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Blondie, 5/8/18

“What’d you expect? A Tale of Two Cities? Did you think an important incident in my life was full of such pathos that it would rival one of the monumental works of English literature? That I experienced an episode of such intensity — marked by romance, revolutionary social change, shocking turns of fortune, and a final, noble sacrifice — that I would want to memorialize it forever in my own flesh? The truth is, as it happens, much more mundane, but I will always treasure how elevated my life seems in your imagination, Dagwood.”

Marvin, 5/8/18

I know I hate on Marvin a lot on this blog, but I have to give today’s strip credit for delivering a multilayered joke. Sure, on the surface, it just seems like a limp “Ha ha, remember disco, and Saturday Night Fever, a famous movie about disco?” gag. But it actually goes to the heart of these characters’ relationship — specifically, it shows us that Jeff will go to really elaborate and theatrical lengths to let his wife know that he thinks her hobbies are stupid.

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Gil Thorp, 4/2/18

Sorry, Marty: while all-high-school-sports radio is more than willing to overlook a little light racism, they cannot abide the ultimate sin in broadcasting, which is accidentally blurting out swear words on the air. Anyway, today’s strip contains one of the greatest things any Gil Thorp can present to us, which is a panel of Marty Moon looking desperately unhappy as he realizes that he is once again the cause of every major disaster in his own life. This is even better than the time he quietly wept in his car after being golf-grifted by a Ben Franklin lookalike, because you can get a much better look at his face. His crumpled, sad, devastated face.

Judge Parker, 4/2/18

Wow, for a strip that has traditionally moved at about the speed of plate tectonics, Judge Parker has leapt from Randy doing some extremely mild flirting to Randy doing some smug and blatantly post-coital smirking in lightning time! Anyway, the important thing is that unlike certain soap opera hunks we could mention, Randy has nipples, thank you very much.

Blondie, 4/2/18

I’ve been a daily reader of Blondie for decades and … I’m pretty much wholly unaware of Alexander’s sports career? I mean, he sometimes wears a letterman jacket but I just assumed that was an ossified visual signifier letting us know he’s in high school rather than some specific reference to his varsity status. The sad truth is that Blondie spends infinitely more time dwelling on Dagwood’s relationship with various fast-food drive through speakerphones than it does on his relationship with his own son — which means that by prompting this chain of thought, today’s strip is really just reaffirming its own thesis, so, well played, Blondie.

The Lockhorns, 4/2/18

Sorry, Loretta, take it from a guy who singularly failed to cash in when he had the chance: the blog-to-book deal hasn’t really been a thing since, like, the mid-late ’00s.

Beetle Bailey, 4/2/18

Beetle definitely murdered someone with that hammer, right?

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Blondie, 3/25/18

I’m pretty much in awe of Blondie’s grim determination to constantly wedge in references to whatever noncontroversial current event is going to be happening when its strips are published, presumably weeks or months after they’re actually written. I hope that you, like the cast of Blondie, are enjoying “Final Four week,” the week-long celebration of the Final Four that we all know and love! I also hope that you’re in awe of Mr. Dithers’ ability to bounce a bound paper report up and down like a basketball, in violation of all laws of physics. People are gonna ask, “What’s the key indicator that what we’re seeing is some kind of ‘heightened reality,’ perhaps a hallucination or spirit vision?”, and most people are gonna go for Mr. Dithers’ six feet of vertical lift in the next-to-last panel, but for my money it’s him bouncing that unbounceable report, and by merely calling Dithers a “pretty decent dribbler” Dagwood is showing some profound disrespect.

Funky Winkerbean, 3/25/18

“Look, do you want everyone in this town dead of heart disease by 55 or not? I thought you were on board with the Montoni mission statement.”

Mary Worth, 3/25/18

Wait a minute … Wilbur is lonely and depressed, abandoned by his daughter and girlfriend, haunted by his many failures, and Mary is going to … take him to the top of a cliff … and have him contemplate his sad, broken life?

IT’S HAPPENING

IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING