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Blondie and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/20/25

No one person can know the totality of human cultural practice, of course, even within their own country, and I’ve had the repeated experience on this blog of seeing some odd behavior in a comic strip, posting “Nobody does this, right?”, and then being told in no uncertain terms that said behavior is in fact normal and I’m weird for not knowing about it. For instance, at least one person claimed that “blonde moment” is not just a thing that people say, but is actually more common than “senior moment” in their experience. Life is a rich tapestry! Anyway, my main request to the comics is that they at least stay on the same page when they confront me with some novel practice. For instance, do children actually go door to door during the day on Easter Sunday asking for chocolate, as a spring mirror of Halloween trick-or-treating? Or is this the sort of plan that aspiring hillbilly grifter children would come up with, and we’re meant to understand that nobody would possibly go along with it?

Panel from Slylock Fox, 4/20/25

So, uh, who do you guys think drove that car into the ocean? They’re dead now, right? They received a watery comeuppance for their bank-robbing crimes? Their bones have been picked free of flesh by the crabs, and are loosely piled on the floor of the car?

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Blondie, 4/15/25

When I read today’s Blondie, I had one immediate and overwhelming thought: isn’t Dagwood’s beloved living room chair blue, rather than the sort of grey-white we’re seeing here? Now, if this were a blog that, against all trends in online content production, had only been started a few weeks ago, I would’ve been stuck with that nagging Mandela effect feeling forever, as recent strips all had the grey chair. Fortunately, however, I have posted a statistically significant sample of Blondie strips every year for the past two decades, so I was able to do an in-depth study of this chair situation, and am happy to report that he had a blue chair in that spot since at least December of 2004, and was still sitting in it as late as April of 2024, which is a pretty good run for a chair, really. The grey one made its appearance sometime in the subsequent month. Too bad it’s the last thing he’s ever going to sit in, as the Council of Gynarchy has clearly decreed his execution, if I’m reading his facial expression in panel three correctly.

Mary Worth, 3/15/25

I was originally going to start this post with “I know Wilbur is hard up,” but you know what? Wilbur is not hard up. Between Iris, Fabiana, and Estelle, he’s had a more varied sexual history than just about any other recurring character in this strip. That’s why I’m saying something that I can’t believe I’m saying: Wilbur, you can do better than someone who tries to initiate sex by letting loose an evil chuckle. You really can! Dawn, meanwhile, once thought that the most brutal life could get was being dumped by some dude named Dave, but she never imagined that someday she’d be listening through Charterstone’s thin, thin walls to her dad fooling around with a lady who’s trying to kill her.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/15/25

Update to my previous Rex Morgan, M.D., update: this guy isn’t the widower of the late (?) former stalking victim Debra, but rather her father; and he didn’t shoot this guy with a magical booze and pills gun, but rather just strangled him to death with his bare hands. Don’t leave your windows rolled down when you pass out drunk and/or high in your car if you’ve made a lot of enemies, is the lesson I’m learning from this.

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Blondie and Hi and Lois, 4/1/25

I know I’m “old” and “out of touch,” but I always thought April Fool’s Day was about cruel pranks. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this what it’s about now? Pretending to do nice things for people? And sometimes you just follow through on your “prank” and actually do nice things for them? That … that doesn’t seem like a thing that would happen on April Fool’s Day, at all! Sorry to be a traditionalist, but it’s weird to me!

Barney Google and Smith, 4/1/25

I guess I have to side with the lumpy hillbillies of Hootin’ Holler. Pulling off some prank that’s so humiliating that the victim will never talk about the incident or its aftermath, not even with their closest friends? That’s April Fool’s Day, to me!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/1/25

In non-April Fool’s news: remember Hiram, Mother Goose’s boyfriend, who she’s kinda dissatisfied with? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him on his own in the strip before, but here he is, asking his boss for bereavement leave, which I take to mean that Mother Goose … has died? RIP Mother Goose, 1984-2025, you taught me … well, you didn’t teach me much of anything, if I really think about it.