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Mary Worth, 6/4/22

Whenever Jared appears in this strip, he inspires intense loathing in both me and, based on your comments, all of you, and one of the fascinating things about Mary Worth is that it’s never clear if that’s the intended effect. Like, normal people recognize Jared as a needy, petulant, emotionally manipulative “nice guy,” but are we supposed to view him as such, or is he actually just an unappreciated sad sack worthy of love, and worthy of Dawn’s love in particular? Well, I kind of feel like today’s strip, in which Dawn goes clubbing with strange men like a whore while Jared gently consoles a victim of domestic violence, answers the question, and I’m excited that we’re all going to get the outcome we’ve been begging for (Dawn and Jared breaking up) but only because Dawn isn’t good enough for him.

Gil Thorp, 6/4/22

Wow, huh, so we’ve spent this entire spring focused on Gregg’s little blindness problem and finally we have a solution to it: get better glasses. Glasses, everybody! Why didn’t we think of that? You know, weirdly there hasn’t been a girl’s softball B-plot this year, and I think it may be because the Lady Mudlarks are too smart to be in this strip.

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Gil Thorp, 6/2/22

So Gregg wore his dumb mask, the opposing team figured out he was blind and peppered him with bunts, and now he’s real depressed and giving up even the pretense that he’s a teenager. “Look at my hair!” he shouts. “I’m an old man! The only reason I’d go to the park is to yell at the young women about how they should dress more decently in public!”

Mary Worth, 6/2/22

Speaking of dressing indecently, oh my goodness, after a dull few days when Dawn and Jared endlessly rehashed his intense insecurity about the fact that she looked at another boy at the zoo and coming to what seemed like a boring consensus about how it was nothing and nobody should fret about it, Dawn is now going to Da Club behind Jared’s back, because their relationship is in fact extremely unhealthy! The last time we saw Dawn out at what I assume is Santa Royale’s hottest and noisiest goth club, she was there with her art history professor and surprised her dad’s ex while wearing this truly incredible outfit. Tonight’s ensemble, with just a hint of bondage around the décolletage, is somewhat more subtle, but I still appreciate the occasional forays into Dawn Fashion to help me keep up with what the kids are into these days. Anyway, does her friend … have a nose? A whole nose? It looks like she might not, right? And her name is Cathy? Hmmmmmmm?

Funky Winkerbean, 6/2/22

The joke here is that the boy waited till after graduation to ask out the girl so there’s no time for them to really form a relationship before they go away to college, but I think this strip would be funnier if she actually just decided she didn’t like him and instead of politely riding out the next few hours is telling him repeatedly that there will be no date #2.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/2/22

Oh, man, I certainly hope they don’t call Rex until the Sunday strip, because we’re gonna need a lot of panels for his ponderous, exasperated sigh.

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Gil Thorp, 5/28/22

Welp, the gig (gigg?) is up for our boy Gregg, whose blindness was was discovered by Coach Thorp, and after briefly taking the position that, while he was willing to engage in an elaborate web of deception to fool the world, actually making use of reasonable accommodations for his disability would be a bridge too far, he quickly changed his mind and will be wearing a mask to protect him from the baseballs that will be flying at top speed towards his face, completely unseen. Mostly today I’m enjoying the Thorp’s post-coaching intimacy, with Mimi admiring both Gil’s manly yet caring mentoring style and his carrot-cutting skills (he’s going to slice off a finger roughly 0.5 seconds after he delivers his line in the final panel).

Hi and Lois, 5/28/22

What ever happened to romance? To mystery? All you have to do is look at Chip’s face to see how a red-blooded American teen reacts to a girl who “is straightforwardly interested in physical intimacy” or whatever. Thank god nobody else is in this theater to watch a women’s libber absolutely ruin this date, and also to apparently hear them talking at full volume during the movie.

Crankshaft, 5/28/22

Not only do I absolutely buy Crankshaft becoming obsessed with the minutia of property laws, I actually think this would be a great topic for a whole series of storylines. If we’re really lucky, he goes down an internet rabbit hole and becomes a sovereign citizen whackadoo. He’s going to spend hours at the diner scowling at Ralph and Keesterman, talking about how gold fringe on a courtroom flag means you’re being tried under admirality law and that means you don’t have to pay any property tax, while they wait for a terrible pun that never comes.