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Blondie, 2/3/17

Today’s Blondie is a great illustration of how dictatorship is degrading even to the dictator. Here’s Mr. Dithers, having thought up a sick but lyrical burn on his least favorite employee, and all he wants to do is unleash it, you know? Get a genuine laugh out of it. But no, this bald sycophant is terrified of what would happen if he isn’t praising his lord and master at all times, so he just blurts out “nice poetry, boss!” the moment it becomes clear that Dithers is getting a little adventurous with his language. Dithers reacts really the only we he can — by just plowing forward with his cruel little monologue, and acting as if he never even heard his subordinate’s premature praise — but you have to think he feels pretty undermined by how it all played out.

Gil Thorp, 2/3/17

Oh man, it looks like this winter’s Gil Thorp plot is taking on issues of social and economic class in our society! Presumably in order to make a big impression on Tweedle-Dee here Aaron’s dad came to school on career day wearing a top hat and monocole and shouting “I COULD BUY ALL OF YOU CHILDREN AND PUT YOU TO WORK POLISHING MY GOLD IN MY SOUTHEAST ASIAN GOLD-POLISHING SWEATSHOP IF I WANTED TO.” Now, though, just a few years later, Aaron lives in a mildly rundown apartment building. This makes his mom sad, which in turn makes Aaron inconsistent at basketball. If anything, it makes too much sense.

Anyway, in panel two, we see Coach Thorp and Mrs. Coach Thorp and Coach Kaz and Coach Kaz’s girlfriend/hype woman whose name I forget enjoying a delicious meal out at someplace fancy enough to serve wine but in touch with American values enough to serve burgers and fries. That’s America’s meritocratic socioeconomic system in a nutshell right there! Get with the program, panels one and two, with your implication that our class position affects every aspect of our lives!

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Judge Parker, 11/23/16

Just so you know, Sam is going full-on Failure-To-Shave/Making-A-Bulletin-Board-Of-Clues Crazy over Sophie’s disappearance. And I assume the man he refuses to represent is Garrick Panini? Sam, Sam, Panini’s chock full of clues! This is your best chance to find out the truth! Pull apart his toasted outsides and look at the gooey, delicious information within, metaphorically!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/23/16

Having failed to successfully bag a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, Snuffy and Lukey are just going to rob the general store at gunpoint.

Blondie, 11/23/16

Wow, Dagwood’s doing a lot of projection here. I think we all know who does and does not have a crypto-sexual fixation on food in this family.

The Lockhorns, 11/23/16

I know this isn’t the sort of thing I usually say, but … maybe The Lockhorns should dial back the existential despair? Maybe just a little.

Mark Trail, 11/23/16

Guys, the island in Mark Trail is still just straight-up exploding! I guess if you need to put more stuff on your list of things to be thankful for, “non-stop explosions in Mark Trail” is a good one to add near the top.

Mary Worth, 11/23/16

Very excited to get a close-up on these guys we first saw yesterday. I think we can say it definitively now: this is Mary Worth’s idea of what young people look like.

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The Phantom, 10/11/16

You know what you should be calling your dad about, Heloise? The fact that he’s paying tens of thousands of dollars in tuition at this fancy pants private high school (risking exposure by selling bits and pieces of his ancient artifact collection on the black market to get the cash needed to do so) and you’re sitting here bored in a giant lecture hall. What’s the student-teacher ratio at this place, anyway? And is the teacher really just gesturing at a six-foot-tall PowerPoint slide that consists entire of three lines of text? Text written in some extremely basic font? What is that, Adrianna? Gross!

Mark Trail, 10/11/16

Hey, remember seven months ago, when Mark urged his shapely female companion to overcome her sense of anxiety and cross a rickety natural bridge? At the time, I claimed that since this was Mark we’re talking about there couldn’t be anything sexual to it, but I’m starting to think that we’ve at last discovered what turns this weirdo on.

Blondie, 10/11/16

I can’t stop looking at the phrase “I didn’t realize you were into shining shoes!” and thinking about how strange and hilarious it is. Honestly, this is exactly the sort of awkward thing that I would blurt out to a child in a desperate attempt to relate to them. I’ve said it before, but Dagwood could save himself a lot of mental energy and frustration just by changing the locks on his doors.