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Gil Thorp, 12/19/17

Welp, it’s getting towards the end of the football season and Milford appears to be not making the playdowns, so finally Gil and Kaz can dedicate themselves full-time to taking down Rick Soto’s weird Uncle Gary, who won’t bow to their coachy bullshit about how great football is. Or, well, I guess they’ll dedicate themselves to it tomorrow, since Kaz’s girlfriend is “on her computer all day” (at her job, at the small business she owns) and she knows how to work one of those devil machines, unlike Gil and Kaz who are just staring dumbly at a Microsoft Word document where Gil has typed “WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THIS GUY?” in Comic Sans.

Mary Worth, 12/19/17

Oh, man, I am very much here for Wilbur’s extremely rapid descent into madness as he goes from a cheerful, confident guy asking his ex out to dinner to an unhinged stalker without even stopping at the /r/incel subreddit to get radicalized first. Anyway, my favorite part today, as Wilbur lurks in Charterstone’s weird Dutch angle landscaping, is how he thinks Zak is too well-groomed to be friends with his beloved’s junkie son. He’s a real catch!

Hi and Lois, 12/19/17

The issue of sexual harassment and assault in professional settings has really come to the fore this year, and I think it’s great the Hi and Lois is going to address it head-on with a week’s worth of strips where Thirsty gets tased at Foofram Industries’ holiday party.

Marvin, 12/19/17

Remember: every forced-whimsical Marvin strip about a dumb elephant Santa thing is a Marvin strip that isn’t about shitting!

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Mary Worth, 12/15/17

I am as always extremely here for Mary’s consistent “age ain’t nothin’ but a number” attitude about the Zak-Iris romance. It is of course all the more hilariously deployed in reaction to Toby’s gender-normative discomfort, since her transformation from hipster Greenwich Village artist to bored California trophy wife and occasional sculptor of hideous animal-blobs began when she as a mere lass was swept off her feet by a drunken, late-middle-aged Ian. Anyway, Mary’s drive-by shaming of Toby’s hypocrisy is great, but I hope the real point of all this becomes clear when one of the hunky fortysomething venture capitalists investing in Zak’s dumb video game company comes calling and Mary’s like “Dr. Jeff? I don’t know anybody by that name!”

Gil Thorp, 12/15/17

Gil Thorp is by definition a comic strip that’s heavily invested in high school athletics, and I guess we’ve finally got to the point of this football season’s storyline, which is that, sure, sometimes promising young men play football and get concussions that turn their brains into goo, but what if they love playing football, and what about loyalty, discipline, and hard work, and what are the other options, huh? Some dork with a goatee trying to strongarm you into becoming a YouTube singing sensation??? This feminized PC culture makes me sick.

Mark Trail, 12/15/17

OK, fine, if we’re not going to get an extended storyline where Mark and Johnny actually perform a wildlife census, at least let us flash back to that time Mark got stranded in the Great Plains without any food and had to survive by making “prairie dog tacos.”

Blondie, 12/15/17

As Christmas approaches, please let’s remember the real reason for the season: goosing sales in order to shore up the collapsing retail sector by offering no-interest loans to an already over-indebted populace!

Six Chix, 12/15/17

hey this is a metaphor for the current housing affordability crisis but if you take it to its logical conclusion all those pricey new homes are made from human flesh OK enjoy your weekend everybody

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Pluggers, 12/12/17

Fine, I’ll admit it, I’m not ashamed: I learned something from Pluggers today, because I didn’t just stare at it uncomprehendingly in dull horror and say “what gibbering madness is this?” before moving on to Piranha Club. In fact, I discovered that, according to this retrospective 2016 article in the Michgan-based Jackson News, beard-growing contests for the Bicentennial were a thing, confirmed by this 1996 post on the alt.culture.us.1970s usenet group where someone in Alabama remembers similar informal beard-growing competitions. Side note: isn’t it crazy that that 1996 post is closer in time to the Bicentennial than it is to today, but I can’t remember 1976 because I was a toddler and it was decades ago but I remember 1996 very well because I was an adult and it was very recent? Funny how this world works! Ha ha! Anyway, my point is that yes, “Bicentennial beards” were a real thing, with millions of American growing huge beards to honor our founding fathers, who were, to a man, clean-shaven. The ’70s were wild, guys.

Mary Worth, 12/12/17

It seems Wilbur called Iris at breakfast time to try to make dinner plans with her, which I guess explains the robe, and somehow I find it extremely hilarious that Zak is over there enjoying some delicious, healthy All Bran to start his day after an evening of vigorous and mutually enjoyable sex stuff. Not sure if he’s thinking “Dag, this is what happens when you sleep over at an older lady’s house, she doesn’t have any Cocoa Pebbles or anything,” or if it’s more “You know what, I’m a successful businessman now, I’ve cut my formerly flowing locks, so maybe it really is time for me to start pooping on a regular schedule.”

Gil Thorp, 12/12/17

Oh, uh, this Gil Thorp storyline is still happening, huh? Well, just to catch you up, Uncle Gary really wants to Rick Soto to have a concussion, so that Rick will be forced to quit football forever and dedicate himself full-time to becoming a YouTube singing sensation. Unfortunately for this not-at-all insane scheme, multiple doctors have now insisted that Rick hasn’t been concussed even a little! Still, I have a feeling this isn’t the end of it: the skull we catch a glimpse of in the background of panel three is definitely of some kind of early hominin, possibly Homo erectus or an Australopithecine, meaning that this doctor is used to dealing with specimens with much more robust crania than our poor Rick and her advice is suspect.