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Gil Thorp, 12/14/18

Yesssss, some mysterious character is in fact taunting the Milford athletic department via billboards, just like those guys in Buffalo, or, less relevantly but I suppose more at the top of the collective cultural consciousness, Frances McDormand’s character in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Given the outsized importance high school athletics holds in the Greater Milford Micropolitan Area, it’s wholly appropriate that our antagonist here beholds his work like a cackling supervillain unveiling his doomsday device.

Family Circus, 12/14/18

Jeffy thought that once he had killed Santa, the shackles of “nice” and “naughty” that had defined his life were broken forever. But there was one thing he hadn’t reckoned with: Santa’s ghost.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/14/18

The Minutes Will Feel Like Hours™: That’s the Rex Morgan, M.D.,® promise!

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Mary Worth, 12/10/18

It’s been two and a half years since new-ish Mary Worth artist June Brigman took over the strip and we’ve seen most of our beloved major players at this point. Almost all of them have gotten what I would call aesthetic upgrades of varying degrees of subtlety — Mary has been glammed up most of all — but I think the improvements to Dr. Jeff’s boat are on a whole different level. This is the only image of it I can find in my archives, but y ou can see that it used to be a somewhat dumpy pleasure craft with a roof, suitable for tooling around Santa Royale harbor at extremely limited speeds. Now it’s a sleek cigarette boat, perfect for zooming out into the Pacific and letting the wind ruffle your hair, and if Dr. Jeff wanted to make a side trip to the coast of Baja to pick up some black-market pills that he can “prescribe” to his friends and neighbors, he can do so knowing he’ll be back at the Bum Boat in time for their 5:15 reservation.

Gil Thorp, 12/10/18

Let me tell you an Extremely Buffalo Story: in the fall of 2009, I went to Buffalo, New York, where I grew up, to visit my family. The coach of the Bills at that time was Dick Jauron, who had muddled through three consecutive 7-9 seasons and wasn’t doing much better that year. The day I arrived, a billboard on the Thruway near Ralph Wilson Stadium had been unveiled that simply said “FIRE DICK JAURON,” and that evening, the very top story on Channel 4’s local news was an exclusive interview with the dudes who had rented the billboard — and yes, it was just these three extremely Buffalo-looking dudes, with sweatshirts and mustaches, and when asked why they had pooled a not insignificant amount of cash to send this message, one of them looked straight into the camera and said, extremely sincerely, “Well, somebody had to do something.” And then, a few weeks later, the Bills did fire Dick Juaron. Sometimes, the system works! In hopefully related news, I’m extremely looking forward to this year’s basketball-season Gil Thorp storyline.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/10/18

Against all odds and good sense, we’re apparently going to be treated to even more of the “Funky’s dad is horny” storyline this week, and while I still overall find it distasteful I gotta admit that I didn’t see this twist coming, where Funky’s dad seduces Holly’s mom and then Holly and Funky become brother and sister. Awkward!

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Gil Thorp, 12/6/18

Well, our Gil Thorp plots have, in traditional Gil Thorp fashion, combined into a semi-satisfying conclusion: Tiki Jansen, forced into a little light address fraud in order to escape his erstwhile criminal associates, enlisted the help of irritating movie buff and emergency substitute punter Joe Bolek in recording himself fleeing in terror from his old schoolmates, with the resulting piece of cinéma vérité praised both for its polemical power and for its mise en scène. I’m reasonably sure that it’s been established that the Mudlarks are in no way in playdown contention, which leaves only one loose plot thread remaining: namely, that Kaz holds his girlfriend Kelly and her intellectual film tastes in open contempt. Things could get really interesting if, for instance, some young Fellini aficionado like Joe Bolek were to wander into Kelly’s travel agency and told her he was “thinking about Italy,” if you know what I mean. (“Italy” refers to watching some Fellini movies and then having sex, and then talking about the movies afterwards, instead of just rolling over and falling immeidately sleep like certain assistant coaches we could mention.)

Barney Google and Snuff Smith, 12/6/18

Hear that, whiny libs? You don’t need big government helping you with your medical bills; you just need someone to beat the shit out of you so you can’t actually spend money other frivolities like poker. Wait, is the implication here that Snuffy got beat up during a poker game, because he cheats all the time? This is really a self-solving problem when you think about it.

Dick Tracy, 12/6/18

Ah, it seems that Polar Vortex’s sinister plot, focused on faxing and slow-walking invoice payments, has been brought down in ironic fashion, because the evil crime syndicate’s record-keeping was too meticulous. We’ve heard enough — time for the cops to show up and brutalize a lot of people with flagrant disregard for due process!

Mary Worth, 12/6/18

I guarantee that Mary doesn’t remember who or what “Jimmy” is, but it doesn’t matter. She learned from the sad story of Saul’s lost love Mia that an animal can plug the emotional hole that a dead human left behind, and she learned from the sad story of Saul’s lost dog Bella that you can also just plug the hole a dead animal leaves behind with another animal. So … do you like cats, Estelle? Remember, as building manager Mary has keys to everyone’s apartments, so even if you say no she’s just going to put the cat in there anyway.