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Mary Worth, 9/25/17

Hi everybody, I’m back! Huge thanks to all who contributed to the fundraiser, and huge thanks to Uncle Lumpy for being a hilarious guest blogger as always! (I’m still giggling at “But his contract done restricted his wanderings to the premium content offerings from the Tribune Content Agency, LLC.”)

I’m glad to be back, though, and not least because I got here just in time for Dawn to hit her emotional nadir. We all know that Dawn’s true purpose in the great tapestry of life in Mary Worth’s universe is to be as demonstrably miserable as possible. Whether she’s mope-masturbating to Game of Thrones, or staring forlornly at one of the Renaissance’s most famous dicks while thinking about her ex-boyfriend, or, as in this case, stumbling disheveled out of her apartment after what I assume is a 24-hour long mismatched-sweatsuit-clad crying jag to grab a fistful of carrot muffins and then retreat to the nest of blankets she’s made for herself in the middle of the bathroom floor, Dawn is at her best when she’s at her most pathetic.

Crankshaft, 9/25/17

Oh, man, looks like Crankshaft is in for a tough decision that he’s going to have weigh against his moral code: what will allow him to be more of a dick to more people, siding with labor or management?

Pluggers, 9/25/17

Pluggers know that the opiate of today’s masses flows through electrical wires and broadband pipes, and they’re doing their part to help keep the spigot at full blast!

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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.