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Happy 2016, everyone! As is my tradition, I begin the new year by catching everyone up on the week’s worth of comics that I skipped while travelling, because I am nothing if not servicey. It’s good to have traditions this time of year!

Gil Thorp, 12/25/15

The Thorps have this tradition where they pose for a Christmas card, and try very strenuously to pretend that they never had hideous children, no sir, it’s always just been the two of them, those ugly little twerps certainly aren’t buried under the backyard shed right now, why would you even think that.

Mark Trail, 12/25/15

People have all sorts of holiday traditions! A cab driver told me yesterday his family always buys new green underwear to wear on New Years for good luck! Other people like to gently pick bats off of cave walls on Christmas morning! Life is a rich tapestry!

Gasoline Alley, 12/26/15

At least this holiday season settled an age-old question: is there a loving God? Clearly not, because if there were, He would not allow this endless, insanely tedious scrapbooking storyline to continue.

Curtis, 12/26/15

BUT WAIT! A KWANZAA STORYLINE IN CURTIS! Except … it doesn’t take place in some mythical African setting but instead stars an ordinary teen with fairly standard aspirations in the contemporary United States? This offers very little opportunity for, say, bat-winged bears or giant telepathic otters, so, nope, life is still terrible.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/29/15

Sarah’s plan to skip the first grade by marching into her new school, waving her horsey drawings around over her head and shouting “I’m an artist, damn it! An artist! I know how to feed myself!” should be extremely hilarious to watch.

Gasoline Alley, 12/30/15

Nnngghhnnggghghgh, this is still happening??? Here’s some sad news, Boog: forget a hundred years from now, we stopped caring about you weeks ago.

Curtis, 12/30/15

GOD DAMN IT, KWANZAA IS ABOUT WEIRD GIANT MONSTERS, IT ISN’T ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA AND VIRAL VIDEOS, THIS IS EVEN WORSE THAN NO KWANZAA STORY AT ALL

Gil Thorp, 12/31/15

On the other hand, I do like Gil Thorp plots that revolve around social media and viral videos! Remember when Gil got hit on the head with a baseball and YouTube went nuts for it? Remember when the kids read about sexting in Time and Newsweek and decided they wanted in? Anyway, this year it seems that Coach Mrs. Coach Thorp was about to cut a gal from the basketball team but then saw that she had written something vaguely team spirit-y on her Facebook, so now she’s in! This will no doubt lead to an escalating war of all the kids posting inspirational memes and such in an attempt to keep in their coach’s good graces.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/31/15

In case you’re wondering, New Years Eve in the Funkyverse combines the gloom of the Funkyverse with the gloom of New Years Eve in real life!

Mark Trail, 12/31/15

What better way to end 2015 than with some hot Trailian beefcake?

Mary Worth, 1/2/16

And what better way to start 2016 than with some hot Worthian sanctimony? Remember, it’s not mandatory that you make New Year’s Resolutions, but if you do, why not resolve to be more like Mary? EVERYONE SHOULD BE MORE LIKE MARY.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/3/16

Haha, remember the terrible joke in this strip? Did you want another version of it? Well, too bad, here it is! 2016 is going to be great!

Anyway, I’m back to regular daily blogging tomorrow. But now is the time to vote in the annual Worthy Awards, the hilarious best-of-the-year awards from Wanders and the Mary Worth And Me blog. Will Terry Bryson win Best Costume Design for her Mod Squad outfit? Will Mary’s Pretty Big Computer-Like Thing win for Best Set Decoration? Democracy only works if you vote!

And, finally, remember, you can buy my novel, now and forever. I’m enthusiastic about 2016! (See what I did there?)

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Mary Worth, 12/21/15

One of the low-key weirder details out of many in this Olive storyline in Mary Worth is that Olive’s parents are vaguely implied to be bad and neglectful because they can’t stop getting their fuck on. And now Mary’s aggression on this subject is getting a lot less passive! “You two love birds keep doing what you’re doing, which is enjoying the physical aspects of the sex act without true emotional intimacy! We have things under control here, unlike you, who can’t even control your engorged genitals!”

Momma, 12/21/15

Speaking of shameful lusts, Momma’s recent strips that seem to accidentally be about incest have been so weird and disturbing that today’s installment, in which Francis has literally twisted himself into a sexual frenzy as he stares at a parade of hot ladies out his mother’s front window, is a relief, in that none of those hot ladies is his sister.

Curtis, 12/21/15

At least there’s no overt sexuality in today’s Curtis! No, Greg’s soul isn’t stirred by lust or passion of any sort. It’s not because commercialism is any worse today than it used to be, it’s just because years of adulthood have crushed his spirit and now he can’t feel.

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Mark Trail, 11/13/15

This game of cat-and-mouse has gone on long enough. Mark and Ken lurked in the bushes and let the bad guys empty the clips of their machine guns harmlessly into other bushes; now, the punching can begin. Mark graciously allows Ken first punch, and it’s a doozy: a flying leap that catches two bad guys at once, sending their sunglasses and now-useless firearms flying. Kudos to the anonymous colorist for accurately recognizing that arc of liquid coming from the left-hand bad guy’s mouth and making it blood red! Anyway, if this is what Ken has to offer, surely Mark’s punchery is going to be even more impressive.

Curtis, 11/13/15

When Curtis launched in 1988, it totally made cultural sense for Curtis to be a huge fan of rap music and for his dad to hate it. Now, nearly 30 years later, thanks to comics time this is not so much the case: it seems unlikely that Greg, the father of two young children, is much older than 45 or so, which would have made him a teenager himself during the age of old-school hip-hop. Anyway, the matter of Greg’s age has been left more or less untouched for most of the strip, which is why it’s all the more shocking to learn that one of his first-ever crushes co-existed with the age of web browsing, which would certainly make him younger … than … me? Oh my God I’m older than Curtis’s dad

Crankshaft, 11/13/15

I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of our post-9/11 surveillance state, but if Crankshaft just accidentally watched an al-Qaeda video and is now on some government watchlist that will get him extremely thoroughly searched every time he flies anywhere, I’m not gonna complain.

Blondie, 11/13/15

JULIUS C. DITHERS: BRONY