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Mary Worth, 7/4/23

Greetings, fellow Americans! Hopefully you are spending today watching fireworks and patriotically contemplating’s our nation’s successful defeat of the accursed British in our War of Independence, like Mary is in today’s strip. But sadly, many comics characters are not — a group that apparently includes all of Mary’s friends, since she’s just sitting on this hillside by self. Sure, Old Man Wynter and his posse are probably making sure Greta’s trauma (oh, they found Greta by the way, she managed to get the cage open herself and escape) isn’t compounded by the fireworks noises, but what about Ian and Toby? Dr. Jeff? Wilbur? Do they have something better to do than bask in the majesty of American greatness? Apparently so, and as we’ll see in the following strips, they are not alone.

Blondie, 7/4/23

Remember back in May when Dagwood wanted everyone to know that nobody could best him when it came to respecting the troops, but it turned out it was just a ruse to prevent his nap from being interrupted? Well, now he can’t even be bothered to use patriotism as a pretext.

Beetle Bailey, 7/4/23

Honestly, though, who could blame him when the troops themselves don’t seem to care about America’s birthday? Today’s Beetle Bailey includes the most half-assed wedged-in patriotic message since the infamous Luann 9/11 anniversary strip. I guess we can’t expect these soldiers to put energy into frivolous partying, even the most patriotic kind, when there’s important military preparedness work to be done. I hear the People’s Liberation Army’s lawns are immaculate.

Family Circus, 7/4/23

Jeffy’s OK with fireworks, but doesn’t want to share space with others enjoying them in ways he doesn’t approve of. He loves America but is annoyed by his fellow Americans and that’s no kind of patriotism at all!

The Lockhorns, 7/4/23

Leroy is using the 4th as yet another opportunity to be unpleasantly horny, and honestly? I’ll allow it.

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Blondie, 6/30/23

The idea of being put in a situation where you respond to someone awkwardly in the moment and dwell on it later is of course relatable. I would think that a fun way to grapple with that situation in an art form like the comics would be to think up a snappy response at your leisure and then write up a little scenario where you get to use it in the moment, rather than doing a strip where you flop and then are embarrassed and resentful for the rest of the day. I guess that’s why I’m just a humble critic and not actually the writer of a widely syndicated newspaper strip (I also did not inherit a widely beloved syndicated newspaper strip from my father, which may be a factor there).

Family Circus, 6/30/23

I’m really enjoying Ma Keane’s little smile here. “Should I tell him it’s dead now, and watch his little face crumble? Or would it be more fun to see him walking around with a dead bug in a jar for the rest of the day?”

Hi and Lois, 6/30/23

“People like getting bombed, kid. Why not ask Mr. Thurston about it? If he’s not ‘asleep.’”

Six Chix, 6/30/23

The crotch is next, folks. The crotch is next

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Gil Thorp, 6/20/23

Some years back, the state of Maryland renamed the government agency in charge of courts, detention facilities, and parole supervision for kids under 18 from the “Department of Juvenile Justice” to the “Department of Juvenile Services,” and I can understand trying to get rid of a label that has punitive implications and maybe try to imply that you’re leaning towards rehabilitation, but (a) you can never win a race on the euphemism treadmill and (b) “Department of Juvenile Services” might falsely lead you to believe that the department was delivering services to young people that weren’t ultimately crime-and-punishment related. Anyway, I bring this up because I thought that was a pretty bad euphemism, but “Milford juvenile sports program manager” as a job title for a prison guard is frankly a lot worse.

Family Circus, 6/20/23

Now, obviously the joke here is that Jeffy is an idiot. But you have to admit that it does present us with a truly horrifying image of a world where children just a little older than Jeffy reach an age at which they lose their “child’s eyes” — maybe they cloud over and harden first, or maybe they just suddenly and painfully pop off the optic nerves, with the new, literate “adult” eyes emerging from bloody sockets over the next few excruciating weeks. This is a lot of body horror to just tell us that Jeffy’s an idiot, in other words, especially considering that most of us already knew that he was an idiot.

Hi and Lois, 6/20/23

The truly depressing thing here is that after nearly 70 years in publication, this strip hasn’t come up with enough of a personality for Ditto to give him a plausible joke.