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Archive: Blondie

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I’m not sorry if it offends, actually, never apologize for pedantry

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Blondie, 1/4/25

Yes, I still read the newspaper comics strip Blondie every day, and I actually learn things from it! For instance, Herb saying “mega-horsepower” made me wonder if horsepower is in fact part of the overall International System of Units and can take prefixes like “mega”. Turns out it isn’t; horsepower measures the same thing as watts, although there is a slight difference between metric horsepower (735.5 watts) and imperial horsepower (745.7 watts). It also turns out that a typical snowblower is rated around 5 horsepower, so if we take Herb literally, his new toy has a power output about 3 million times greater than that. Dagwood would not be comically encrusted with snow by it; instead, he and his entire suburban neighborhood would’ve been vaporized instantly the moment Herb turned it on. Sorry if this offends but I must tell the cold, hard truth about the physics involved here.

Gil Thorp, 1/4/25

I have to admit that pleading “But I’m the voice of Milford sports!” is very funny, in terms of ways to defend yourself for getting in trouble for being gin-drunk on the job. Anyway, like all the damned souls toiling in new media, the primary metric on which Marty is judged professionally is going viral, and you’d think going on the air intoxicated would be a good way to do that, but based on his facial expression in the final panel I’m guessing he did it in a very depressing way, not a fun way.

Family Circus, 1/4/24

Billy admits it! He and the other Keane Kids aren’t “real people,” but are instead soulless abominations who should not be walking this earth. “Jeffy,” says Jeffy’s shirt, desperately trying to distract you from the fact that he is a Thing that does not deserve a name.

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Holidays loom ominously

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Judge Parker, 12/23/24

Aw, isn’t that nice? Sam is going to let Alan enjoy the holidays and wait until the new year until he yells at him for sheltering his criminal daughter. Personally speaking, I’d like to get it out of the way now, you know? No worse way to spend the holiday then dwelling on “Ah, what kind of pissy scold am I going to get from Sam Driver about my latest criminal antics” when I could be exchanging gifts with my family or getting drunk or whatever.

Blondie, 12/23/24

Look, I’m not afraid to say it: A giant stocking stuffed full with cookies and two kinds of meat sounds disgusting. It’s all going to get mixed together and lint from the stocking will stick to everything! I’m not a food snob by any stretch of the imagination but Dagwood’s whole deal is very gross.

Gasoline Alley, 12/23/24

Santa, famously, sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake. To this list of surveillance crimes, add another: every time somebody gives birth, anywhere in the world, he’s watching. He’s watching … and he remembers. He remembers everything.

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Hat Ghost: The Ghost Who Wore A Hat

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Blondie, 11/25/24

A common development in all sorts of open-ended narratives (comic strips, TV shows, what have you) is that ancillary characters are introduced to fill a specific purpose, like being the main character’s barber, but then you have a lot of strips/episodes to fill, and sometimes you use them to flesh out the backstories of those ancillary characters, and sometimes that process (when done well) reveals that these characters have full, rich lives beyond the specific purpose they were originally created for, but other times that process (when done poorly) simply tells you that the barber’s off-panel life consists of more barber, endless barber, barber all the way down, barber (as revealed today) that stretches back in time across generations. The one non-barber aspect that peeks through is Italianness, which is why our guy is allowed, as a member of that fiery and emotional race, to shed a single tear in panel two.

Mary Worth, 11/25/24

Haha, yes, it begins, and by “it” I mean Mary’s friends bailing on her now that she’s too sick to put a piping hot turkey dinner in front of their face on Thursday. A normal person would hear “I’m too tired to even make my homemade chicken soup for myself!” and ask “Oh, Mary, what can I do to step up and help,” but instead Toby is all “Don’t worry, I forgive you! You just lie there on the couch in your own sick while I use this adorable tiny easel I bought on Etsy to paint a cat with fetal alcohol syndrome that I hope someone will buy on Etsy ironically.”

Gil Thorp, 11/25/24

Big news! With Gil steadfastly refusing to return to work and the Mudlarks doing even worse than usual in his absence, Coach Hernandez is consulting … a pipe-smoking ghost??? Who doesn’t really seem to have any specific football knowledge? More on this important story as it develops.