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Mary Worth, 9/4/16

One of the low-key best aspects of the Tommy the Tweaker Mary Worth stories is the emotionally complex and slightly co-dependent relationship between Beedle mère et fils. Sure, Tommy has let Iris down, again and again, but deep down in his heart he doesn’t want to. Obviously it’s very embarrassing for Tommy to be busted in front of his mom, partly because now she knows he’s a drug addict. But I bet that what hurts him most is that in her eyes he’s now an incompetent pharmacy-shopper. Like, why couldn’t she have seen all the times he successfully pulled this off, you know? Maybe she would’ve been proud of him, even!

Panel from The Lockhorns, 9/4/16

It’s always fascinated me that the Lockhorns takes advantage of the increased space the Sunday comics provides by printing six unrelated one-panel Lockhorns gags. That’s a lot of content! And as someone who has to produce a lot of content on the regular, I know that sometimes the well just goes dry on your usual shtick, man. That’s why I totally respect today’s Lockhorns, which provided five gags about the usual marital hellscape and one that’s just “what’s the deal with deep-dish pizza, amirght everyone?”

Panels from Crock, 9/4/16

I’m from Buffalo, NY, where Buffalo wings were invented (more than a decade after the notorious Jessica Simpson “I don’t eat Buffalo” incident, some people still need this explained to them), and, fun fact: in Buffalo we don’t call them “Buffalo wings”! We call them “chicken wings,” or just “wings.” So I guess I’m not surprised that people who are actually in the French Foreign Legion don’t call it “Legionnaires’ disease.”

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/19/16

You know, what with Hootin’ Holler being a largely lawless place, with a rugged landscape and local knowledge about property holdings more likely to be passed down through generations by word of mouth than delineated on any map, bringing in surveyors isn’t the worst idea in the world! It could be a real growth industry, and could probably help cut down on the endless, violent clan feuds whose flareups can often be blamed on property line disputes, even if control of moonshine smuggling turf is ultimately the root cause. And, let’s be real, it’d be pretty useful for someone in the Smif family to have a job.

Dennis the Menace, 8/19/16

If you want to create a portrait of a child as a low-key but effective menace to everything you think about yourself as a person who heads a civilized family, this is a good start: he stares at your guest with dead eyes and shows unfamiliarity with basic concepts, all while drooling freely onto his own dinner.

Beetle Bailey and Crock, 8/19/16

Hey kids, did you know that some of America’s longest-running comic strips take place in the military during actual violent conflicts? Beetle Bailey is stateside, for the most part, but its soldiers must know that they could be deployed at any time; in today’s strip, their nighttime anxieties escalate, from right to left, climaxing with Beetle, who, panicked but clear-eyed, can only think of massive, world-obliterating explosions. Meanwhile, today’s Crock reminds us that most of the main characters are occupation troops in a grinding, brutal colonial war. Happy Friday!

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Crock, 6/3/16

Haha, it’s funny because the patrolmen are dying horribly in flames, miles away from help or rescue or even water! As the fire burns away everything that makes them human, their commanding officers coldly refer to them as “objects.”

Beetle Bailey, 6/3/16

Like many military operations, this started as an attempt to remove something with precision and skill and has now devolved into a test of strength in which someone is probably going to lose a limb.

Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean, 6/3/16

Welp, I guess Jeff wasn’t being fired by his therapist earlier this week; he was being told to go back to his childhood home, to get “closure” or whatever, and also just start pulling up the floorboards of his old attic, despite the distinct lack of enthusiasm displayed by the house’s current resident. Meanwhile, in the future, we’re discovering how this actually ties in with his mother’s death: he’s using the decoder ring he’s found to translate a message from his mother, who is in outer space, which is apparently where hell is.

Mary Worth, 6/3/16

Looks like all the girls who were being super mean to Dawn because they thought she was sleeping with her professor are pals with her again because she’s deigned to spend time with them in between dropping Harlan’s name every other sentence, because that’s how human beings work! I am very much assuming that this upcoming showing of X-Men: Apocalypse that Dawn is being lured to will go pretty much like the prom scene in Carrie, except without the revenge via psychic powers.

Hi and Lois, 6/3/16

“Maybe I’m just not very good at school?”

Pluggers, 6/3/16

You’re a plugger if your grandchildren dislike you and flee from your presence the moment you’re distracted.