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Dustin, 5/25/24

Syndicated newspaper comic strip creators love golf for some accursed reason, but I have to say that they’re generally pretty good about only doing jokes about aspects of golf that non-golfers know about through cultural osmosis, like that you can lose your ball in a sand or water trap, or that everyone who plays it fucking hates it for some reason. Today’s Dustin, however, requires you to know whether 112 is a good or a bad score. I mean, I guess it’s clear from context that it’s bad, but still: I think this is over the line. It made me dedicate some thought to the awful “sport of kings” [note to self: wait, is that horse racing? double-check this] when all I wanted to do is find out what specific kind of terrible asshole Dustin’s dad was going to be today. Unacceptable! Save it for your side gig submitting New Yorker-style single-panel cartoons to Golf Digest, creeps!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/25/24

“Living their retro-diner-roots-country life to the fullest” makes it sound very much like we’re seeing some unpleasant rockabilly LARP situation, possibly in a corporate “immersive experience” theme park run by whatever hedge fund currently owns the rights to the Johnny Rockets IP. And that’s the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is that this is foreplay!

Family Circus, 5/25/24

Ah, man, this is great. Now I know that whenever we see Billy dressed up to play sports, he feels like he’s under a microscope and is miserable most of the time! I’m a major Billy hater as you all well know, so this is a big win for me.

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Blondie, 5/21/24

The implication here is that Dagwood has been home for hours while letting his latest workplace blunder marinate in his mind, only having the nerve to bring it up at the last possible moment. “What now?” says Blondie, who probably assumed that she had finished up all her emotional labor duties for the evening.

Dustin, 5/21/24

You know my contempt for the writing and characters in Dustin is boundless, but generally speaking, I think the art is decent. Like, even seeing Dustin’s dad’s boss from behind, I think the final panel here nicely captures a facial expression that says “Wow, I forgot what an asshole this guy is, hopefully he gets this all out of his system before our clients show up.”

Mary Worth, 5/21/24

Oh no, we’ve reached the point in the Mary Worth Plot Cycle where it becomes clear that the outrageous and silly plot prediction I made a few days ago (“Ha ha, what if Wilbur eats that fish“) might come true in a much, much grimmer fashion (“Oh no, Wilbur put his dead fish next to the ‘Phish food’ and all his frozen dinners, what if, blinded by grief and alcohol, he eats that fish”). It’s a real burden being cursed with the gift of prophecy!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/21/24

The implication here is that, despite the obviously impoverished circumstances of their household and community, young Jughaid and Tater have to yet experience a crisis in which scavenged local flora and fauna make their way into the Smif family skillet. We call that a Hootin’ Holler right of passage, kids, better get used to it!

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Dennis the Menace and Blondie, 4/1/24

Is there any “holiday” more vile and unpleasant than April Fool’s Day, which is mostly marked by “pranks” perpetrated by the least funny people alive? These tricks generally take one of two very simple forms, as illustrated neatly in these two strips: making someone believe that something bad is happening when it really isn’t, or making someone believe something good is happening when it really isn’t. Does anyone enjoy either? I’m going to say no.

Dustin, 4/1/24

The “making someone believe something good is happening” one is a particularly dangerous game, as Dustin is discovering, especially if you put a lot of work into it! Look at how mad his father is in panel two. He’s about to put his son out on the street and have him carry those presumably empty boxes to his nonexistent new apartment.

Pluggers, 4/1/24

Today’s Pluggers is just a baffling and confusing series of decisions (is Smokey a plugger? “April Phurst”? The Philippines?) meant to keep you completely off-kilter with no real resolution, and in that sense is the only good April Fool’s Day strip. Kudos.

Mary Worth, 4/1/24

The worst prank of all, however, has been perpetrated by Mary Worth on all of us. We were all looking forward to Dawn’s hilariously disastrous reunion with her cold, withholding mother, but instead we’re going to get … Wilbur realizing his life is empty and meaningless? WE ARE ALREADY WELL AWARE OF THIS, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO WE NEED IT REHASHED OVER THE NEXT SIX TO FIFTEEN WEEKS