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Blondie, 3/28/22

I honestly kind of respect how Blondie is just absolutely committed to doing jokes about whatever big pan-cultural event is on the calendar, and in a way that doesn’t engage with the specifics of said event at all, instead just acknowledging that it exists at an extremely surface level, so that the jokes could theoretically be reused for years to come (though amazingly I’m pretty sure they never are). The cultural net is pretty wide, too, and I’m not sure if that’s meant to make sure that there’s a little something for all the Blondie-heads — “the folks who weren’t into our generic March Madness gags last week will surely appreciate the generic Oscar gags this week” — or if the Blondie creative team truly believes that almost everyone has a certain amount of interest in a core set of cultural touchstones. If it’s the latter, they’re probably the last real idealists left in America.

Anyway, I do wonder about the creative process that led from “how can we cash in on America’s Oscar fever” to the punchline “he just gave it … 3 flames up!” It seems clear that this is a reference to the thumbs up/thumbs down movie-rating metrics made famous by Siskel & Ebert 30 years ago, which is an acceptable cultural horizon for Blondie readers, no argument there. And flames instead of thumbs, sure, because of the comical exaggerated flames coming out of Dagwood’s mouth. But why three? Because if two is good, then three is better? Have they forgotten that the origin of the system was two movie critics who either agreed or disagreed, and now they’re simply treating it like a simple star rating scale? I have to say I’m pretty disappointed in this one.

Dennis the Menace, 3/28/22

Dennis, you’re … you’re looking at the TV right now! You know what he’s watching! Are you precisely attuned to Mr. Wilson’s emotional state and know what in his media diet triggers him, but can’t tell the difference between sports being played and the news being reported? Because that’s profoundly menacing, and not in a good way.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/28/22

Oh no, Rene’s got to go on the lam again before Raymond (?) hears the news! And just when he finally figured out a way to make money legitimately (selling high-quality oil paintings to foot fetishists).

Crankshaft, 3/28/22

I’m very excited for Crankshaft to become a hard-core anti-pharma “natural living” influencer guy, mostly because I assume he’ll be dead by the end of the week due to his various untreated ailments.

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Blondie, 3/24/22

This is not the first time I’ve griped about this, but at one point unseen off-screen characters in Blondie used to be named things like “the Glambasters,” just for fun, but now they all have to have incredibly on-the-nose names that explicitly tell you what their deal within the comic is, like “the Clockers” who hate it if you’re late or, in this case, “Winona Braggart,” who likes to brag. Where has the creative energy that used to be put into the names gone? If today’s strip is any indication, it’s going into incredibly detailed drawings of curled up cold-cuts, which, while on-brand for this strip and no doubt of great interest to its readership, really saddens me.

Mary Worth, 3/24/22

Look, I’ve never said that Toby is a genius, exactly, but it seems like it should be obvious even to her that a mostly treeless hillside facing your workplace’s enormous plate-glass windows is the last place you’d want to pick for a makeout session with a student that your coworkers are already criticizing you for flirting with. Just walk to the other side of the hill! Think for once in your life!

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Funky Winkerbean, 3/2/22

I truly enjoy the fact that these two old timer comics artist have been dragged out of retirement (one of them was actually dragged back to life from the realm of ghosts and spirits) to add a little Golden Age verve to Atomik Comix, only to be told they should do a comic where their super-powered heroes should battle, like, a metaphor, man. Their facial expressions in the final panel are absolutely appropriate.

Beetle Bailey, 3/2/22

TIRED: Sarge and Beetle’s public antagonism is a cover for a secret sexual relationship that has a lot less reason to be secret now that gay service members can serve openly.
WIRED: Pvt. Blips and Spc. Gizmo are a couple of real freaks whose kinks cannot be accommodated by banal physical reality. They spend all day plugged into their Oculus Rifts and teledildonic rigs so they can enjoy the experience of 69ing each other in the metaverse as two unicorns with multiple sets of genitalia or whatever. These kids are the nastiest people in this comic and I am here for it.

Blondie, 3/2/22

I was about to say that a doctor saying, “C’mon, can’t you open wider than that?” to a child would be fine but saying it to an adult would be extremely creepy. But isn’t Dagwood essentially a child, with his constant cheerful indulgence of his own appetites, his love of dressing up, and his inability to take his job seriously? He definitely should be condescended to like an 8-year-old and his doctor knows it. Anyway, he also has throat cancer.