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Family Circus, 8/21/21

I have already shamefully admitted that I kind of like Billy when he’s being surly and aggressively ignorant, so this this panel is a real treat. The best part, though is how bored and antsy everyone else looks as well. Even Daddy is yawning while he’s trying to read about erosion or whatever! Billy’s just saying what we’re all thinking!

Gil Thorp, 8/21/21

“I just turned down a boring-ass sports story, which is normally the sort of thing we’d print, but it wasn’t a boring-ass high school sports story, so I figured it wasn’t right for us, even though — and I can’t emphasize this enough — we’re supposed to be a real grown-up newspaper, not the high school journalism club or anything like that. Anyway, it’s Saturday, so I assume there’s a new plot starting next week! Maybe it’ll be high school sports related!”

Pluggers, 8/21/21

Pluggers have no idea what time it is or where they are or where they’re going or when they’re supposed to get there, and that’s OK! Their journey is valid and I respect it.

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Family Circus, 8/14/21

So what’s changed in the 17 years since this panel last graced my blog? Well, for one thing, Ma Keane’s attitude on theological questions from her offspring has shifted: Back in the simpler times of the ’00s, she didn’t even bother gracing Billy’s impertinent question with an acknowledging glance, preferring to look out over God’s majestic work and let her silence be an answer; today, as kids can get more and more access to secular humanist propaganda via cable TV and TikTok, she needs to show him her steely gaze to let him know exactly what she thinks of this liberal jibber-jabber. Also, white shorts have gone out of style and blue ones come in — or, I guess since this is the Keane family we’re talking about, maybe the other way around.

Marvin, 8/14/21

Marvin is of course perfectly happy to stew in his own shit — but other people’s shit? That’s a different story.

Dennis the Menace, 8/14/21

This is the sad result of the over-emphasis on STEM subjects in primary education today.

Blondie, 8/14/21

Blondie, your favorite shoe store is going out of business, and you think that’s “great news”? Yes, you’ll get some big savings today, but try to think in the long term!

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Daddy Daze, 8/11/21

I think we’re all well aware that the actual cat poster caption is “Hang In There, Baby,” which led to me read this strip and immediately wonder “Hmm, is the actual ‘Hang In There, Baby’ poster copyrighted, and is the copyright holder extremely litigious?” This in turn led me to the Wikipedia article about the poster, which was a whole journey, informing me that:

• The photographer was Victor Baldwin, who had previous been best known for taking pics of Rat Pack celebs
• The original version was this, a photo I was totally unfamiliar with



• It was immediately ripped off and knockoff versions with different pictures proliferated, which explains why I was unfamiliar with the original
• Baldwin sued the makers of all the knockoffs he could find, just on principle, almost never asking for more than his own court costs being covered, which I guess answered my original question
• The first person to buy the poster was Meredith Wilson, composer of The Music Man
• People sent copies of the poster to Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon during their respective scandals in the ’70s, urging them to hang on to office (it didn’t work)
• “Victor Baldwin made approximately $700,000 from sales of the posters, much of which went to settle his divorce, which he was apparently happy to spend it on”
• Based on their respective “See also” sections, Wikipedia apparently considers “Hang In There, Baby”‘s U.K. equivalent to be a a poster featuring a tennis player’s naked ass, based only on the fact that they were both wildly popular posters in the 1970s

Anyway! Comics can be truly educational, in the sense that they frequently irritate me into learning things despite myself.

Mary Worth, 8/11/21

Mary is starting to go through her highly regimented Meddle Protocol! Stage 1: Determine if the subject is capable of recognizing basic behavioral patterns!

Marvin, 8/11/21

JUNE 2021: Hmm, all the characters in Marvin are getting a little stale. Mostly they just are angry at Marvin all time time, and obviously you can’t blame them, but it gets old. What if we introduce a new — and topical — one: an Alex home assistant?

AUGUST 2021: We regret to inform you that the Alexa home assistant now mostly just gets angry at Marvin all the time.

Family Circus, 8/11/21

A fun fact about the Grand Canyon is that Colorado City, which is in the small sliver of Arizona north of the Grand Canyon, was for a long time a hotbed of rebel Mormon polygamists precisely because the state line protected them from Utah authorities and the Grand Canyon protected them from Arizona authorities, just putting that out there Billy