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The Lockhorns, 8/18/17

While the Lockhorns occasionally demonstrate the strong emotions you might expect from a couple trapped in an endless, awful hell-marriage between two people who hate each other, more often their faces display only the icy, indifferent numbness that you might expect from people who try their best not to feel anything at all. Today’s panel is particularly grim in that regard: Leroy is of course unfazed as the house fills with thick, choking black smoke and his and Loretta’s murder-suicide pact finally goes into operation, but his friend, who appears to have dropped by to visit at exactly the wrong time, seems only mildly more concerned. I’m not sure if this is because the Lockhorns put out a force-field of ennui that snuffs out the energy of hapless passers-by, or if it’s just a result of carbon monoxide drowsiness.

Crankshaft, 8/18/17

Crankshaft looks a lot more proud and determined than usual in this panel. “That’s right,” he thinks. “We live in a world where an abundance-based economy is possible and nobody needs to go hungry. The hoarders and wreckers of the parastic food industry will have their plans ruined and capitalism itself will be shaken, by the power of my zucchini!”

Mary Worth, 8/18/17

Mary Worth is many, many delightful things, but one thing it is generally not is subtle about the future direction of its plotlines, and keeping that in mind I want to point out that the name of the fancy restaurant where this handsome divorced fortysomething doctor took a college-aged hospital admin temp on a date is French for “THE LOVE DOG.”

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Gil Thorp, 8/14/17

Oh, so that’s what Jaquan meant by “backwards!” It looks like instead of the summer wackiness we crave, we’ll be getting … a 31-year-old pro basketball player with a bum knee suddenly deciding he wants to play an insanely physically punishing game that chews up its players’ bodies and destroys their brains? Sure, why not! At least he’ll have Heather on his side, a high school student and coaching dabbler who in just a few months last year helped linebacker Kevin Pelwecki achieve his dream of becoming a fifth-string quarterback, probably just so Gil wouldn’t have to listen to him whine anymore. Maybe this summer will be wacky after all, if you consider a long prelude to a debilitating concussion “wacky!”

Hi and Lois, 8/14/17

I find this comic honestly delightful! Look at how happy everybody is! I’m really enjoying the image of Lois explaining to Thirsty in a soothing voice, possibly while holding an ice-cold beer just out of reach, how four to six hours a day spent in a pleasant PBR haze on the couch flipping through the channels of the Flagstons’ premium cable package could be plausibly spun to Irma as “house-sitting.”

Crankshaft, 8/14/17

You know, I have to admit, while Crankshaft wasn’t at the top of my list of widely syndicated newspaper comic strips that I thought might do a piss-drinking joke, it wasn’t exactly at the bottom, either.

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Mary Worth, 8/5/17

Remember, whether a guy is a ruggedly handsome but troubled mid-fortysomething alpha or a whiny, passive-aggressive early-thirtysomething beta, he has a lot of potential techniques for convincing a 19-year-old to make the terrible decision to sleep with him, and pretty high on the list is the “you seem so mature!” gambit. Don’t worry, though, nobody who’s ever tried to flirt by saying “you’ve surprised me again, [first and last name of the person I’m flirting with]” has ever actually had sex.

Blondie, 8/5/17

I pretty much assume that most legacy comics are written by aging men who get a lot of inspiration by looking at the news/today’s society and saying “What the hell is this about,” and as an aging man myself, I find this impulse more and more relatable. For instance, did you know that this treadmill bike is apparently a real thing, and that its inventor came up with it trying to answer the question “How can I use the treadmill outdoors?” He deserves every bit of roasting the Blondie-industrial complex can heap upon him, in my cranky old opinion.

Crankshaft, 8/5/17

Speaking of cranky and old, the cranky old men of Crankshaft have a cute way to let each other know they’re “just kidding around” when the political talk gets too heated: they just shit themselves right there in the booth at the diner!