Spring keeps on springin’
Post Content
Blondie, 3/22/26
The saddest part of this strip is the throwaway panel, which reveals that Blondie has a whole spring cleaning bit lined up to unleash on her husband, only for it to be totally short-circuited by Dagwood’s avoiding-spring-cleaning bit, so they just end up mad at each other. Imagine if she had told him about laundry-robics! Maybe he would’ve been into it, maybe it would have become a beloved family tradition, but I guess we’ll never know. Dagwood’s spring cleaning chore being painting the house isn’t sad per se, but it is confusing.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/22/26
I’m beginning to think that a decade of sheltering inside her vast Hollywood mansion has left Mae Mae/Lorna unprepared for actually living in the world incognito. “He’ll never put two and two together, and certainly there’s no way he can hear me, speaking at full volume, in this relatively small and otherwise empty hotel cafe! My secret is safe … forever.”
57 replies to “Spring keeps on springin’”
FC-And that’s when the acid kicked in.
MW-What a twist. H@rvey has a medical condition.
RMMD:
This restaurant patron looks like Mr. Potato Head on acid.
Blondie: My wife and I went to look at a house for sale and after realizing it needs a paint job and what a huge deal that is we decided to skip it; but after seeing that it’s something you can do in a spur of the moment from a weekend to-do list, I feel maybe we acted in haste.
RMMD:
“Where’d you get that ‘stache, hon?”
“I bought it off a guy from The New Vaudeville Band!”
FC: Now that he’s embraced Buddhism, Billy imagines his past lives. Kinda cute, actually.
Rnmd- that close up if the patron with evil intent- that’s gotta be the agent she stiffed.
RMMD:
The patron looks like the late humor columnist Lewis Grizzard. Maybe this is like “Lost;” and everyone in the cafe is actually from The Great Beyond.
Sonny Bono got reincarnated into a diner patron? Plot twist!
RMMD. Who’s filling in for Terry Beatty on the art
The added fat is biological armour that can stop short daggers and low calibre bullets from reaching your vitals, so you’re more actionable than ever!
The jacket Dagwood’s wearing in the final panel is the same color as the sweater he’s wearing in the rest of the strip. Dag’s all-in on powder blue!
Wary Morth:
Maybe they’ll give Trixie a new T shirt to go with the razor they gave him since last time.
“Two and two together?” thinks Mud. “What happens if you put two and two together? How much does it come to? I wish Professor Mirakle were here to tell me the answer to this mystery!”
DT: Dick Tracy is ready to dish out some justice on these fugitives, by which I mean attempt to “arrest” them in a way that goes awry and they end up in a getaway car that smashes into a gasoline tanker or something.
MW: “Maybe they’ll give me more privileges, like being allowed to use a bucket to go in.”
CS: When they do one of these comic covers as a “tribute” to another artist, whether it’s for Batton Thomas’ meandering reminiscing or as one of the covers for an issue of a “Batom Comics” title, it just reminds you that you could be reading a better piece of sequential art. Any random Silver Age or Bronze Age Green Lantern comic issue has more readability than the entire Crankshaft archive. Also the whole Batom Comics deal comes off as fanfiction-y and way too precious.
RMMD: “OK Hon, here’s the deal – if you don’t tell anyone that my cousin is Lorna Starr, then I won’t tell anyone that your grandfather was Captain Kangaroo!”
Mary Worth Mashups: Who’s really behind the scam? Three potential perpetrators…
Why is he painting a house with a small brush? Also the Bumstead house is always shown to be in immaculate condition. Doing laundry is a once a week chore, not something that is associated with spring cleaning.
Blondie: I seldom paint, but never balance it on the top of a stepladder like that. So…is that paint can destined to fall on Laurel or Hardy?
Luann and Beatrice are never too young to act like ossified boomers.
Lockhorns, on the other hand, slipped one past the Comics Code. Since it’s a Sunday, we all get to guess which one!
H&L: Dot and Ditto were born in December, weren’t they?
Real Pluggers wonder why Paul Whiteman, Rudy Vallee, and Annette Hanshaw weren’t all over 1970s radio.
