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Mary Worth, 3/4/22

Here’s a weird thing that happens sometimes in Our Dumb Dystopia: people will make storefronts on Amazon even though they don’t have anything to sell. Instead, they set bots up to find other stores that actually have things to sell, create listings for the same items the other stores sell, mark up the price by a dollar or two, and then use SEO trickery to try to make their store a higher ranking search result than the real one. When someone tries to buy an item from their store, they just order from the real store, who does all the work, and they pocket the difference, having done nothing. This can sometimes produce truly bizarre results, like when the bots that do this for two fake stores lock onto each other, each assuming the other is real, and each keeps raising its price to be just a little higher than the other, until someone notices that soap or toothbrushes are selling for more than a million dollars. I’m bringing this up because today’s Mary Worth shows what would happen in a similar situation, except instead of two Amazon storefronts, we have two robots who have been programmed to attempt to convince a real life human to have sex with them. “But not for initiating a ‘fling’ with you!” and “go sit in the corner, Cal!” give off very strong “we showed this AI 10,000 hours of people flirting and this is what it came up with” vibes, except it was more like 20 hours, tops.

Sam and Silo, 3/4/22

The internal worlds of newspaper comic strips are extremely resistant to change, which makes them great little time capsules of social mores that were quite different not that long ago and have changed in ways most of us don’t think much about. Just as Blondie still takes place in a world where suburbanites let their dogs roam freely at night, Sam and Silo in whatever year this rerun is from failed to move up into the world where most people’s housecats would be fixed as a matter of course. Because this cat? This cat fucks, everybody. He fucks a lot.

Gasoline Alley, 3/4/22

GASOLINE ALLEY ADMITS IT: LITERALLY ANYTHING ON TV OR IN THE MOVIES IS MORE EXCITING AND FUN THAN GASOLINE ALLEY

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Gil Thorp, 2/26/22

The thing about Gil Thorp and its teenage hijinks is that they do occur in the very restricted world of the newspaper comics section, which means that the black-market Adderall the characters buy needs to be fake, their “sexting” photos need to be fully clothed, and their backyard wrestling deaths need to be accidental. Still, I would have liked at least a panel or two of ambiguity before finding out that Pranit’s attempt to solve his cash-flow problems with hired violence instantly blew up in his face.

Gasoline Alley, 2/26/22

Gasoline Alley is doing this long shaggy dog story about how Walt was on an adventure in Egypt decades ago and ended up in a Pharaoh’s tomb and drank something, and I feel like we finally have an explanation of what’s going on with him, which is that he’s under a mummy’s curse. Which make sense, as he’s increasingly mummy-like himself.

Mary Worth, 2/26/22

Cal, I get it, Toby’s an attractive woman, and a student-teacher romance has a forbidden allure. But you don’t have to debase yourself by claiming that you think Toby’s hideous grey figurines look “playful.” Try to have a little dignity, man.

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Mary Worth, 2/14/22

Toby story confirmed! Toby story about her working as a community college art teacher confirmed! I am very excited about the delights in store for us — do Toby’s students respect her? I feel fairly confident that they do not, and I dearly hope that the Etsy store where she sells her terrible figurines was discovered by everyone in her class by the end of the first week.

Blondie, 2/14/22

I dunno, man, I realize there’s a tradition of giving your romantic partner, like, sexy underwear for Valentine’s Day, but I feel like “Here’s something that feeds into my very specific fetish and it’s my Valentine’s gift to you” doesn’t seem quite right. I mean, I guess it’s working for these two crazy kids though? Sorry, Cookie and Alexander! Sorry they’re doing it right there in the living room!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/14/22

“My mistake. The thing is, I don’t want to talk to you, but if I had realized that my choices were either talking to you in person or talking to you on the phone, I definitely would’ve picked the phone.”

Gasoline Alley, 2/14/22

“We will celebrate it together, my dear! Have you seen my dad? That’s our future! We’re going to live forever, growing more wizened and aged, but never dying! We’re trapped in an eternal hell!”