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Gearhead Gertie, 9/12/24

Those are legit NASCAR car‑and‑driver number flags. Of course they are; this is Gearhead Gertie. But if Gertie is a fan of more than a third of the field, can she really claim to be a fan at of any individual team? (Tip: don’t ever tell a NASCAR fan it’s not a team sport.) Does she even care who wins, or is she just there for the noise, fumes, and camaraderie? I also wonder about Gertie’s relationship with dashed‑pride‑guy there. Will they bond over their shared admiration of Josh Berry and Chase Elliott, or squabble over the merits of Kyle Busch and Harrison Burton?

Six Chix, 9/12/24

Use emojis to immunize yourself against the spontaneous laughter-induced buttockectomy that put this poor lady in the hospital. Or just read Six Chix every day and nip the problem in its bud.

Take It from the Tinkersons, 9/12/24

Once a year or so, this mostly joke‑a‑day strip veers wildly into over‑the‑top workplace dramedy. Ellen here is the new sales manager at Ed‑N‑Son Light Bulbs. She claims to be the twin of former sales manager and suspected serial killer Helen who, like many of her colleagues, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. But everybody assumes she’s really Helen and fears the worst.

Ted, facing an empty future hawking knockoff light bulbs in a shrinking market dominated by Big LED, embraces the risk. All things considered, suicide by proxy looks like the easy way out.

Blondie, 9/12/24

Dag, when you’re counting on Social Security and a pension from the J.C. Dithers Company for steady income, it just might be time to check out Powerball.

Rex Morgan, 9/12/24

Parker sits beside the seated Truck, who muses, “if only I had worn one of those newfangled finger helmets, I wouldn’t be sitting here today! And yet today here I sit!”

—Uncle Lumpy

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Beetle Bailey, 8/29/24

I was going to say that Beetle’s whining here is unrealistic, as well as being literally, legally insubordinate, but you know what? The damn strip is named Beetle Bailey! If not for him, Halftrack wouldn’t even exist! Put some damn respect on his name, General!

Blondie, 8/29/24

Sorry, man, you don’t put a giant calendar like that on your fridge if you’re counting down towards something you’re wistful about, like the end of barbecuing season. I think it’s clear that Dagwood’s in a doomsday cult, the “last summer barbecue” is going to burn up most of the neighborhood and the people who live there, and he’s pissed because he’s been informed he won’t be able to partake of the Flesh of the Righteous alongside the Leader before he too is immolated.

Gearhead Gertie, 8/29/24

I gotta say, if you’re sitting on a park bench minding your own business and a total stranger decides to start tut-tutting at you about the kids today and their phones, I think indignantly replying “I’m reading about NASCAR” is as good a comeback as any. Maybe it’ll convince them that you’re decent, salt-of-the-earth people, or maybe it’ll just confuse them, but either way chances are good they’ll leave you alone!

Mary Worth, 8/29/24

ME WHEN I ASSSUMED DR. ED WAS TAKING ESTELLE TO A VETERINARIAN CONVENTION BECAUSE HE WAS AFRAID SHE WAS GETTING TOO OBSESSIVE ABOUT WEDDING STUFF AND ALSO SO SHE COULD LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PROFESSION: Well, I’m not sure this is really what she’d want but I think his heart’s in the right place.

ME TODAY AS I LEARN DR. ED IS TAKING ESTELLE TO A VETERINARIAN CONVENTION BECAUSE HE “OWES” HER A “DAY OUT” AND WAS GOING THERE ANYWAY: Girl. Dump him. Dump him girl!!!!

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: haha whoops I screwed up the days for several posts this week, here’s Wednesday’s if you haven’t seen that yet

Dennis the Menace, 8/8/24

Look, I respect the effort here — the fundmental underlying joke is pretty good, Alice’s indignant facial expression is funny, and Dennis looking genuinely hurt in the background is a nice touch. “Lived to tell about it.com” isn’t a great URL, though, because it honestly sounds like a site for something a lot more traumatic and kind of spoils the mood, and a much bigger problem is that it’s a website at all. A group of modern young baby sitters is simply not going to go to the trouble to buy a domain name and then set up a WordPress account for a group blog or whatever. They’d set up a community on social media somewhere — Facebook, maybe, Facebook groups have had a little bit of a comeback with younger people, or maybe whatever the TikTok equivalent is. Or a private Discord server! There probably isn’t a TikTok equivalent, now that I think about it, not that I would know, because I don’t go on there. What happens on TikTok is none of my business. The important thing is that I know that I don’t know, which Socrates would say makes me smart. I’m going to run with that. Anyway, nice try but botched execution, Dennis the Menace, I give this 6 out of 10 stars.

Gearhead Gertie, 8/8/24

I’ve decided that my favorite kind of Gearhead Gertie panels are the ones where she’s antagonizing her husband. This one is great because you could imagine that the joke is that this is the thinnest of pretenses over her attempts to establish a throuple, but it’s actually much more wholesome (or, depending on how you see it, more perverse): it’s all exactly as it seems, she just loves NASCAR that much, and it makes her husband crazy. The cable guy, despite his unconventional new living situation, doesn’t seem to notice this drama, or care about it if he does. He’s just happy to be there!

Pluggers, 8/8/24

These two pluggers aren’t just romantically smiling at each other after dinner. Obviously they are doing that — those tight faces and bugged out eyes simply scream “romance” — but there’s aslo something more to it. Thanks for cluing us in, Pluggers!