SlFx: Cassandra is dumb enough to smash window after window and call attention to her crime spree. After a lifetime of catching masterminds like her, Slylock is in no way prepared for Bugs Meany.
Crankshaft: The turns into comics about comics don’t usually do anything for me but this one i like.
Garfield: It’s taken almost 50 years but Jon is finally confirming he’s a homosexual. Good for him.
JP: Oh they’re not allowing the strange man to see the girl and are telling him to leave? Characters in Judge Parker showing something that sort of vaguely resembles a touch of common sense?
REX MORGAN M.D.: Lorna/Mae Mae: “And if that fails, this drastic art style shift will ensure that no one recognizes me! It’s a foolproof plan!” (Gee Terry Beatty had a to step away from the comic for a bit to deal with a medical issue. I wonder when that’ll happen in script. I mean, the transition will probably be so subtle, we’ll hardly noticed.)
REX MORGAN (2): You can tell there’s a temp artist on board because the strip suddenly looks so modern (in that the other diner patron looks like he came from the 1970’s instead of the 1950’s)
RMMD: There he is, ladies and gentlemen. If that’s not Rene, I’ll treat everyone to a Late Night Cuisine of your choice. I’m partial to that Hamburger Meringue Pie, myself.
JP: Katherine elbows AnnDoris sharply in the ribs and hisses ‘Shut up! We get rid of that raspberry-haired brat, and we are OUT of this stupid spy nonsense, you hear me? OUT!! Maybe we can convince this pidgin-speaking moron to talk Alan too!’
Luann: Just SHUT UP, the both of you!!!!
Phantom:
“I think it’s really great that Dad wanted me to die at a young age.”
@Terry Rhoden: My headcanon is that Baton Comics/Atomik Komix is the comic book equivalent of Asylum or Video Bridquendo. They make cheap ripoffs of franchises people actually want, and hope buyers don’t notice the difference. The fact that Batom Thomas was sued over “Arachnid Man” fits perfectly into this view.
Beetle Bailey: Do the Halftracks have an open marriage? Did they agree that the General can sexually harass Miss Buxley and he’ll leave the house while she’s having men over for sex? After all his years of chronic alcoholism it’s unsurprising that he’s not able to perform sexually.
JP Con artist instincts FTW! Hopefully Katherine will learn to appreciate Ann’s contributions to the family now.
BB How old is the writer?? Because this is some sad half-century-plus obsolete everyone must get married because women don’t have the rights to live easily as independent adults and men aren’t supposed to learn a darn thing about how to cook and clean up, so just hope you don’t get paired *too* badly society’s joke
RMMD: Good thing the place is nearly empty. Gary Owens’ baritone voice really carries.
Blondie: I know that this strip is supposed to take place in the modern day, but I still get the feeling that ‘getting motivated’ for this crew is dropping a few bennies in their mid-morning Old Fashioned.
RMMD: “Oh shit, did I say that out loud, at full volume? Welp, time for another new identity in a new town. Call me ‘Sofia Sofia Valentina Gambino’. If I leave now I should be able to make it to Brooklyn by morning.”
@ValdVin:
Interesting you mention Annette Hanshaw— I was given a bunch of CDs from a friend of mine‘s wife who had passed on and I really enjoyed her. I got a couple more and she’s very sweet and the music is very bouncy. Of course, she’s way before my time, but still— I guess that makes me a plugger?
RMMD – Mae Mae has forgotten that the camera always adds ten pounds – or maybe it’s thirty? Anyway, she doesn’t realize that in person, she looks pretty much exactly the way she did when she was playing Burger Girl in an ill-advised expansion of the Marvel Universe.
@Banana Jr. 6000: That should say “Batom COMICS was sued over Arachid Man,” not Baton Thomas. But what’s the difference, really?
RMMD – “Wait! I’ve got it! You’re Ringo! No, Brenda! No, Kenneth! No, Edwin! Dammit, give me a minute. It’ll come to me.”
