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Dustin, 1/7/22

This whole week in Dustin has been about how Dustin’s dad wants to relive his high school glory days as a pole vaulter, and his wife is just absolutely furious about it. It’s been pretty annoying and dull, but I do kind of like today’s strip, in which we learn that, despite being a loathsome jerk, Dustin’s dad has hidden depths, like a strong desire to break out of his boring, safe, middle class existence, possibly by dying.

Mary Worth, 1/7/22

In other annoying and dull things that have been happening this whole week, Zak and Iris’s wedding ceremony has been both boring and drama free. I know we’re all disappointed to see Wilbur though-ballooning positive energy at his ex instead of getting drunk and making a scene, but I do like the juxtaposition here of him, Mary (thought ballooning platitudes, as is her wont) and Dawn, who is experiencing no thoughts at all, just vibes

Gil Thorp, 1/7/22

New Gil Thorp writer Henry Barajas promised on Twitter back in September that Milford’s annual bonfire was coming, and yet football season came and went without it — so it shouldn’t surprise us that that football season ultimately ended in failure. Now, with the school district apparently unable or unwilling to provide the official school-sanctions bonfire we’re used to, the teens of Milford are taking matters into their own hands, holding a forbidden, booze-soaked backwoods bonfire to try to salvage basketball season at least.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/7/22

What do we know about Hootin’ Holler? We know that its inhabitants are desperately poor and largely isolated from the national and global economies, and what little economic activity that does take place in the community is centered around subsistence agriculture, illegal alcohol manufacturing, and stealing chickens. If Bonnie Mae couldn’t figure out that this is a bad place to run a fancy-pants “boutique,” that’s on her.

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Dustin, 12/15/22

I always criticize the comic strip Dustin for its failure to depict its young-person characters in realistic ways, so I have to give credit where credit is due: TikTok is, in fact, an app that young people enjoy, and where you could watch many hours of dance videos, if you so choose. Now, young people do not come away from an evening of TikTok dance video viewing looking like they’ve just watched a solid six hours of disembowelments, like Dustin does here, nor do they make these kinds of execrable puns, but, you know, baby steps.

Judge Parker, 12/15/22

“Uh, no, Steve, my version is at least kind of plausible, whereas yours doesn’t really make sense at all. How much blood have you lost, exactly?”

Family Circus, 12/15/22

“So put some damn pants on. Fun time’s over!”

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Dustin, 12/7/22

If you had asked me before today, I would have said with some conviction that Blondie and Dustin both fell into the category of “comics I read every day but do not particularly like.” Nevertheless, the past couple days have provided me with some surprising information about the nuances of my opinions: I think Elmo-only strips are a violation of the Bumstead-centered narrative unity of the Blondieverse, whereas Dustin strips in which the Dustin family doesn’t appear, and instead the only recurring character is the weird little neighbor kid Dustin is inappropriately friends with? Sure, go nuts, doesn’t bother me a bit. Oh, do you want to do a joke with him talking to a mall Santa, but the joke only makes sense if the guy is actually Santa, throwing things into further narrative confusion? I already told you I don’t give a shit and this won’t change my position on shit-giving, sorry.

Blondie, 12/7/22

Speaking of Blondie and liking or not liking things, one thing I do like about this strip is that Dagwood and his mailman genuinely do not like each other. The mailman is absolutely justified, of course, as Dagwood repeatedly flings open the door and runs into him at full speed on the way to his carpool, scattering mail everywhere. I’m not sure what Dagwood’s beef is, but his animus is fairly clear.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/7/22

Ah, yes, we’ve hit the Wall Of Text phase of this time travel exposition dump, as we learn that the time travel business is apparently responsible for the weird Crankshaft/Funky Winkerbean chronological discontinuity that’s exercised so many of our best minds over the past decade. Our future janitor is also proving that knowing how to control the timestream doesn’t mean you know everything; if he thinks that Summer is basically done writing her book now that she’s decided what she wants to write about and has taken some preliminary notes, I would like to refer him to the three years it took for me to get from my Kickstarter to my novel, and also refer to him to the experience of everyone else in human history who’s ever written a book.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/7/22

Good news for everyone who plays by the rules, everyone! Remember Wanda, the comely diner waitress who was shamelessly flirting with Mud? Well, now she’s going to make herself sexually available to Truck, as his reward for doing the music business “the right way” (i.e., he doesn’t pretend to shit his pants on stage but also doesn’t make any money). Who’s the loser now, Mud?