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Mary Worth, 2/10/24

While we’ve heard a lot about how Keith is a good romantic partner and putting in the work as a father figure, we haven’t actually seen a lot of evidence supporting those assertions, and plenty of contradictory evidence, frankly. But today, we learn that he really has stepped up, in that he appears to have kept Kitty and Sonia entirely unaware of Mary Worth’s existence; he just refers to her elliptically as “my neighbor,” which tells me that he has not been singing her praises unprompted whenever an opportunity arises. Using his massive bulk to shield his newfound love ones from Mary’s meddling gaze … truly the greatest act of heroism I’ve seen in this strip.

Gil Thorp, 2/10/24

Hey, remember when that coach with a perm got beat up by one of his own students? Well, he, uh, he’s got PTSD now. So much so that he finds Gil intimidating! It’s sad, really.

Beetle Bailey, 2/10/24

You can just say Taylor Swift, Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC! I know your median reader is 78 years old, but I promise you, you can just say Taylor Swift.

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Dustin, 1/18/24

I think my record on the themes and narrative content of Dustin is pretty clear — I find them extremely objectionable, perhaps more than any other comic in my daily rotation — but I generally don’t say much about the art. It’s — well, “good” might be pushing it, but it’s generally perfectly workmanlike and occasionally shows flashes of charm. The one thing about it I don’t like is the weird way that the character’s eyes switch back and forth between stylized pupils-and-sclerae (as in panel two here) and simple black dots (as in panel three). Maybe this doesn’t jump out at you in black and white (which I still consider the canonical format for a daily strip), but in today’s scenario it honestly feels like we’re going from them talking normally about teenage boy trouble to their eyes suddenly going inky black and their voices shifting to an ominous thrumming as they say in unison “THE HANDSOME LAD, THE PRETTY ONE … HE HAS WRONGED US AND HE MUST BE DESTROYED.”

Gil Thorp, 1/18/24

Keri has been selling the “Pedro ghosted me!” sob story to anyone who’ll listen for a while now, but honestly it feels more like “Pedro is experiencing a major depressive episode that isn’t actually about me”? This is, I imagine, a fairly accurate example of a teenage reaction, though.

Mary Worth, 1/18/24

My immediate reaction to this strip was “Oh my god was this just setting up a MARY WORTH HAS A SECRET DAUGHTER PLOT????” Now, obviously, you’re going to dismiss that as anatomically impossible, but remember that Mary firmly believes that you can overcome past trauma simply by refusing to remember that it ever happened, so it’s more likely than you’d think!

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Mary Worth, 1/15/24

Well, thank God, surely now that this Mary Worth story has wrapped up in the most boring manner possible we can move on to something more interesting, and … wait, what’s this? Keith and Kitty are “giv[ing] in to their growing attraction,” right there in the car, front of God and Mary Worth readers everywhere? I can’t believe we’re about to see something so explicit, so filthy, that … oh, thank goodness, Keith just referred to food you buy at a grocery store as “dinner items,” no libido no matter how powerful can survive the sexlessness of that wording. Things are going to go back to normal (non-horny) soon enough!

Gil Thorp, 1/15/24

Ah, whoops, it looks before he even had a chance to menace Gil and our heroes, Coach Perm was felled by a swift punch to the gut from one of his own players. Welp, problem (?) solved (???), let’s go see what Coach Ochoa and the hockey team is up to for the rest of the week.