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Mary Worth, 11/11/22

“Nah, babe. Even the prospect of our tragic death can only shake us out of the boring ruts of our usual routine for a day or so. That’s why we’ve got to plan our upcoming wedding … it’s just out of the ordinary enough to make us feel like everything isn’t undifferentiated sameness with no beginning or end. And after the wedding? Well, we’ll just have to come up with something else, hopefully not suicide.”

Dennis the Menace, 11/11/22

I dunno man, I feel like it’s a bad sign that Mr. Wilson hasn’t even bothered to tape over that window or anything. Just left a big jagged hole! Like he’s given up on everything! I hope the UPS man isn’t delivering something he’s going to use to harm his neighbors, or himself.

Pardon My Planet, 11/11/22

A new addition to the list of Things You Can Just Put In A Newspaper Comic Now Where God And Everyone Can See It: a blowup sex doll. Congrats, Pardon My Planet!

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Dennis the Menace, 11/4/22

I actually think it’s more or less fine to do a syndicated newspaper strip that takes place in some kind of permanent 1950s boomer childhood fantasy world, especially for legacy strips that were born in that era anyway. I do feel like if you’re going to have a 1950s housewife tending to a rascally little tyke in overalls who’s allowed to roam the suburban neighborhood freely with a slingshot, the price you pay is that you can’t have said tyke mouth off about “the supply chain” or whatever. It’s too stale to be actually topical but topical enough that Dennis definitely shouldn’t be talking about it, which puts it in an uncanny valley spot that’s ironically pretty menacing, just not the kind of menacing I like.

The Lockhorns, 11/4/22

Meanwhile, because I contain multitudes, I love it when The Lockhorns get vaguely contemporary. Leroy losing all his money in a crypto scam? Yes, yes I say, give me more of this. The Lockhorns are Millennials after all, so it adds up.

Dustin, 11/4/22

Speaking of topical matters, I did a piece in 2020 about the initial wave of the COVID pandemic and the comics, but didn’t broach the subject that maybe I should’ve: what if a comic character actually died of COVID? I think possibly the funniest possible way for Dustin to dramatically stop publishing would’ve been to have its unloved title character die of wild-type COVID in April 2020, unmourned by his family or his temp agency. Sadly, in late 2022, this is probably just a cold, or at worst an Omicron infection that he’s vaccinated against and will get over, but fingers crossed that he’s maybe got that mutant flu/RSV hybrid that’s going around and we’ll be freed from this strip’s nonsense.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/4/22

Very sad that Summer has chosen a book topic that will require her to interview all her dad’s insufferable old friends, but I suppose the big reveal that the town’s mailman was violating federal law and everyone’s privacy for decades will at least result in a flurry of local sales interest.

Shoe, 11/4/22

I love it when the TV announces that regular programming has been pre-empted for some undisclosed reason and also refuses to tell me what it’s been replaced by, a normal occurrence that happens in real life all the time. Anyway, do you think today’s strip falls into the distressingly frequent Shoe category of “It’s fucked up that they have birds doing this joke”? Discuss.

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Blondie, 11/2/22

I had a whole riff ready to go here about how I’m not a prude and it’s not like I think legacy comics characters shouldn’t feel and express sexual desire but I’m not a huge fan of Alexander Bumstead, a freakish-looking teen carbon copy of his father, being “hot for teacher,” but then my brain short circuited when I noticed his sister was wearing Crocs. Crocs! Recognizable footwear worn by real, normal people, in a world where these kids’ dad wears a tuxedo with a single dinner-plate sized shirt button to his utterly generic office job. It’s madness, I tell you! Madness!

Dennis the Menace, 11/2/22

This could’ve been a joke about how Margaret is smart and snobby about being smart while Dennis is menacingly stupid if they hadn’t literally put a heart on her sleeve. As it is, it’s just panel about two kids who don’t really understand metaphors, which, I hate to say it, isn’t particularly funny or interesting.

Family Circus, 11/2/22

Ha ha, look at how genuinely upset Billy looks! This kid has definitely done some crimes and is panicking that the so-called “constitutional protections” he learned about in his liberal public school do not apply in the Keane Kompound.