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Gil Thorp, 2/27/24

Under new writer Henry Barajas, Gil Thorp has introduced a more diverse cast, kept old characters around, and even rescued Gil’s children from whatever “Phantom Zone”-style limbo-dimension prison they had been exiled to. But are we ready to meet [record scratch] Gil’s brother? He’s got the Thorp chin, a normal haircut, and a kicky scarf, and he can effortlessly carry three coffees at once. He seems awesome! Watch out, Gil, there’s a new Thorp in town!!!!

Blondie, 2/27/24

It’s never exactly clear where the Bumsteads live, but I assume that the community is dominated by Mr. Dithers and his business cronies, leading to a deeply labor-hostile local media. That’s the only explanation for what we see in the first panel, where the news broadcast has eschewed the usual B-roll of people walking the picket line for this strike story in favor of just a close up on a human foot.

Gasoline Alley, 2/27/24

There probably aren’t a ton of upsides to being a 145-year-old cartoon character whose pleas for death fall on the unhearing ears of your cruel Creator, but at least your unnaturally addled brain can’t retain anything for too long. Can’t stay mad about things you can’t change if you don’t know what they are!

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Blondie, 2/21/24

I am coming around to the opinion that the primary value of the syndicated newspaper comic strip Blondie is to provide anthropological insights into the mind and culture of the American middle-class boomer. Take today’s strip, for example: a real problem is identified (in this case, a formerly crucial communications channel becoming mostly a medium for delivering scams and garbage) but the issue is seen primarly as a personal affront to the viewpoint character imposed on him by whatever service worker he happens to interact with. Truly there is no clearer icon of “How can this be happening to Me, the protagonist of reality” than Dagwood impotently waving his fist in the air in panel three!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/21/24

That “feller” is almost certainly a self-insert of current Snuffy Smith artist John Rose, which means that Snuffy just missed a chance to have his own Creator craft a universe that he ruled like a king, for a mere $50! When he cast his critical eye across the canvas, did he not recognize his own lumpy nature in the scene’s imperfections?

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Dennis the Menace, 2/19/24

Let me tell you, as a guy who writes jokes for a living, that no matter how bad you think the jokes on this website are, there many more that I’ve thought up that are much worse. It’s OK, your brain should be constantly generating jokes more or less involuntarily if you’re in this biz, but it is important that you be able to filter through them. Like, if you looked at a grandfather clock, and thought to yourself “Ho, ho, this thing is the grandfather of TikTok,” that’s fine, it’s perfectly normal, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But should you tell that joke to somebody else and expect them to enjoy it? No. Should you put that joke in the mouth of a very young child, someone who would never come up with it or enjoy it if they heard it, in a syndicated newspaper comic strip? Also no.

The Phantom, 2/19/24

So, it turns out that the current Phantom storyline really has been mostly the big purple guy forcing his family to listen to him go on and on about this weird dream he had, which is about one of his ancestors who was taking his bride back from Europe (?) to his African lair, but they got captured by a bad guy for a while and he was chained up but figured out a way to break free, after … well, it’s not clear how long, but weeks or possibly months, and then he took the chains home with him, as a reminder. Anyway, it was mostly boring but today’s strip is very funny because apparently they’re having a big fight about this on their wedding day. Ha ha, I guess you shouldn’t have agreed to an arranged marriage (?) to the heir to a line of African-based superhero vigilantes if you aren’t up for this sort of symbolism-laden bullshit, random Victorian-era European lady! Now you’re trapped in “the Skull Cave” with no way back home! I myself would not have agreed to anything that would end with me living someplace called “the Skull Cave,” personally.

Blondie, 2/19/24

This one is a real missed opportunity, in my opinion. If Dagwood had simply said “Not really” in the first panel and then the next two panels consisted of his barber cutting his hair in awkward silence, it would have been the funniest Blondie strip created in the last 50 years.