@ValdVin: What, you think Cassandra Cat is trying to conceal her crimes? On the contrary–she wants Slylock to know, so that she can feel the thrill of being pursued and caught by the one man in her world who she feels is her intellectual equal and who she longs for, but knows that he is already faithfully wedded to his job and so must take what she can get.
RMMD: Maena’s not the only one who looks familiar. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s Rene Belluso in one of his clever disguises.
Blondie: Does Blondie really just do one load of laundry every spring? Is Dagwood wearing horrible food splattered clothes all year, or does he have 365 different tuxedos to wear to the office every day?
Rex Morgan, M.D.: Magical Mystery Tour era John Lennon ought not be asking too many questions, especially about the Walrus. Stay away from the Walrus!
MW: Am I reading this right? The sympathetic character in this story is “Trixie” who won’t be able to spend the money he rightfully earned conning the geezer? That sucks
@Schroduck: The non-disturbing interpretation is it’s her warm-up exercise to lead into the actual spring cleaning but who knows? It’s a world where houses get painted each spring cleaning, maybe their cleanliness/ hygiene standards are more stringent for buildings and much less so for people’s clothes.
Dustin: Well, they’re DEFINITELY not saying it now that it’s appeared in Dustin.
MW: Honestly, robbing Widower Hart of his life savings is worth it if it means Scam Center Slave can get a new distressed T-shirt and maybe a chance to wash his stringy hair now and then.
Pluggers are a public embarrassment.
RMMD – Little does Mae Mae know that this is Waldo Kelrast, who bears a striking resemblance to his late brother but carries on the family stalking tradition.
Blondie: The rest of the strip is whatever, but the lettering in panel one is really striking! They exercised more taste and aesthetic judgement there than most strips manage in a month.
RMMD: Oh good, here’s an excuse I can use for gaining weight. No one will ever believe I was once a movie action star! It’s true! No one will ever believe that!
Same thing the daycare centers in Minneapolis did when Nick Shirley came around with a camera crew.
@Baja Gaijin: it’s gotta be Mary.
RMMD: Mae Mae is thinking that Superman changes his outfit but does not hide his face, and has fooled a building full of professional journalists for decades. Except that they all know who he is; they’re just playing along to spare his feelings.
Family Circlejerk – Where’s dead grandpa?
Blondie – Dagwood sighs. “It seems like every time we paint our houses, they get taller and closer together.”
Don Abundio, translated:
“I’ve taken precautions after what happened last time”
“I remember. A big fish pulled you out of the boat, and you almost drowned”
“That’s right…”
“But this time there’s absolutely no way I can drown!”
RMMD: “I know. I know. It’s that guy who played Thor in the MCU movies!”
PV: Cue up “Yakkity Sax” for the chase scene next week.
GA: I should’ve known. Sundays are for dropping the two-week story we couldn’t resolve and hoping the core audience forgets it by Monday.
Blondie:
“And I thought that I’d finish off the sequence by having a Manet-inspired picnic spread, using our neighbor as a table.”
“No. Don’t say it, Dagwood.”
“Yep. ‘Le Dejeuner sur Herb‘ !”
Blondie-It must be rough living with Blondie. Every week she grows dissatisfied with the house color for that week and has Dagwood paint it something else.
@Bono Vix, @2+2=7: Yeah, the guest artist did a good job of keeping the regular characters on model, but the outlines are much thicker. The guy with the moustache looks like an extra from some old Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
RMMD: It’s surprising that the other customer isn’t more annoyed. He was already sitting there when Mud came in last Sunday. He’s had plenty of time to stare at Mae Mae and jog his memory while she and Mud were yakking all week.
Does anyone remember Rene’s eye color? Although a master of disguise probably has multiple colors of contact lenses.
RMMD: “Hmmm… I swear I know that face. I’ll figure it out if it’s the last ding-dang-diddly thing I do.”
@35 Schroduck: Dagwood doesn’t have a tuxedo for each workday. Back in the 50’s when modern, space-age fabrics arrived, Daggy bought 5 polyester suits. They just wipe clean!
@53 Myrtle: Take a look at these two Rene Beluso strips. What color do you think his eyes are?
Is Mary Worth heading towards a “more zippers, mule” moment?