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Archie, 3/14/15

Hey, kids, here’s a perfect formula for a pop culture themed comic strip!

1. Map a commonly recognized concept from pop culture onto a vaguely analogous situation
2. Have a comical bald fat man say “These [pop culture element] have really gotten out of hand!” while flop-sweating
3. Rerun in newspapers across the country roughly 15 years after the joke has stopped being relevant

Apartment 3-G, 3/14/15

There was an Apartment 3-G earlier this week where Margo threatened to crush her beloved assistant Sam beneath her boot-heel like the lowly worm that he is, and I didn’t even discuss it here because I figured there was more where that came from! How wrong I was. Somehow between yesterday and today Margo decided Skyler did something wrong and then chewed her out about it and humiliated her but retained enough emotional control over the situation to then forgive her and make it seem magnanimous! What exactly was she mad about? Was it because Skyler was shooting off her mouth about her big news before Margo was able to come up with a Publicity Action Plan? I love that her punishment is that Margo will refuse to even start thinking about publicizing this exciting career development for several more days. I’m sure the studio will feel warmly about all of this!

Dennis the Menace, 3/14/15

What’s a sadder way to think about this: that Dennis childishly dreams that one day he’ll be an adult and can be a contemporary to his parents when they’re still young and vital, or that Dennis is a comics character, trapped forever in a single moment, doomed to never age to adulthood no matter how much he wants to? Oh, is the saddest thing immediately coming up with two separate and distinct really depressing readings of a Dennis the Menace comic, without trying? Yeah, that’s probably it.

Mark Trail, 3/14/15

“We’ve been invited to a friend’s house!”

“Oh, have our friend and his girlfriend decided to form a legally recognized pair bond yet?”

[THEY MASH THEIR FACES TOGETHER]

“No, they have not! Our pair bond is still the best! Ha ha! We’re in love, like normal humans!”

[HE TOUCHES HER NOSE EROTICALLY]

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Archie, 2/15/15

I know that there are basically like six character designs in Archie, but Archie’s barber looks an awful lot like an adult version of resident nerd Dilton, doesn’t he? I’d like to imagine that Dilton accidentally slipped backwards from the future due to some kind of time travel experiment, and that he’s trapped in the present without his equipment or true identity, forcing him to take a series of jobs he considers beneath him. “Dilton Doiley” is a local high school student, so this future version of him must only go by the alias “Mr. Barber.” His deep-seated rage over his so-called friends’ failure to recognize him, so obvious on his face here, leads him to lash out the only we he knows how: by giving them terrible haircuts.

Blondie, 2/15/15

Usually a Sunday strip’s throwaway panels are connected somehow to the main action, at least thematically. At first I thought the little vignette of Dagwood and Daisy returning from a walk was completely out of left field, but then I figured out what the theme of the strip was: that Dagwood and Blondie will do anything to avoid talking or listening to each other.

Mark Trail, 2/15/15

I for one am pretty psyched that Mark Trail is jettisoning boring nature facts in favor of “unnerving news.” Is an enormous grizzly bear stalking you from less than 100 yards away, right now? Probably!

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Mary Worth, 12/21/14

This has definitely been the year of reckless sexuality in Mary Worth, as this is actually the second time in 2014 that Anaïs Nin has been quoted in the opening panel of a Sunday strip. The eroticism in today’s strip is much more blatant, though. Look at Hanna and Sean in that last panel! Their bodies are definitely melting into each other, I tell you what.

Archie, 12/21/14

It’s not unusual for a teen boy to imagine the two girls he’s fixated on looking at each other in sexually charged surprise, as if they’re seeing each other with new eyes. Usually in that scenario they aren’t wearing bulky Santa suits, but who am I to yuck someone else’s yum?