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Mary Worth, 7/13/22

Sorry to be BRIEFLY relatively serious on here but, let’s not forget that Jared and Dawn got together in the first place because she had been involved in a office romance with an older man who — oopsie! — turned out to be married, and Jared was there with his suave moves to pick up the pieces of Dawn’s shattered emotional state and claim him as his girlfriend/wounded baby bird. Fortunately for Dawn, she experiences emotional trauma all the time and has learned to bounce back quickly from it, so Jared had no choice to abandon his girlfriend who is capable of having fun and move on to a new one who has physical scars, not just emotional ones. Jared is a real creep in other words??? I hate him???? I want only bad things to happen to him?????

Funky Winkerbean, 7/13/22

Speaking of unpleasant people whom I dislike, the lesson that the Funkyverse is learning from Crankshaft’s untrammeled reign of terror is that the average newspaper comics reader wants to see irritated old men being unpleasant to people for no real reason, and … honestly, they’re probably not wrong!

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Funky Winkerbean, 7/6/22

Man, wouldn’t it be cool if Funky Winkerbean made an abrupt change in its narrative style and suddenly became a retro-cyberpunk strip (set in the original 1980s heyday of cyberpunk, even) where Harry Dinkle used his computer hacking prowess to gain authority over Westview High without his techno-ignorant colleagues even noticing? It wouldn’t even have to be a permanent abrupt change. Just for one storyline would be a relief from the endless puns. Computers in the ’80s couldn’t make puns, right? That was beyond their capabilities?

Dustin, 7/6/22

I’ve made some jokes about how the unstoppable passage of time has shifted Dustin’s core “Boomer vs. Millennial” concept to a significantly less bankable “elder Gen X vs. young Millennial/first-wave Zoomer” scenario, but I think we can agree that no matter what the actual ages of the people in the strip are, the main engine of the whole thing is Boomer dude condescension. How else do you explain today’s punchline at the expense of Abba, a band that was always pretty beloved and has undergone a critical appraisal of late? “Ha ha, Abba,” says the strip’s viewpoint character, about one of the best-selling music acts of all time, which spawned a wildly popular stage musical and film series, “I think we can safely do a punchline predicated on notion that we all agree that they suck!”

Mark Trail, 7/6/22

Look, it’s come to our attention that Mark Trail’s core audience may be tired of long storylines about how cryptocurrency is bad or whatever. So, we’re going back to the core story topics that have made this strip great: animals, and their gross rashes. Hope you enjoy the close-up drawings of weeping sores, freaks!

Gasoline Alley, 7/6/22

Gasoline Alley: the long-running continuity strip that’s in touch with everyday real Americans, their lives, and their problems. Also, it features a talking bird who strictly enforces sexual morality. It’s a real nightmare place!

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Mary Worth, 6/24/22

Wow. Wow. You’re telling me that Jared has a friend? A non-Dawn friend named TJ? And TJ also likes to party down at “ROCK IT,” Santa Royale’s hottest club? I feel like Mary Worth is just teasing us here with all the narrative beats that we’ve been denied: Jared and his friend TJ hanging out and being almost certainly very annoying; the big reveal of what one of Jared’s friends would wear to the club; TJ spotting Dawn from across the crowded dance floor and recognition flashing in his eyes; and TJ telling Jared what he saw and Jared suddenly realizing that he could retrofit this into motivation for what he already wanted to do so he can keep his “nice guy” self-image intact. I can’t believe I’m begging for more details of a Jared storyline, but I need more details from this Jared storyline!

Funky Winkerbean, 6/24/22

What’s weirder here: That Funky Winkerbean will freely say “Amazon” in a strip but thinks that “Target” is as forbidden as “McDonald’s”? Or that Funky Winkerbean thinks that Target and Amazon are maybe the same thing?

Shoe, 6/24/22

The fact that the owner of Treetops’ only casual dining establishment feels comfortable admitting rampant health code violations to a reporter at Treetops’ only newspaper tells you everything you need to know about journalism in this town. (The fact that Treetops’ only casual dining establishment openly sells egg-based foods to its bird customers is another grim matter entirely.)