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Dustin, 7/22/24

To me, this feels very much like a strip that was originally going to do some kind of wordplay on the polysemic nature of “alarmed” — “it was alarmed” … “the door was alarmed?” … “no, [something funnier] was alarmed” — but then gave up on figuring out what [something funnier] might be and just did a “quiet quitting” joke instead with out even going back and reworking the dialogue that led up to it. Frankly, I kind of enjoy the idea that the narrative voice for Dustin (the comic strip) has boundless contempt for Dustin (the character) and yet both do the most half-assed job possible in any situation.

Mary Worth, 7/22/24

Love the way Mary is holding her hands at the ready in the second panel. She’s prepared to clap if these two manage to actually do a good job with this song, but she hasn’t been fully convinced yet.

Suburban Fairy Tales, 7/22/24

Don’t worry, Little Pig #2! Hay fever is the layperson’s term for allergy-induced rhinitis, and it is not contagious. I guess this sort of ignorance of the respiratory system explains why you built a feeble house made of out of sticks despite your primary predator using his powerful lungs as a hunting mechanism.

[HA HA WHOOPS I MISREAD THIS BECAUSE MY BRAIN WAS ALREADY WRITING THIS JOKE AS I WAS PROCESSING THE SENTENCE, SORRY EVERYBODY I AM ASHAMED]

Gil Thorp, 7/22/24

I think we can agree that doctors and cops are, if not jocks, then at least jock-adjacent, which it was why it was groundbreaking when characters from Rex Morgan, M.D. and Dick Tracy did the nerdiest thing possible (go to a comics convention). But now, with this wacky Gil Thorp summer storyline, we’re going to see pure unadulterated jock-nerd convergence. God help us all!

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Hagar the Horrible, 7/5/24

I know the joke here is that you think the buffet owner has “won” this coin toss because it means someone will be patronizing his restaurant, but in fact he has “lost” it because that patron is Hagar, whose rapacious appetite will result in an unprofitable transaction. But everyone’s expression in the second panel almost got me to Google “did Vikings ever engage in cannibalism” before I remembered that most webpages about Viking culture are either written by neo-pagans talking about how Vikings were very nice and kind of woke, actually, or by neo-fascists talking about how Vikings were very nice and extremely representative of the superiority of the Nordic bloodline, actually, so I decided to skip it.

Dustin, 7/5/24

Wow. They said it couldn’t be done. They said it was impossible. They said, “There will never be a Dustin strip that Josh laughs at unironically.” But today, they did it. And all it took was having the character I feel the most neutrally about insult the character I hate the most. This should be an inspiration to everyone. Your dreams can come true, if you work hard enough.

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Blondie, 6/18/24

Originally read that first panel as referring to “verse” as in poetry, then was briefly disappointed when it turned out I was incorrect, then thought, you know what? I don’t need to hear what Blondie’s take on poetry is. Stay in your lane, Blondie! Blondie’s lane is doing funny onomatopoeias for snoring, and it’s thriving there.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/18/24

Honestly loving Loweezy’s exclamation point in the second panel here. Why, she had an entirely different idea about what Jughaid’s summer reading list was! Comics? Good heavens!

Dustin, 6/18/24

I also love Dustin’s dad expression of crushing despair in the final panel of this strip. Ha ha, it’s funny because he wants to die! And if he keeps drinking all that sugar, he just might!