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Daddy Daze, 7/8/20

Not that there’s much competition, but Daddy Daze Daddy’s Goth Pal is far and away my favorite recurring Daddy Daze character. Like, Daddy Daze Daddy (he has a name, but my brain refuses to retain it and honestly I respect that) has been driven into some kind tight-wound gleeful mania by the pressures of single parenthood, but Goth Pal is always looking on the darkest side of life possible, like he is today, when he mournfully announces that those who have chosen to reproduce are carefully nurturing their own destruction. It’s been foretold in prophecy, but like Cronus in Greek myth, we cannot avoid our fate, no matter how hard we try.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/8/20

Hey, remember how Rex was telling the story about how he and June met to Sarah but he was telling it all boring so June seized control of the narrative? Well, now the plot has moved to a place where June wasn’t even there to see it happen but, uh, we’re just moving forward anyway. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I’m more heavily invested in the layered narrative structure of a syndicated soap opera comic strip plot than anyone involved in the actual production of said comic strip, but I’m still pretty mad about it.

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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!’”