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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/10/25

Even as I age, I stick to one of my core values, which is that nostalgia is, ultimately, a poison, a way to project your discontent onto an imagined past that includes only your hazy, positive memories and none of the very real problems present in any historical period. Still, I recognize its fundamental appeal. Wouldn’t it be great to live in a time when professionals would be addressed in a friendly way by a shorthand nickname based on their well-respected job — “Teach,” “Padre,” and such? And wouldn’t it be great to live in a time when a high school teacher could spend so much time at the bar that the bouncers there would be like “Oh, that guy? The one who’s here so often that you easily recognize him? He’s a high school teacher, and no, I don’t really know how he can get up in the morning in time to get to class, given how much he drinks here every night.”

Herb and Jamaal, 2/10/25

Speaking of nostalgia, remember Herb and Jamaal, the strip I used to talk about mostly to make fun of its extreme nonspecificity? I let it drop off my rotation a while back due to [some throat-clearing here to gloss over how I get access to comic strips in such a way that allows me to have each post written and published by around 4 am every day and sometimes accidentally earlier] but now I’ve gotten another source on them, and the big question is: are our heroes still telling cutting-edge jokes about what’s going in the present day? The answer, surprisingly, is yes! Just as I’ve found new sources for comics access, Herb and Jamaal have dug into the informal supply chain and acquired one (1) egg, a precious commodity in our current H5N1-afflicted hellscape! Unfortunately, given that the two of them run a restaurant together, this seems like it’s not going to scale up in a way that will be helpful to them.

Dick Tracy, 2/10/25

I hate to admit it, but I couldn’t really get into the Dick Tracy fights the neo-Nazis storyline that’s wrapping up now — fights quite literally, as all the bruises on Dick and Sam’s faces will tell you. Having tuned out, I’m honestly not sure who “himself,” sitting at the bar and enjoying a healthy lettuce sandwich on white bread while he plies our lawmen and -women with a gelatinous nacho blob, is supposed to be. Should we recognize him from the story so far? Is he some new character heralding the next adventure? Is he Michael Kilian himself, the bar owner, or possibly Michael Kilian himself, the guy who used to write Dick Tracy until he died in 2005, paving the way for the truly deranged Locher era? More on this as it develops, if I can maintain my attention span for it, which I probably can’t.

Family Circus, 2/10/25

Look, I’m not saying that “become a radfem separatist and eject all boys from the Keane Kompound” is the correct reading of the King James translation of the Lord’s Prayer, but I’m willing to wait and see where exactly Dolly is going with this.

Shoe, 2/10/25

Roz’s diner in Shoe is on the receiving end of a trope that generally rubs me the wrong way, which is “This is the place where the characters hang out all the time, but they also talk shit constantly about how bad it is, and they’re really mean-spirited about it.” But if Roz really strikes up conversations with her customers by saying things like “So, you’re gonna die soon. Are you being irresponsible about it?” then maybe her naysayers have a point.

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Pluggers, 1/31/25

I actually sleep with a second pillow — not because it prevents me from falling out of bed, how would that even work, honestly it makes no sense to me and looking at the drawing doesn’t make it make more sense, also do grown adults fall out of bed, this is insane — but just because I like to hold onto something while I sleep, probably a habit I picked up with stuffed animals as a kid and never truly grew out of. Very early in our relationship my wife started referring to this pillow as my “girlfriend,” a term that has stuck to this day. Anyway, that’s a long way to explain why the first thing I thought when I saw this panel was “the caption should be ‘plugger polyamory,’” which is bad, but you have to admit a lot less bad than a lot of Pluggers panels that could be captioned “plugger polyamory” might be.

Marvin, 1/31/25

Honestly if I had to pick a favorite kind of Marvin strip, it would be the ones where it’s made obvious how much Marvin’s parents dislike each other. I presume it’s because each holds the other primarily responsible for the creation of Marvin, whom they dislike even more.

Family Circus, 1/31/25

God, look at how happy she is. He’s almost asleep! Several blessed hours of unconscious Jeffy time, coming right up!

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Blondie, 1/20/25

The joke here really ought to be that we all know that there are plenty of cereal varieties with marshmallows out there sold in boxes with colorful cartoon art on them, but Dagwood simply doesn’t encounter them anymore, because he’s an adult, plus (and this is where Blondie’s carefully neutral “Oh?” comes in) he doesn’t actually do the grocery shopping so he assumes that because he doesn’t see them, they don’t exist. But given Dagwood’s appetites and predilections, I find it very hard to believe that he doesn’t go to the grocery store daily, wandering the aisles in a sort of dazed mania. Anyway, I do like the box of adult cereal here, which features a picture of a boring middle aged guy with a blank facial expression eating cereal on it. You can almost hear him saying the popular catchphrase, “I am eating this cereal for breakfast, as an adult.”

Shoe, 1/20/25

I’m really liking the Perfesser’s goggle eyes of horror here. Sorry, buddy! You are not excused from single combat with Biz in the rough and tumble marketplace of ideas!

Mary Worth, 1/20/25

Wow, Dawn’s already learned about negging from Dirk, and now the lessons have moved on to gaslighting! Truly a wondrous journey of discovery awaits her.

Dennis the Menace, 1/20/25

Well, I mean, he’s celebrating this birthday and the only people at his “party” are his wife and the five-year-old neighbor kid who he fucking hates, so, yeah, I think the thrill of living is gone for Mr. Wilson generally, Dennis.

Family Circus, 1/20/25

OK, Thel, before you answer this, think carefully: has the children’s religious education to date covered Exodus 22:18?