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Mary Worth, 2/5/23

Because Estelle simply can’t get enough of public amateur musicianship, she invited Ed on their date to a “piano bar,” which in the Worthiverse refers to a bar that has a piano that, apparently, literally anyone can just come in and play, which sounds like it would be significantly less pleasant than karaoke. But it turns out that Ed is in fact very good at playing the piano! You can tell that Estelle finds this extremely hot, but you can also tell that Ed is getting so much positive feedback from the audience that he finds the prospect of continuing to boogie-woogie all night (musically) more appealing than going back to Estelle’s place and boogie-woogieing (sexually). This is, you have to admit, one of the funnier ways for a date suggestion to backfire.

Family Circus, 2/5/23

“Hey Jeffy, you know who’s boring as shit, who’ll put you right sleep? Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior” –Dolly Keane, apparently????

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Family Circus, 1/27/23

One thing that’s always pleasant in reading a longstanding feature like the Family Circus is a sense of real surprise! Normally, for instance, you’d expect Grandma Keane to be scandalized by how poorly the local public school is teaching her grandchildren to love the American flag, and, by extension, the republic for which it stands, but here she seems positively delighted that Dolly can’t tell the difference between a patriotic oath and a jingle created by a megacorporation to promote processed beef purchases. “That’s right dear,” she says, “American ideology is a hollow shell! Finally, you’re starting to recognize it!”

Dennis the Menace, 1/27/23

Oh, sorry, I guess I called this post “One-panel Friday” even though Dennis the Menace is trying to wedge multiple panels into its traditional one-panel structure, which I frankly don’t care for. They’re even jamming a word balloon in there, jeez! What do you think you are, Blondie? Anyway, it’s kind of funny — and frankly telling — that Mrs. Wilson was planning on casually going out and dropping three to four figures on a major piece of living room furniture without even asking her husband what he thinks. But I guess the second (sigh) panel proves that he cares about one thing and one thing only: his eternal war against Dennis Mitchell. Her facial expression shows that she’s not looking forward to the awkward and embarrassing conversation with a furniture salesman about a seven-year-old that she’s going to have to listen to.

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Dennis the Menace, 1/22/23

One of the biggest transformations in American life over the last generation is that children — including ones who are surprisingly old, or at least surprisingly old to me, a non-parent — have to be strapped into car seats in order to go anywhere. I remember being kind of smug when hearing that the Kids Today can’t go a long car ride without being entertained by a screen of some sort, but then I realized that unlike me at that age, these kids are essentially immobilized for hours at a time, so what can you expect? Anyway, newspaper comics are created by and/or cater to the aesthetic tastes and nostalgia of Boomers and older Gen Xers, so it makes sense that Dennis, a child who is absolutely small enough be in a car seat, is not in a car seat in this comic, even though Henry’s phone places the scene squarely in the present. At least he’s in the back seat, so he won’t be killed instantly by the airbag triggered when Henry inevitably drives into a tree while futzing with the GPS.

Shoe, 1/22/23

Shoe and the Perfersser make up the entirety of the Treetops Tattler’s editorial staff, so it seems a little weird that they’re both in court to cover this story. But it’s not every day you get to see an old man sentenced to die in prison, I guess.

Family Circus, 1/22/23

Literacy, everyone! It’s what transforms you from the idiot dipshit in the first two panels to the smug little fucker in the final one. Learn to read, why don’t ya!