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Archive: Gasoline Alley

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Spooky, scary, etc.

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Blondie, 10/28/23

Over the years, the syndicated comic strip Blondie shifted from the story of a carefree flapper and the dissolute failson who gave up his comfortable life to be with her to a story about a suburban dad who makes being hungry his whole personality, to the extent that he redefines the calendar itself so that each holiday primarily exists to provide an opportunity for a new and subtly different form of food monomania. For me, the thing that’s oddest about Blondie is that the universe around Dagwood is seemingly warped by the intensity of his own appetites, making him something of an outlier but by no means an aberration in his own world. Anyway, what do you make of the combo of “smiling and sweating” in the final panel here, as he enjoys this bird’s third weird holiday food ode? Does it represent “horny”? It has to, right? Very dark, in my opinion.

Gasoline Alley, 10/28/23

I hate to praise Rufus and Joel, but their proposal to capture this monstrous talking bear and display him to an amazed and horrified public for their own profit is frankly the most sensible one we’ve heard so far for dealing with this beast.

Six Chix, 10/28/23

Hey, wouldn’t it be interesting if pumpkins, like the ones you gut in order to make jack-o-lanterns, could experience fear, and sadness, and probably physical pain, too? Have a fun Halloween, everybody!

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Etymology follies

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Gasoline Alley, 10/26/23

I don’t usually get a chance to deploy my classics degree, but when I do, it’s usually to make a joke about the etymology of some word in the daily comics on this blog, which if you think about it is probably a better use of it than trying to trick undergraduates into enjoying Vergil or whatever. Anyway, meretrix is Latin for “prostitute,” and “meretricious” means, basically, “whorish,” or, metaphorically, something that looks attractive but has no value, which is not something people really say anymore, what with changing attitudes around sex work and sex work’s usefulness as a metaphor. It definitely does not mean and has never meant “loud,” so I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a joke about how this bear, despite his surprising ability to mimic human speech, does not have as full a command of English vocabulary as he believes, or if the Gasoline Alley brain trust simply decided to do a joke that was specifically about the meaning of the word “meretricious” but just assumed they knew the meaning of the word “meretricious” and didn’t bother to double-check.

Dick Tracy, 10/26/23

Speaking of vocabulary, I like the fact that Dick is meticulously writing down everything in this conversation that he doesn’t entirely follow (“Whitman little big books,” “guttersnipe level”) and will be looking them up later to find out if he was being insulted.

Mary Worth, 10/26/23

You know, if your long ago ex finally found out about the child of his that you had 20 years ago and never told him about because said child tracked him down and showed up on his doorstep, and then he tracked you down and made you go dinner with him, I’d think you’d be less … bored? I mean, this is an experience I’ll thankfully never have, so I guess I can’t tell Kitty how to live her life or conduct herself, but the vibe I’ve been getting from this dinner is that she doesn’t find this whole scenario particularly interesting. Anyway, probably she spent less time telling her daughter that Keith was a cop/Marine and dwelt more on the fun parts (that he was a rippling hunk of a man who she largely finds dull but who’s pretty good at sex).

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Schrödinger’s Mirakle Method

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Gasoline Alley, 10/22/23

OK, I dunno, look, maybe weeks and weeks of talking bear bullshit have ground me down into submission, but I find these comical aliens in their over-the-top uniforms kind of charming? A little? They’re whimsical, but that whimsy is tempered by the fact that, as their commander makes clear in the first panel of the bottom row, they are very much going to die upon contact with Earth’s atmosphere and biome, which is wholly toxic to them.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/22/23

Ha ha, Rene’s only been in the police car for a few minutes and Buzzy and Mud are already writing him out of the Mirakle Method story! He’s never going to see a dime of the money they promised him! Mud hasn’t reformed, so the Mirakle Method is as fraudulent as Rene always thought, even though it worked on him, so maybe it actually does work; it’s confusing but I have to respect it.

Crock, 10/22/23

This one works on a couple levels. It’s about cactuses that fuck, but it’s also a metaphor about how ladies love a guy who shaves his dick. Comics really are an incredibly rich and expressive medium.