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Hi and Lois, 7/11/21

I don’t really care much about the lazily structured “joke” about Chip not mowing the lawn, but I am very interested in the tiny adult Hi (Himunculus?) in the top-row throwaway panel. Since Hi has been trapped in amber at the age of fortysomething since the strip launched in the Eisenhower Administration, his mental images of his youth and the past are understandably confused. “I was a child … in the ’50s, I think? And I smoked a pipe? I think I smoked a pipe in the ’50s?”

Dennis the Menace, 7/11/21

I am honestly very much here for Dennis the Menace strips where Dennis himself doesn’t even appear. Maybe the strips should be about his very absence, or maybe they should just be about what the other characters get up to without him. We haven’t had a comic strip character get Barney Googled in ages, and I think Dennis is a great candidate!

Marvin, 7/11/21

Me reading the first two panels of today’s Marvin: “Ah, a Marvin that isn’t about shitting for once!”

Me reading the the third panel of today’s Marvin: “Wait, unless…”

Me reading the first fourth panel of today’s Marvin: “Oh no”

Me reading the rest of the panels of today’s Marvin: “Oh NO”

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Bizarro, 7/2/21

Hey, guys! Do you know how amphibians reproduce? In turns out that in a lot of species, the females lay unfertilized eggs in water, and then later the males come along and ejaculate onto them. Do, uh, do you think any of the people involved in the editorial process that ended with this cartoon being published in newspapers everywhere know this? Anyway, I know I don’t usually talk about Bizarro here, but felt compelled to point out that the strip today went where Hagar the Horrible doesn’t dare; I checked my archives to see if I had ever discussed Bizarro before, and it turns that (a) sometimes Uncle Lumpy does when he fills in for me and (b) this isn’t even the first time it’s done a “so how exactly does human-mermaid sex work” panel.

Dennis the Menace, 7/2/21

Wow, remember like two weeks ago when Henry was all like, “my wife commands me and I must obey?” Well, I guess he’s still saying that, but he seems a lot less turned on by it at this point.

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Blondie, 6/15/21

I continue to respect Blondie’s decision to acknowledge the coronavirus pandemic maybe once a month or so, but even with that context Dagwood is right to be confused: we have for the most part stopped doing temperature checks, because it turns out most people early in a coronavirus infection don’t have fevers, so it’s not a particularly good screen, plus Dagwood is coming home to his wife, who he lives with, and it’s not like he’s going to suddenly become infected and infectious in the eight hours he was at work anyway. Based on the narrative turn things seem to take in the final panel, I must regretfully come to the conclusion that this is a sex thing.

Dennis the Menace, 6/15/21

Why on earth would you ostentatiously refer to wife as “boss” so loudly and repeatedly during a phone call that your baffled coworker would interrupt your conversation to remark on it? I must again conclude this is some sort of sex thing, and Henry is attempting to humiliate himself in as many ways as possible during the run-up to the act itself, for sex-thing reasons.

Mary Worth, 6/15/21

Ha ha, wait, did Drew already fill in Ashlee on all the hot gossip vis-à-vis his ex, or do they already know each other somehow, or did their instincts just immediately kick in upon sighting one another and each of them realized she had to do battle to secure her position as the alpha skank? Anyway, I’m sure this is a sex thing for some of you, but please don’t feel obliged to leave the lurid details in the comments.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/15/21

I think we’re all real familiar with how depressing the average day is at Montoni’s for the people who hang out there, so dwell for a minute on the fact that its regular denizens found it even more depressing when the were forbidden to hang out there by the health department. Also, unrelated, but I dearly hope that the final panel isn’t a sex thing for anyone, anywhere.