Post Content

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.

Post Content

Mary Worth, 6/11/23

Yes, blah blah, Saul breaks down sobbing because his beloved Greta has become bait for for fighting dogs (DO NOT WORRY, THERE IS ZERO CHANCE THAT A DOG IS GOING TO DIE HORRIBLY IN A MARY WORTH PLOT, GRETA WILL BE FINE), but what I want to focus on is that Mary sets this up with “I was reading the paper, and also watching the news on television.” We get it Mary, you have a diverse and varied news diet (made up of sources that were widely known before before 2001 or so).

Bizarro, 6/11/23

I know that the “oh, is there a Mrs. Potato Head?” genre of joke is tempting, but — and I’m sorry to be a killjoy — it would work a lot better if not for the fact that there is a Mrs. Potato Head, and she was introduced as part of the Potato Head extended universe in 1953, just a year after Mr. Potato Head debuted, and she appeared, voiced by Estelle Harris, most famous for playing George’s mother on Seinfeld, in three different Toy Story movies. That said, I appreciate the route this strip took with it, which is to imagine a human woman married to a literal plastic toy, whose eyes sometimes fall out when you’re in bed with it, as you would expect them to.

Family Circus, 6/11/23

Gotta go with Dolly as having the best imagination of the Keane Kids here. She’s dreaming of unleashing some ancient Pharaonic curse onto her family, and frankly I’m rooting for her.

Post Content

Family Circus, 6/2/23

Nextdoor, the social network that’s like Facebook except instead of people who you actually like or at least know it’s full of people who happen to live near you, isn’t exactly a hotbed of positivity, but last summer, a nice lady posted a comment along the lines of “I’ve really been noticing the new trend of shorter shorts on men, and I just want to tell the gentlemen in the neighborhood who are partaking: I see you and I appreciate you.” I had just gone in for some shorter new J. Crew stretch chinos myself, and I have to wonder: was she talking about me? I guess I’ll never know, but I’d like think so. But none of us hipsters could hold a candle to Billy’s coach here, who quite clearly was drawn in another decade altogether. What do you think the original caption to this one was? I’m thinking “Can we delay the start of the game, Coach? My dad has to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes and also doesn’t want to hang out with me.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/2/23

Look, non-union Jughead equivalent: I’m not going to say I’m happy that Funky Winkerbean was finally put out to pasture, but I am frankly glad to no longer be thinking about convoluted comic strip timelines, so you can just keep your theories to yourself, buddy.

Marvin, 6/2/23

Wow, grandpa looks smug as hell! Not sure if that means that he is on the History Channel or he isn’t, but either way it’s an unpleasant vibe.

Mary Worth, 6/2/23

Damn you, Lyle Lovett! You’d better not eat that dog!