakfast, then?
JP: “You know what, Neddy? Fuck you! Go find your own place to live, and pay for your own burger, too!”
@Hibbleton: Oh lord, i’d forgotten about that one.
@Baja Gaijin: No, nothing can top the lasting image of Wilbur and his glorious burger.
@Rube: Well put.
MW: Olive decides to enter vet school, and become a psychic veterinarian, who can read her patient’s thoughts and diagnose their problems with psychic powers. Dogs a specialty! Cats aren’t as forthcoming with their real thoughts.
6ix Chix: Maybe if she had gone to a regular college instead of Wellesley – she still wears that tee shirt – she wouldn’t have this trouble meeting good men.
@TheDiva: there’s a book where the heroine gets it on with a ghost.
Have you seen The Ghost and Mrs. Muir? It’s pretty clear that the ghost (Rex Harrison) can do about anything he puts his mind to, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
@White Rabbit: “I think you’ll find Rex’s mood much improved, Mr. Jones; I treated him for the painful rectal itch he was complaining about. Also, he wanted me to tell you ‘fuck that kibble, more porterhouse steaks.’”
DT: “Oh, so you’re one of those #MeToo scolds who think wealthy and powerful men should be held accountable for sexual abuse? I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you to come downtown.”
Dustin: For all his ego, some small part of Dustdad sees himself for what he truly is: a senior associate in a large personal injury firm with zero chance of advancement, lacking the money or prestige which would offset his unpleasant, aging physique. He will never be able to attract the dutiful trophy wife of his dreams and he’s incapable of taking care of himself; his marriage is as good as it’s going to get for him. What exactly Dustmom is getting out of all this remains a mystery; maybe she just gets off on nagging people.
Luann: Man, imagine how bad you have to be for Bernice to find you insufferable…
MW: “My parents haven’t come around to my way of thinking yet, but they will…or it’s the cornfield for them.”
Pluggers still haven’t figured out why their kids don’t want to talk to them.
SH: Do cardinals lay eggs this late in the year?
@Maude R. Fawker: She went to Mount Holyoke. She just put the shirt on upside-down this morning.
MW- Greta whines softly and slinks around behind Max, his dander raising as he bares his teeth and growls at Olive.