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Hagar the Horrible, 9/30/23

I think it’s very interesting that Hagar is ostentatiously drinking from a golden chalice in this strip. He and his warband have finally gorged themselves on enough material goods from the dying Carolingian Empire that they no longer need to exchange all the gold they steal to support their immediate material needs and can afford ornamental frippery. It makes sense, then, that today’s episode is a catty comedy of manners that could just as easily be taking place in the comfortable suburban world of Hagar and Helga’s distant Walker-Browne descendents Hi and Lois.

Gil Thorp, 9/30/23

Look, I can barely keep track of the sports stuff going on in Gil Thorp, OK? If you’re gonna try to tell me that Barnes and this blonde girl used to be involved romantically and I’m supposed to remember that, I’m simply going to say that I don’t have the spoons to deal with it at the moment, and will retreat to my comfort zone (staring in mesmerized awe at the detached claw-hand that has latched on to Barnes’ sweaty fact in panel three).

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/30/23

So wait, all these guys are criminals? Every last one of them? But they’re still boring as hell?

Dick Tracy, 9/30/23

Uh oh, looks like Tracy has a new nemesis in — The Case Of The Guy With A Knife Who Loves To Stab!

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Gasoline Alley, 9/25/23

Oh, man, were you wondering what happened in the story of the lost little boy who was about to be taken away from his talking bear friend by the authorities? Well, what happened is that talking bear attacked the authorities, who dropped the child and fled in terror, as most people would when faced by an aggressive bear. Anyway, it’s true that troubles are just starting, both for the bear (revelation that talking bears are seizing human children will end in the state intervening with maximum force) and the rest of us (Human-Bear Wars will last most of the 21st century, leave the earth a depopulated wasteland).

Mary Worth, 9/25/23

It seems that Keith Hillend, while always unfailingly polite with the woman who descended upon him and started badgering him with irrelevant information while he was trying to move in to his new apartment, simply did not want to linger and chit-chat with her. Unacceptable. UNACCEPTABLE. She’s going to show up at his door and FORCE this tray of steaming hot tan glop onto him. Then he’ll have to make polite conversation with her, if he wants the antidote.

Gil Thorp, 9/25/23

Yes, the Milford athletic department is facing big budget cuts. But Gil always loved Emeril Lagasse, and frankly you’d be surprised how cheap it is these days to hire him to stand on the sidelines of your high school football game and yell his catchphrase when you score.

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Mary Worth, 9/20/23

You know, if you’re a Worth-head come lately, you might think of Mary Worth as a strip primarily about a core rotating cast of characters (Mary and Jeff, Wilbur and the sad parade of women who at one time or another had sex with him for some reason, Saul and Eve and their dogs, Ian and Toby if we’re really desperate). But for most of this strip’s history, Mary was a sort of Rod Serling-esque figure who served to introduce us to stories about one-off characters who wandered through Charterstone and/or the greater Santa Royale area and then left once their plot had been resolved, never to be seen again. I sincerely miss stories like “An old lady does not want her daughter to date” and “Charterstone’s local pervert uses truly sick art to seduce the unwary” and “Uh oh! A child has been kidnapped!”, and I am honestly very hopeful that the absolutely huge slab of man-meat that is Keith Hillend (he’s named that because he’s bigger than the end of a hill) will end up being the center of a new self-contained story instead of getting entangled with, say, Dawn.

Gil Thorp, 9/20/23

I don’t care that much about this flash of intra-Mudlark coaching staff drama, but I do want to say that it very much tracks that the Coach of the Year Award, a trophy they apparently just give to Gil every year, is referred to by its abbreviation, COTY, pronounced “coaty” and so universally known that you can just slip it into indignant accusations like “You insulted Gil when he won COTY!” and be sure that everyone will know what you’re talking about.

Pluggers, 9/20/23

That’s a murder weapon, right? Those stains are more blood than rust? We can all agree this plugger is going to “fix” things, via murder, which ought to “do the trick”?