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Blondie, 5/3/20

Well, it’s not surprising that the Bumsteads’ suburb, where packs of semi-feral dogs roam the streets at night, has been a little laissez-faire in the public health front, but it looks like it’s finally under enforced social distancing rules. And much as I enjoy Mr. Dithers’s trademark dollar-sign PJs, I really respect Cora’s decision to maintain some shred of civilization and put on her pearls for a day — week? month? — when she’s definitely not going anywhere.

Daddy Daze, 5/3/20

Years ago, my wife and brother-in-law and I were discussing the possibility of training monkeys to work in retail establishments, and I said one of the downsides would be the pooping, for which diapers would be only a temporary solution, and he replied with a sentence that has been burned into my brain ever since: “Once we teach a monkey how to change another monkey’s diapers, it’ll be all monkeys up in here.” In truth, isn’t that the story of the human race? Aren’t we the monkeys who have learned to change each other’s diapers? What I’m trying to say is these children will soon eliminate the last thing they need the Daddy Daze Daddy for, which will blessedly remove any justification for his continued presence in their lives.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/25/20

I think we’ve hit the uncanny valley segment of “comics do coronavirus,” where strips start throwing in catchphrases increasingly prevalent in public discourse to generate “ah ha, I recognize that” laugh-like reactions without actually trying to grapple with actual context these phrases come from. Thus you get Snuffy joking about the “stimulus package” the U.S. government is putting together to counteract the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic without anyone in Hootin’ Holler actually changing their behavior in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Of course, Snuffy and his neighbors are the last people you’d expect to submit to the revenooers’ orders on how they should live their lives, but it’s also possible that they’re safe because the government long ago simply walled Hootin’ Holler off from the rest of the country, for their protection and for ours.

Daddy Daze, 4/25/20

I know I’ve already discussed my theory that the Daddy Daze coffeeshop strips are just updated versions of the bar strips in every other syndicated newspaper comic. Today’s offering features a very despondent Daddy Daze Daddy’s Goth Twin, guzzling his coffee as he contemplates a parenting style that, it seems clear, has already ruined his child’s life, and I’m basically assuming at this point that these strips were all drawn to take place in a bar and then forcibly changed to a coffee shop by editorial intervention.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/25/20

“Finally! White people are back on top in this town! White people with normal names, like ‘Mason Jarre!’”

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Dick Tracy, 4/14/20

Hey, folks, remember like two Dick Tracy storylines ago, when sexy part-alien Mysta Chimera was held captive by the sinister Mister Roboto? Well, if you liked that, you’ll enjoy the current short-run “Minit Mystery,” in which the sexy part-alien Mysta Chimera is held captive by the sinister … well, they haven’t been identified, but they were apparently her partner back in her first story, when she was genetically engineered to believe she was erstwhile Dick Tracy daughter-in-law Moon Maid but that all turned out to be a big fake and she was just a gangster’s daughter who won a lookalike contest and then her body and mind were horribly altered with alien DNA as part of a scheme to steal Diet Smith’s Space Coupe. Anyhoo, I mostly bring this up because Mysta getting tied up clearly seems to be somebody’s “thing,” which is neither here nor there, but the addition of nightmarish blowtorch torture puts this right in classic Dick Tracy territory.

Daddy Daze, 4/14/20

Oh, this actually explains a lot about Angus, the precocious, seemingly super-powered Daddy Daze baby! He’s not a “baby” so much as a genetic experiment that aims to create something greater and more powerful than an everyday human, and his “parents” are actually the major shareholders in the mysterious corporation seeking to profit from this forbidden science. Once Angus gets to high school and his powers become manifest, they will get all the blame, in the sense that they’ll be tried for crimes against humanity.

Mary Worth, 4/14/20

Hahaha this is amazing. “Oh shit,” thinks Dawn, “I thought I was in love with Jared, but I forgot that Hugh was incredibly hot. What the fuck was I thinking?”