Post Content

Mary Worth, 2/14/25

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody! Mary Worth would like to take a break from Dawn’s romantic crisis to show you what real love looks like: it looks like two old people who haven’t experienced drama or conflict or strong emotions of any kind in years going to the same restaurant they always go to and then maybe home for six to nine desultory minutes of hand stuff.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 2/14/25

Speaking of romance, I’ve decided to duck in to Mother Goose and Grimm again and discovered that Mother Goose’s love life is in a tailspin. Did her boyfriend Hiram leave her for her hairdresser? Has she decided to go to the bar the two of them used to hang out at together to find a new lover? Can birds and humans have sex, in the world of Mother Goose and Grimm? Do birds have teeth there? Do dentists see patients in their own homes, rather than an office dedicated to the practice of dentistry as they do in our world? Has Mother Goose, a bird, put in false teeth specifically to attract the sexual attention of this handsome human dentist? Honestly lots of questions here that I’m not sure any of us are prepared to learn the answers to.

Gil Thorp, 2/14/25

Oh yeah, I’ve been lax in keeping you up to date on Gil Thorp developments, which are as follows: Mudlark semi-superstar Rodney Barnes agreed to let some students make a short documentary film about him, and he came across like a real egotistical jerk in it, so now everybody hates him and won’t pass to him. I like the last panel here, and I assume we’re supposed to imagine “I’m open” echoing sadly as Rodney realizes the enormity of his various blunders.

Dennis the Menace, 2/14/25

Dennis, this is just deep stupidity that would make every single Keane Kid — yes, even PJ — ashamed. The only person you’re a menace to is … yourself.

Post Content

Blondie, 1/4/25

Yes, I still read the newspaper comics strip Blondie every day, and I actually learn things from it! For instance, Herb saying “mega-horsepower” made me wonder if horsepower is in fact part of the overall International System of Units and can take prefixes like “mega”. Turns out it isn’t; horsepower measures the same thing as watts, although there is a slight difference between metric horsepower (735.5 watts) and imperial horsepower (745.7 watts). It also turns out that a typical snowblower is rated around 5 horsepower, so if we take Herb literally, his new toy has a power output about 3 million times greater than that. Dagwood would not be comically encrusted with snow by it; instead, he and his entire suburban neighborhood would’ve been vaporized instantly the moment Herb turned it on. Sorry if this offends but I must tell the cold, hard truth about the physics involved here.

Gil Thorp, 1/4/25

I have to admit that pleading “But I’m the voice of Milford sports!” is very funny, in terms of ways to defend yourself for getting in trouble for being gin-drunk on the job. Anyway, like all the damned souls toiling in new media, the primary metric on which Marty is judged professionally is going viral, and you’d think going on the air intoxicated would be a good way to do that, but based on his facial expression in the final panel I’m guessing he did it in a very depressing way, not a fun way.

Family Circus, 1/4/24

Billy admits it! He and the other Keane Kids aren’t “real people,” but are instead soulless abominations who should not be walking this earth. “Jeffy,” says Jeffy’s shirt, desperately trying to distract you from the fact that he is a Thing that does not deserve a name.

Post Content

Hello, faithful readers! Did you have a good Christmahanukkwanzaa? Are you ready for a return to comics blogging form, here on your favorite website, joshreads dot com? Well, good news: I’m back and prepared to read the comics so you don’t have to, once again.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/25/24

So what did you get up to on Christmas? Did you wait around for your doctor to call you up and tell you it was OK to walk on your treadmill, which he’ll only do after sarcastically asking, “I dunno, do you think someone might stab you the minute you leave the safety of your chair”?

Gil Thorp, 12/26/24

Or did you just straight-up go to jail, like Marty Moon?

Gasoline Alley, 12/27/24

Or did you give, or possibly receive, yet another cursèd doll, to go with the one your friend group already has, doubling the number of demonic toys out in the world and ensuring the ultimate destruction of the human race???

Mary Worth, 12/25/24 and 12/28/24

But whatever, I didn’t have time over the holiday week to think about evil dolls because Dawn’s Christmas Day hunk date turned out to be exactly the blockbuster event that I predicted. First up: turns out Dirk is kind of an asshole — ha ha, what are the paces he’s planning on putting her through that he requires her to protienmaxx at dinner? — but also, it turns out that Dawn 100% thinks of being vegan as a “diet” rather than an ethical framework for respecting animal life, so honestly I don’t feel that bad about it.

Mary Worth, 12/29/24

“Ha ha, Mary, I know, young people really do rush into things instead of taking the time to get to know somebody! It sure would be terrible if I got fingerbanged in the front seat of a car by some hunk I met two days ago instead of spending the last 20 years ‘getting to know’ an angry failed academic decades older than me! Ha ha!”

Mary Worth, 12/30/24

Uh oh! Conflict incoming! Will shallow hunk Dirk still accept Dawn if she has to wear glasses, like she used to?

Mary Worth, 12/31/24 and 1/1/25

Obviously he will not accept them, duh. Remember “negging,” the emotional manipulation technique promoted in the late ’00s by pickup artists and others amongst worst people alive? Well, Mary Worth has finally gotten wind of it in the year of our lord 2025, and obviously Dawn Weston is the first victim.

Mary Worth, 1/2/25

And it worked! She’s 100% in love with this guy, already, despite the fact that he has not been particularly nice to her! In 2025, we’re going to discover: is Dawn going to find that the thing she’s been seeking has been inside her all along? Or has the thing she’s seeking only gone inside her fairly recently? (I’m talking about Dirk’s penis, if that’s not clear.)

Curtis, 1/2/25

Oh, also, Curtis did another Kwanzaa storyline, but instead of being about cool shit like giant telepathic otters it’s about how when you die, you’re reborn as a child in an endless white void and are very confused until you eventually run into your mother. A bit theologically confused and zero giant magical animal content. I give it a C+, but I believe that 2025 has the potential to be at least a B-, comics-wise. Stay tuned!