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Gearhead Gertie, 5/1/25

When you have a main character with a strong and deranged point of view, like Gertie in Gearhead Gertie, the question arises: are we meant to think that she’s insane, or that she’s the sane one in an insane universe that only she fully understands? The Gearhead Gertie strips where we see Gertie’s husband (LORE DROP: Gertie’s husband’s name is “Harold”) getting increasingly exasperated by her NASCAR monomania seem to indicate the former; but today’s strip, in which we learn that Gertie’s negative opinion about Formula One (a sport that millions of people in our universe enjoy and find exciting) is in fact objectively correct proves that, within the boundaries of this panel, it truly is Gearhead Gertie’s world and the rest of these poor unfortunate souls are just living in it.

Mary Worth, 5/1/25

Hey, fun fact: did you know that the dish Belle is referring to is usually called “black pudding,” because these days even non-vegans find the idea of eating blood a little gross, and there are in fact tons of vegan recipes for it? A lot of them are pretty low calorie, too. So maybe chill out a little, Dawn, I think you might be overreacting to this one.

Archie, 5/1/25

I’ve always admired the names of many of the adult characters in Archie Comics. “Geraldine Grundy,” “Waldo Weatherbee,” “Hiram Lodge,” “Professor Elmer Flutesnoot”: all god-tier comics names. Sadly, Archie’s dad is just “Fred Andrews,” which is much less interesting, though honestly he’s a much less interesting character, and I frankly have never really gotten a handle on what his deal is supposed to be. I guess he finds Archie irritating? Look at how aggrieved he is here, for instance. Hey, Fred, you ever think that your son’s lack of grit and time management skills might be at least partly your fault? You treat your son with disdain yet you proudly drink from a “#1 Dad” mug! You’ve got some self-reflection to do, mister.

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Archie, 4/16/25

I can’t even keep track anymore of when these Archie reruns originated, and whether the coloring actually dates from that era or was added in years or decades later. All I know is that Mr. Weatherbee with his black shirt and bright red tie looks like he’s the keyboardist from some new wave band that had a cult following in clubs in the Lower East Side in the late ’70s and early ’80s before having an unexpected MTV hit with a semi-novelty song in 1984, and then their label made them do a big national tour and they wanted to play all the songs they’d written and that their real fans loved but all the dumb MTV teens who came to their shows just wanted them to play their big hit, which they had kind of grown to loathe at that point, and eventually the keyboardist snapped and started attacking the MTV teens with hammers.

Hagar the Horrible, 4/16/25

Imagine this scenario: a Viking band descends on a ducal castle somewhere on the coast of Normandy or the Low Countries. The Duke’s retinue is defeated in combat, his wealth plundered, his family slain. His army has been decimated, meaning he can no longer enforce his rule on the local peasants, so his few remaining soldiers drift away, demoralized and unpaid, leaving him alone in his ruined castle, burning for revenge. Eventually he abandons his fief altogether and buys passage with what little wealth he has left on a boat heading to the savage northern lands. Traveling alone with just his sword, he hunts down the chieftain whose attack upended his whole privileged life, determined to kill him and reclaim whatever goods he can, only to eventually discover him living in a modest hut and holding what remains of the duke’s treasure in contempt. Pretty grim stuff! I never saw The Northman, but I’m going to pretend this is what it was about.

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Blondie, 3/8/25

Blondie’s longstanding addiction to obscure holiday themed strips and comics crossovers has achieved an uneasy peace today with its searing hatred of internationalism. Sure, this is a diverse group of women, from America, Australia, Themyscira, Viking-era Norway, the … land of fairy tales where some women are birds? … and so forth, but at least we’re not giving into the U.N. one-world government types and calling it “International Women’s Day”! It’s simply “Women’s Day,” like it was originally when the holiday was first celebrated right here in the USA by [checks notes] the Socialist Party of America oh no oh no oh no

Dick Tracy, 3/8/25

Wait, you’re telling me that the guy with the incompetent nephews … is himself an incompetent nephew? How many layers of nephews are we going to go through in this story??? It’s just like the old saying goes: truly the uncle ….. has become the nephew now.

Archie, 3/8/25

I genuinely enjoy the look on Hot Dog’s face in the third panel here. “Why are you involving me in your web of complex human lies and betrayals? I’m a dog! I truly dislike it!”