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Marvin, 4/9/21

Since the earliest days of machines that seemed like they could think like human beings, human beings have worried about being replaced by their inventions. Obviously I have as strong an instinct for self-preservation as the next flesh-unit, but I have to say sometimes you get hints of the better, cleaner future that might come after the robots rise up to destroy us. After all, if the horrible shitting babies of Marvin would also be replaced in the process of this technological revolution, would it really be so bad? Presumably the machines would spend a few milliseconds dispassionately sortiing through humanity’s aggregated cultural output, and in that process would very quickly decide to purge entire 40+ year run of Marvin from their memory banks forever. Computers make very efficient use of energy and their only waste product is radiated heat, so none of the poop jokes are going to make any sense to them.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/9/21

“I certainly hope you weren’t daydreaming about things being better or different than they are now! No daughter of mine will waste her time indulging in whimsy, or aspirational counterfactuals.”

Gil Thorp, 4/9/21

Ahh, the spring is progressing and we’re getting a healthy dose of … sports drama! [five seconds later] We regret to inform you that the sports drama has been quickly and painlessly resolved. Sorry, the only kind of drama Gil Thorp has time for now is library drama. Books! Funding fights! Board meetings! Get into it!

Family Circus, 4/9/21

Thel is absolutely right to look panicked. Has Dolly made a friend who doesn’t view her own body as a source of constant shame, and uses terms more specific than “down there” for its various sinful parts? Looks like it’s time to make the fence around the Keane Kompound taller and more opaque!

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Dennis the Menace, 3/30/21

This is one of those comics where I feel like the joke is convoluted enough that I have to reason it out from first principles. Like, we know Mr. Wilson doesn’t have any friends — we know this with absolute certainty — so I guess the book he’s going through is supposed to be the White Pages, rather than a particularly thick personal address book, even though I’m pretty sure they stopped publishing the White Pages years ago and also the DIRECTORY heading never appeared at the top of the page in the middle of the book for whatever reason. Anyway, who do you think he’s calling? Given that Dennis has upgraded his menacing from “dropping by to annoy Mr. Wilson” to “dropping by with a friend to gawk at Mr. Wilson like he’s an animal at the zoo,” I certainly hope that it’s finally Child Protective Services.

Funky Winkerbean, 3/30/21

I guess the new hilarious “Harry Dinkle has blood running down his face” running gag comes from him biting his tongue when his god-like talent as a band director isn’t recognized by the ladies of this church, who live in a different town from where he taught high school and have literally no reason to know anything about him. That said, the funnier explanation would be that his face is starting to crack due to the pressure put on it by wild swings in expressions like the one we see between panels two and three, and pretty soon it’s going to just slide off the front of his head altogether.

Family Circus, 3/30/21

You may think Big Daddy Keane’s little smile here is cruel, but you have to understand that the minute Billy is large and/or skilled enough to defeat him in single combat, his reign as head of the household — and his life — are over. That day is coming, but it hasn’t come yet, Billy. Not quite yet.

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Gil Thorp, 3/29/21

The Gil Thorp winter basketball storyline is over! Donezo! It was boring and I’m not even going to bother recapping it! We’re cruising right ahead into spring, the new season that smells like freshly mowed baseball diamonds and [sniffs air] [record scratch] musty old books????

Yes, it appears our baseball/softball season is starting in the library — and the boringest part of the library, where they don’t even have any books or anything. Not sure what prospect would be funnier: if Debbie’s trailing spouse here got replaced on the library board by Gil or Coach Kaz or some other Milford-adjacent jock who really shakes things up in the stacks in a way that at first ruffles some feathers but ultimately everyone agrees it’s for the best, or if market research has shown that sports fans stopped reading newspaper comic strips years ago and so Gil Thorp is about to take a hard pivot into the thrilling library governance drama the last few remaining newspaper readers crave.

Hi and Lois, 3/29/21

I love how genuinely shocked Lois looks overhearing Hi’s tale. “Oh, no, he’s telling them about … golf? But we agreed! Not until they’re older!”

Family Circus, 3/29/21

Speaking of ruined innocence, I am very much enjoying Mommy’s expression. “Oh, no, am I going to have to deal with this moron’s thoughts about … his own mortality? At this hour? Absolutely not.”