Post Content

Gil Thorp, 7/12/24

The beloved Gil Thorp bonfire tradition has been cancelled forever due to a nationwide wood shortage, which means we must console ourselves with a somewhat more recent and less beloved tradition, the Coach of the Year awards banquet (or “COTY,” as insiders call it). Two years ago Gil won it, and last year he won it again. This year the “most improved” award has gone to Gil’s former nemesis/current assistant, so all signs point to our hero taking the COTY home for a third year in a row. I think it’s nice that they’re letting him give it to himself this year.

Gasoline Alley, 7/12/24

I forgot to mention, there’s a new cute cat in Gasoline Alley that Gertie found and brought to Walt! You can see he’s already getting adjusted to his role in this strip (coquetteishly mugging to the reader as the human characters make extremely uninteristing wordplay at one another).

Marvin, 7/12/24

Sorry my intrusive thoughts about toilets yesterday got me distracted from the important thing here, which is that Marvin is doing a very depressing series of strips where dogs talk about all the things they’ve done wrong in their lives and can’t stop thinking about.

Shoe, 7/12/24

Do birds eat cicadas? Well, according to a post called “Circada Bird Feast Protocol” on the friendtocicadas dot org blog, which seems like an extremely reputable source, yes! So, sadly, this conversation is actually about how this boring little town will soon be beset by famine.

Post Content

Slylock Fox, 7/8/24

For hundreds of thousands of years, between H. Sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and H. erectus, there were multiple human species coexisting on the planet. But they mostly lived in small bands separated from one another by great distances, and weren’t that different from one another (DNA evidence even shows that they occasionally interbred when they did meet up). At any rate, H. sapiens soon prevailed, and the differences between the various subgroups of our species, which we have historically placed so much importance on, are little more than a rounding error, genetically.

The animals of the Slylockverse seem to have taken over our institutions wholesale, but surely the most difficult part the transition was the idea of equality of all citizens before the law, something even we have trouble with. Here, the varying abilities and evolutionary adaptations of various animals become important aspects of police work, despite the fact that everyone is wearing clothes and, presumably, living most of the time on land. It’s confusing! Also confusing is the fact that Slylock is wasting his time on a minor harassment incident when we’re watching a straight-up murder happen in the background. Some animals are more equal than others, and fully aquatic animals are the least equal of all!

Gasoline Alley, 7/8/24

It appears that God has answered Walt’s prayers, and is about to save him from financial ruin by [squints] ensuring that his up-to-date homeowners insurance pays for the damages to his house, in accordance with the provisions of his policy documents. You might question how God was involved in that transaction. Well, He is Eternal and does not experience time as we do, so how do you suppose Walt came to buy that policy in the first place, huh? Makes you think.

Post Content

Blondie, 7/6/24

I can’t believe I’ve lived long enough to become the kind of nostalgist who says things like, “Remember when this legacy comic was only 75 years into its run and still had a spark of whimsy in it, unlike today when it’s 95 years in and every panel lacks any joy whatsoever?”, but: remember when this comic used to give its ancillary characters fun names like “Glambaster?” Whereas now everyone is just named the most on-the-nose thing you can think of. Oh, is “Barbie Babewelder” a beautiful woman, like a Barbie doll brought to life? Is Hank Hunkerman a big, hunky man, guaranteed to delight any woman who looks his way when he has his shirt off? To be fair, today’s strip does show that Blondie is continuing to provide the valuable service of giving non-senior-citizens insight into what boomers are up to online. It’s unsettling that the answer is “using neighborhood drama Facebook groups to get horny,” but sometimes the truth is disturbing and we need to face it.

Gasoline Alley, 7/6/24

Speaking of legacy comic strips and how old they are, Gasoline Alley is so old that it has a recurring rude salesman character based on the recurring rude salesman character from the Jack Benny Show that Frank Nelson played in the 1940s and ’50s. This is a character that I, a 49-year-old man, was only able to identify because The Simpsons parodied him 25 years ago. This comic strip is real old, in other words! So I guess this raises the question of: who is this running bit for, exactly? Well, I guess it’s for me, and most of you, if you’re reading this, so let’s just enjoy it.

Dennis the Menace, 7/6/24

Speaking of legacy comic strips, and how old they are, remember when you could have a whole character who’s big deal was “Imagine if a family moved to the suburbs … and they were Italian! Pretty crazy, huh?” Some of you would say “You couldn’t do that today, because the PC police would stop you from making a big deal about Italians living in the suburbs, and also lots of Italians live in the suburbs now,” but check it out! Dennis the Menace is still doing it, literally today!

Beetle Bailey, 7/6/24

[Reads panel one] So they’re going into town for a chili cook-off. Cookie probably made the chili, so that’s why he’s going, but what’s Sarge’s role in all this? [Reads panel two] Ah, he’s one of the judges. That makes sense. Now to move on to the third and final panel for the punchline. [Sees there’s no panel three] Huh. Huh.

Mary Worth, 7/6/24

Wilbur’s Google search history for the past few minutes:

fish DNA
clone fish
clone fish by mail
do clones remember you
clone fish illegal
how to erase google search history