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Dustin, 9/14/23

Apologies (?) for not showing you yesterday’s Dustin, which consisted of Dustin asking his dad to guess the global gross domestic product, and Dustin’s dad guessing $100 trillion when the actual answer was $102 trillion (according to the strip, anyway, but if you think I’m doing any research whatsoever to fact-check a gag in Dustin you are sorely mistaken), and there was some bemused discussion of how his guess was quite close in relative terms despite being off by $2 trillion, a very large sum when considered on its own. Anyway, this was annoying but not that annoying — certainly not that annoying by Dustin’s usual standards — so I didn’t bother talking about it here. But repeating the exact same “joke” today, with nothing new added other than a shuffle in the lineup of characters saying it? Well, that’s annoying enough to bring to your attention. If they try to get a whole week out of this concept, I’m going to be very annoyed indeed.

The Lockhorns, 9/14/23

See, if you’re going to do a themed week, you really need to follow the lead of The Lockhorns and do it with a real purity of purpose and tight focus. This week is apparently “Lockhorns anniversary week,” the theme of which is that Leroy and Loretta use the occasion to attack and belittle one another in anniversary-specific ways, as opposed to the more general ways in which they do it over the rest of the year.

Gil Thorp, 9/14/23

Wow, it looks like Toby and Rod really used their time in prison to sharpen their football skills, huh? This is going to send an important message to student-athletes everywhere: that the best way to get a leg up is to go to juvie where they’ll be forced to play football for the entertainment of a sadistic warden, so they need to do some crimes, but not crimes so serious that they get sent to adult prison, where the sadistic warden can only be entertained by no-holds-barred steel cage matches.

Blondie, 9/14/23

Love the way Elmo is solemnly making direct eye contact with the reader in the final panel here. This truly is an important lesson about school picture day that America’s children need to learn, which is why it’s so tragic that no children read Blondie.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/14/23

RENE THEY ARE ONLY TRYING TO PAY YOU THE MONEY YOU ARE OWED AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE, WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE CRIME AND THREATS WITH YOU

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Beetle Bailey, 9/5/23

A lot of Beetle Bailey’s M.O. boils down to “We thought of a joke, which of our long-ish list of one-note characters that we’ve accrued over the years can we assign it to?” Reading panel one, I though Rocky, as the camp’s resident rock-and-roll loving bad boy, was a bad choice for this, but once I realized it was about one of the soldiers being rejected by his family and forced to make a home in a cruel institution that doesn’t want him either, I changed my mind, this is a good one.

Dick Tracy, 9/5/23

Look, this may be a “Minit Mystery,” but do we have time to spend a whole strip on some Grade A Wholly Innocent [change this later if necessary –Eds] Beefcake? Yes, yes we do.

Dustin, 9/5/23

“Ha ha, get it? Wait, no, actually, that metaphor doesn’t really make sense. Sorry, I’m still workshopping this bit. Anyway, long story short, you’re dying.”

Judge Parker, 9/5/23

I’m sorry, Gloria, are you keeping meticulous accounting records of a criminal fucking conspiracy?

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Marvin, 9/1/23

I usually wouldn’t describe the syndicated newspaper comic strip Marvin as “realistic,” but I gotta say, Jenny in panels one and two really vividly captures the expression of “oh my god my husband left our literal baby out in the hot sun by himself all afternoon and is gloating about it, I need to make a plan to get the both of us away from here safely without him knowing.”

Dustin, 9/1/23

If you, like me, hate Dustin’s dad with a burning passion, you probably read Dustin and think, “Obviously Dustin’s dad’s whole family hates him as much as I do, but is he blissfully unaware, or does he know, and it haunts him?” Well, today’s strip has some good news for all of us!