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Shoe, 3/22/22

A few years ago during a big family Thanksgiving gathering, I looked up to see my seventysomething mother and her siblings sitting on the couch all fiddling with their phones, and I posted a picture of it with the caption “Darn those millennials!” or something like that. I did this not to be mean to them — I too had been fiddling with my phone just minutes earlier despite being in a room full of family that I hadn’t seen in months — but to make the point that our gadgets are inherently addictive and people of all ages find it hard to tear ourselves away from them. I genuinely appreciate that today’s Shoe features two late-middle-aged bird men sitting at a diner counter looking at their phones, a scene (other than the bird part) that would be utterly unremarkable in real life but which most fiction has failed to keep up with. I especially appreciate it because presumably the main audience for Shoe is older and maybe prone to thinking of gadget love as an affliction of the young. Is the way to break these diabolical machines’ grip to remind people that they could be having sex instead of staring at their phone? I’m not convinced, but I’m glad Shoe is giving this messaging strategy a try.

Crankshaft, 3/22/22

Sure, it’s taken a generation or two, but at least someone in this family knows that the best way to avoid learning truly horrible things or hearing terrible puns is to just talk to other people as little as possible. Max and Mindy could be completely free of this nonsense by just moving out of their parents’ house entirely, but this will do in a pinch.

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Crankshaft, 3/21/22

Pam. Pam. Your father is an enthusiastic gardener who loves to order stuff from the Bean’s End catalog. That’s a giant bag labelled “Bean’s End Mulch.” Why on earth do you feel like you need to ask what that is? You know what it is! It’s a goddamn bag of mulch! Asking this question can only set up a terrible joke, or at minimum extend a conversation with Crankshaft. Do you want that? Do you think any of us want to watch that? C’mon!

Dick Tracy, 3/21/22

Never let it be said that Dick Tracy is a character without nuance! For instance, you’d think a tough guy cop would be irritated when his foppish theater pal wants him to take time out of his busy work day to come see a celebrity impersonator he plans to represent. But no, Dick’s fine with that. It’s only a problem when the new talent parodies a cacophonic singer who almost killed him! That’s the line you shouldn’t cross with him, no matter what.

Mary Worth, 3/21/22

Not sure why you would’ve ever doubted that Ian’s colleagues all dislike him, but today’s strip pretty much confirms that Ian’s colleagues all dislike him.

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Funky Winkerbean, 3/10/22

Wow, in an extremely believable turn of events, Marianne has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, for her extremely cliched role as “wife who dies of cancer” in a movie nobody saw or liked or promoted! And, as is only appropriate, she begins her acceptance speech by thanking Lisa, who died of c– wait, what? She’s thanking her mother? UNACCEPTABLE! Under most circumstances, I don’t want to be confronted with Les’s smug face, but I do sort of want to see a smash cut to him watching at home mournfully, while Cayla smirks in the background.

Crankshaft, 3/10/22

Remember last month, when Crankshaft went to church to pray for a disaster-level snowstorm, which would snarl his town’s economy and possibly result in accidents and deaths, but would have the advantage of getting him time off of work? Well, I never followed up on that, but there was a big storm and they did cancel school, but he went in to work anyway because he didn’t bother to check, because he’s an idiot. What he took away from that experience, though, was that God would heed his call to heap pain and violence on others at his whim, and I think everyone in Centerville is going to be a lot worse off for it.

Rex Morgan, M.D. 3/10/22

Man, check out Rex’s expression in panel two! That’s the face of a man who knows that he’s supposed to feel joy at the prospect of a new adorable baby entering the world, and so he’s just going to tighten his cheeks has hard as he can and hope that’s the vibe he’s conveying.