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Family Circus, 2/19/21

I’m not too proud to admit that I’m extremely terrified of my brain slowly (or perhaps not so slowly) dulling as I age, and so when I’m confronted with something like today’s Family Circus, which like all Family Ciruses seems simple enough but which today I nevertheless cannot quite parse — well, I start to worry. Like, Jeffy’s “too” implies that he’s reacting to something, but what exactly? Ma Keane telling him that she can’t carry him because she’s tired? But the “nobody is carrying ME” part would only make sense if someone was carrying her. Does he want to be carried like the boxes from her shopping trip? Does … does Jeffy think the boxes are tired? Anyway, all that aside, you know I enjoy a good Jeffy meltdown, and I like the composition of the panel, with Jeffy kind of hidden from the hustle and bustle of the street by this wall. Nobody can see him, Thel. You could just start walking away, and then keep walking. Nobody would ever know. Nobody would ever know.

[UPDATE: ah ha yes Thel is the one delivering the line, actually, the puddingification of my brain is proceeding apace]

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/19/21

So after Buck binged on fast food and had to do some mild exercise to fix his blood sugar, and then he got very mildly and passive-aggressively sassed by his nutritionist, he seems to have resigned himself to his fate. And, look, I slag on Buck a lot here, because I consider him unlikeable and irritating, but that said I find his current predicament extremely relatable! I don’t have a great diet and I like greasy fried food in (what I tell myself is) moderation, and so I truly feel the pathos in his facial expression in panel one as he contemplates what might constitute a “tasty diabetic-friendly chicken recipe” and whether a swift death as he rides the high of an insulin spike would be preferable.

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The Phantom, 2/12/21

Our tale of Luche Libre adventure is proceeding apace, with our Phantom-assisted luchador, having already busted up a drug lord’s compound, is now heading into Rhodia’s most notorious prison to free his friend. Today’s strip gives an insight into what gets the policemen who power this police state off: it’s Free Rider magazine, featuring full-color pictorials of hot, hot gals who aren’t afraid to exploit market failures in public goods! These sexpots use the roads and parks that your taxes pay for, and they don’t care who knows it!

Gil Thorp, 2/12/21

Hmm, I guess part of the deal with Doug Guthrie is that the cops love him and are willing to wink at his traffic (?) transgressions, because who doesn’t love a kid who loves cars, or maybe his dad is a cop, who can say. Unfortunately for this friendly policeman, “ease up” is a well-known Gil Thorp trigger phrase that could quickly lead to unspeakable violence. Barring a development along those lines, however, I would like to know a lot more about Tom Muench’s illicit parrot-smuggling operation.

Family Circus, 2/12/21

This sort of confusion of the domestic and political spheres is exactly why the Keane family always strongly opposed women’s suffrage in the first place! Won’t someone think of the children?

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Gil Thorp, 1/21/21

We’re now in the midst of what I call the “fun and games” section of a Gil Thorp storyline, where everyone’s zany character premises are given free reign to run wild before some inevitable conflict results. In the current case, we have newly minted PA announcer Vic Doucette getting drunk with power and arranging hot dog giveaways on his own initiative, and car fanatic Doug Guthrie continuing to be a fanatic about cars in any given context. Presumably these two are in for a fall soon enough, when Coach Thorp tells Vic that it’s all well and good for a nerd to offer supporting services to jocks but he needs to keep in mind that jocks are the reason we’re all here so let’s keep the focus on them and Doug gets caught up in a car-fucking scandal, respectively.

Crankshaft, 1/21/21

Oh, I didn’t talk about it here, but Crankshaft’s beloved Beans End catalog didn’t go out of business after all, but instead got absorbed by Buddyblog, the Funkyverse’s catch-all Internet company whose primary business seems to be demonstrating that the Internet in particular and young people in general are bad, actually. Anyway, remember how it used to be a whole big thing in this strip that Crankshaft overcame illiteracy as an older adult? Well, cut him some slack, Lillian, maybe he’s never going to read cozy mysteries for fun, just let him enjoy his damn gardening catalog in peace without judgement.

Family Circus, 1/21/21

You couldn’t pay enough to go look it up, but I’m willing to guess that this joke, slightly modified, has run in newspapers on quite a few January 21sts over the years, and while normally I would roll my eyes at yet another moronic Jeffyism, I have to say that it’s nice to see that, after a few violent hiccups, the hallowed ceremonies that surround the presidential transfer of power are proceeding as scheduled.

Mary Worth, 1/21/21

“It’s almost like she … doesn’t want to talk to me? But that can’t be right.”