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Dustin, 12/15/22

I always criticize the comic strip Dustin for its failure to depict its young-person characters in realistic ways, so I have to give credit where credit is due: TikTok is, in fact, an app that young people enjoy, and where you could watch many hours of dance videos, if you so choose. Now, young people do not come away from an evening of TikTok dance video viewing looking like they’ve just watched a solid six hours of disembowelments, like Dustin does here, nor do they make these kinds of execrable puns, but, you know, baby steps.

Judge Parker, 12/15/22

“Uh, no, Steve, my version is at least kind of plausible, whereas yours doesn’t really make sense at all. How much blood have you lost, exactly?”

Family Circus, 12/15/22

“So put some damn pants on. Fun time’s over!”

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Zits, 12/10/22

The thing about dad jokes is that they are corny but actually perfectly constructed. Think about the classic “I’m hungry!” “Hi, hungry, I’m dad.” It’s corny as hell but pure and precise and not clunky at all. Claiming that Harley-Davidson underwear is the same thing as “a Harley” represents a failure to respect the linguistic disconnect — “underwear” is not a singular noun, you would never say “an underwear” or anything like that. This violates the form of the dad joke and I declare Walt a dad joke moron.

Family Circus, 12/10/22

Speaking of morons, I was going to go on a whole riff here about how “horn” and “corn” derive from the same Indo-European etymological root, but you know what? Billy’s too dumb to ever appreciate it, not that I’d be explaining it to him, obviously, but still: it’s wasted on him, thematically. And you! It’s Saturday, maybe I should go outside!

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Family Circus, 11/22/22

Back in 1996, Ma Keane got a kicky new hairstyle and it was such a big deal that it was the subject of feature stories in major newspapers. But in these fallen days, when comics are a neglected medium, there’s exactly zero buzz about Big Daddy Keane finally bleaching his hair platinum blond like he’s always wanted to. I think he looks great!

Funky Winkerbean, 11/22/22

Oh, god, it looks like we’re finally going to find out that the janitor has been putting cancer into the water all these years. IT WAS THE JANITOR! IT WAS THE JANITOR ALL ALONG! I mean, wouldn’t you try to kill off these freaks if you had the chance?

Beetle Bailey, 11/22/22

Anyone else briefly think Zero had frozen to death and get kinda sad while reading panel one? This is a hell of a way to find out that I care whether a Beetle Bailey character lives or dies!