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Gil Thorp, 7/21/18

OK, fine, this is how the Gil Thorp baseball season plotline ends: with Barry Bader, who’s been just a relentless dick to everyone for, literally, more than two years, finally makes a little speech where he gives the most half-assed apology imaginable, in the middle of a game when nobody asks for it. You know this is the resolution because Gil and Kaz give each other big grins and say “That’s our Barry!!!!!” and then, presumably, walk away into the summer sunshine, never to think about Barry or any of the other seniors again. It’s only the fourth inning, but see ya kids, golf’s not gonna play itself!

Hi and Lois, 7/21/18

Hi’s kids only want to spend time with him because he’s bribing them with ice cream! That’s the joke I was going to write for my blog making fun of comic strips, but then I realized it’s also the joke of this comic strip, and it’s incredibly sad.

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Judge Parker, 7/19/18

Prediction time: my guess is that this whole Godiva murder storyline is actually Neddy’s screenplay that she’s been working on since moving to LA! I’ve been suspecting it for a while (there have been narration boxes that are scene headings), but today has really pushed me over the edge into believing it. Think about it: they say “write what you know,” but like most screenwriters, she’s writing what she wants to know, e.g., martial arts and how to make friends with her cooler, savvier boss. It’s nice at least to see a shoutout to the backstory on the Spencer-Driver foundlings, who were homeless and living rough with their grandfather when they accidentally set up camp on Sam and Abbey’s vast estate, and then their grandfather died and Sam and Abbey adopted them, presumably without too much legal fuss. (Abbey promised their grandfather would be buried in a beautiful clearing and definitely not ground up into a special treat for Abbey’s most handsome stallions.) Through the magic of fiction, Neddy is imagining a world where her tough childhood left her with near-superhuman abilities of self-protection, rather than just a host of emotional problems.

Gil Thorp, 7/19/18

I was sort of pretending to myself, just to force the world to make some kind of sense, that Barry’s big intervention was happening over the summer, that Gil Thorp was experiencing the same summer that we all were here in the United States, but nope, it looks like high school baseball is still happening! Is Gil going to risk defeat by starting Jay Bhatia on the mound today? Who cares, we’re more than halfway through July, how can any of this possibly matter.

The Lockhorns, 7/19/18

WHEN ZIP-A-TONE ATTACKS

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Gil Thorp, 7/17/18

So it’s mid-July, and Gil Thorp’s “spring” plot is still happening, but at least it seems to be getting to a semi-satisfying climax, which is this: Barry’s mom is sorry she didn’t intervene over the years, but now that her drunk husband is in jail, it’s safe for her to tell her son that, yup, he’s an asshole. Where she really breaks new ground in the world of Gil Thorp is by asserting that becoming an asshole just to get better at high school baseball isn’t actually cool or good. The whole thing is coming off as kind of an intervention with Barry, and I appreciate the tack Ace Reporter Dafne is taking. Barry, so many preppy jocks become intellectual stoner guys in college! High school libertarians are suddenly freshman-year socialists! Why, less than a month ago, Dafne herself was white! All you have to do is not act like every single interaction with another person is a contest for dominance that you’re on the verge of losing and have to pull out all the stops to win! We believe in you! You can do this!

Hagar the Horrible, 7/17/18

An underrated and extremely unsettling running gag in Hagar the Horrible is “Lucky Eddie’s life partner is a mermaid, whose daughter he sold to a zoo.” Anyway, since Hagar and Helga have actually double-dated with Eddie and his fish-woman paramour, I’m not sure why he’s pretending to be ignorant here. C’mon, Hagar, this is a post-The Shape Of Water world here, fishfucking is totally OK now!

Hi and Lois, 7/17/18

Usually it’s Thirsty’s yard that’s depicted as being littered with trash, as one of this strip’s understated class/classiness markers, so I guess you can understand why the visibly rumpled drunkard feels the need to get a little dig in about the Flagstons’ slovenliness. Still, since Hi is Thirsty’s best and, as near as we can tell, only friend, it does seem like an ill-advised move.

Marvin, 7/17/18

FINALLY, MARVIN WILL FACE PROSECUTION FOR HIS MANY CRIMES