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Judge Parker, 8/19/23

Not to toot my own horn too much about literally doing my job (which is, and forever more shall be, reading and in some basic way making sense of the comics so you don’t have to), but I was right about that being April’s mom that Pavel is targeting. I’m feeling a lot better about this than Sam, who now has to go kidnap someone with significantly more kidnapping and kidnapping-prevention skills than he has, all while the CIA is keeping a close eye on everything. I feel like Pavel has an exaggerated idea on how small a part of this process the “waltzing in” bit is!

Mary Worth, 8/19/23

This is the part of the date where most couples would go home and fool around a little, but for Jeff and Mary, it’s time to Solemnly Contemplate The Sea. No doubt the mighty ocean plays an important role in their emotional life: not only do they live in a beachfront community, but they know the sinister Ocean had its chance to swallow up Wilbur not just once but twice and yet rejected him both times, spitting him back up onto land and into their lives.

Family Circus, 8/19/23

The thing that really makes this panel for me is Billy’s facial expression. He’s not some amoral, destructive little ignoramus! He fucked up real bad and he knows it!

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Family Circus, 7/28/23

Ah, sweet, unlearned Jeffy! Having heard his parents and grandparents telling treacly stories of guardian angels, he assumes that everyone must have one, even characters in the fairy tales his parents read to him at night. But Ma Keane’s face shows that she knows the truth: that the protection offered by God and his heavenly messengers does not extend to freakish nightmare-beings like Humpty Dumpty. Man was made in the image of his Creator, and falls under His protective grace; but this egg-demon is clearly born of Hell itself, and being shattered on the ground, his guts oozing everywhere, is the fate he deserves.

Hi and Lois, 7/28/23

I assume, in a fatalistic way, that there are no new newspaper comics fans, and haven’t been for some time, and anyone still left reading them daily has really committed to the genre, and already knows all the lore. Still, I’d like to think that there are a certain number of people — not 10,000, surely, but at least a few — who are only learning today that Lois from Hi and Lois and Beetle from Beetle Bailey are siblings, and those people are absolutely losing their minds.

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Crock, 7/25/23

Say what you will about the newspaper comic strips, but each one is a rich world filled with details that even dedicated daily readers might go for years without discovering. For instance, did you know that Quench, the beloved (?) camel character in Crock, got his name because his thirst for sweet, soul-numbing alcohol can never be “quenched”?

Marvin, 7/25/23

How many times has this happened to you: You’re in the bathroom at a friend’s house, reading a book of Weird Trivia they keep on the back of the toilet, and you stumble upon a factoid and think “Ha, I can imagine how the syndicated newspaper comic strip character Marvin would react to this!” Well, if you’re on the Marvin creative team, you can easily use that little epiphany to meet your daily joke quota. (This is honestly the best case scenario for a Marvin strip inspired by time spent in a bathroom.)

Family Circus, 7/25/23

Loving everyone’s facial expressions here as they try, each in their own way, to deal with Jeffy’s bullshit. Look at Dolly, she’s having to go into some sort of centered deep breathing wellness exercise in order to not have a meltdown at him.

Dennis the Menace, 7/25/23

Dennis the Menace is obviously the much more menacing “child says darndest thing at a restaurant” panel today, in the sense that he seems to be going out of his way to solicit a wellness check from CPS.

Hi and Lois, 7/25/23

I find Hi’s expression in the second panel extremely wholesome here. He didn’t think it was possible for him to respect the troops any more — but thanks to his garbage man, he’s found a way!