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Slylock Fox, 8/25/21

Based on the animal quiz that accompanies this drawing, that’s clearly supposed to be a wolf out there howling at the moon, and I’m very intrigued that the anonymous syndicate colorist chose to give him Slylock’s bright red fur. Clearly the reality is that they saw “canid in Slylock Fox” and used the fill tool with web-safe bright red without really thinking about it, but I’d like to believe that they briefly contemplated the idea of this strip’s normally cerebral title character stripping off his clothes and howling at the moon, and they said “Honestly? Good for him.”

Dustin, 8/25/21

Sorry, I refuse to believe Dustin’s dad likes impressionism at all. He is absolutely one of those people who would look at any art that isn’t photorealist portraiture and sneer “My kid could’ve done this.” (Then he’d look at Dustin and say, “Well, somebody’s kid could’ve done this, I guess.”)

Gil Thorp, 8/25/21

Oh, wow! Marjie Ducey, the Thorp-friendliest media figure in Milford, is going to retire, and now the paper’s going to hire a woman who was literally Gil’s student like two years ago to replace her! I certainly hope Marty Moon has something to say about this blatant conflict of interest, though we haven’t heard from him in quite a while, and frankly he may still be having some kind of hallucinatory experience in the wooden crate that serves as the Milford press box.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/25/21

We all, of course, have our own personal “what’s the worst recurring theme in Funky Winkerbean?” take, but I think we can all agree that “sometimes the strip hints that there may be multiple rivals for Les’s sexual attention” is in the top five.

Family Circus, 8/25/21

Look, Billy’s all hyped up because he’s been huffing pine cones! And honestly? Good for him.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/26/21

Remember Bizzy Buzz Buzz, the Snuffy Smith character who was named after a popular (?) 1960s toy and whose whole deal is that she likes to obsessively clean things? Well, she’s back. This lovable unaccompanied minor who just can’t get enough of doing unpaid labor for her kinfolk is back! She will be returning every 3-5 years to this strip whether you like it or not, so you might as well grit your teeth and fall in love with her, it’ll be easier that way.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/26/21

Ah, well, it seems like Phil’s death-faking may have been a bit less involved than I had anticipated, and really the only people possibly facing any legal consequences would be the lawyers who straight-up lied to Darrin about why they were sending those covers to him, but what’s a little light lying for a client, who it’s been established was sort of cheated out of a lot revenue for his comics creations and probably couldn’t pay you very much in the first place? Anyway, it turns out Phil mostly faked his death because he didn’t like attention, but then after a few years he realized that in fact maybe he was wrong about that, so he revealed that he was alive in an extremely dramatic fashion at a packed comics convention, so everyone could pay attention to him and his insane life choices.

Dustin, 7/26/21

We all love the comic strip Dustin, because it’s brought balance to the Generation Wars by proving that everyone, whether they’re a Silent or a Boomer or a Gen Xer or a Millennial or a Zoomer, is basically unlikeable. But have you been waiting for the strip to take on a bold new frontier by getting unpleasantly horny? Well, good news!

Pluggers, 7/26/21

Say, did you know there’s a French phrase for this very phenomenon? It’s l’esprit de l’escalier, which literally means “the spirit of the staircase,” the idea being that you think of the perfect bon mot as you’re walking up the stairs to your apartment after you’ve left the party. In related news, I thought of the phrase that’s mostly likely to trigger a plugger into a violent rage, and it’s “Say, did you know there’s a French phrase for this very phenomenon?”

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Mary Worth, 6/21/21

Wait, Santa Roymart? Isn’t that where Tommy and Brandy work? Does Shauna know Tommy? Do Shauna and Tommy go to 12-step meetings together? Does Tommy found himself drawn to Shauna do their shared experiences on the tough road to recovery? Will Shauna finally be able to find a man who she’ll successfully be able to steal away from his woman? Remember, the only thing Santa Roymart is better known for than low, low prices and giving a chance to those who are committed to overcoming their addictions is hilariously public romantic drama amongst the staff.

Shoe, 6/21/21

“And then eat it! We’re birds, remember — small lizards are one of the main things we eat!”

Sam and Silo, 6/21/21

I don’t really talk about Sam and Silo that much, so you probably have a number of questions about it, like “What’s it’s deal, exactly? Is it any good? Which one is Sam and which one is Silo? Is the extremely dated vibe it puts out because it’s actually in reruns, or is this still being produced today and yet it’s somehow still like this? Are the characters all terribly depressed?” Well, today you’re getting answers to two of those questions.

Dustin, 6/21/21

Here’s a fun story for you: When I first moved to LA, I really thought that the restaurants here all kept their lights aggressively dim to set a mood because I kept having to pull out my phone flashlight in order to read the menus, and this went on for literally years before I figured out that actually I had just hit the stage in my life where I needed reading glasses. Anyway, my point is that I’ve finally found a character in Dustin I can identify with.