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Gil Thorp, 7/22/22

Hey guys! Remember when Gil and his wife Mimi had children who appeared in their Christmas cards, but then they slowly faded out of the strip, and from their Christmas cards? Well, apparently they got to this awards banquet, saw the card on the table that said “Thorp Family” and were like “oh shit, our kids!” Sadly, Mimi was not able to see Gil win his major award because she’s speeding home trying to remember where they last saw their children and what year that was.

The Lockhorns, 7/22/22

God, I love how absolutely dead everyone’s facial expressions are here. Please, Leroy and Loretta have already thought of everything terrible they could possibly say to one another, and now they need to infuriate their neighbors just to feel something again.

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Gil Thorp, 7/16/22

We’re wrapping up the first week of new-look Gil Thorp, which has consisted entirely of one of Gil’s ex-athletes giving a speech about why Gil deserves the Coach of the Year award, and we’re learning that new-look Gil is comfortable with both sharing his tragic emotional backstory and with using slang, like the kids today, when relating to a student who’s the victim of abuse from his parents and taking his aggression out on his teammates. Gil may not be a snitch, but I’m pretty sure he’s a … mandatory reporter? More on this situation as it develops.

Dustin, 7/16/22

Dustin is, famously, a strip about the eternal war between old people and young people, created in total ignorance of what actual young people do or are like. For instance, today’s strip posits that it’s young people who accidentally post things when they mean to search for things, and also it’s young people who use Facebook, two truly incredible assertions that I have to respect for how wildly incorrect they are.

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Gil Thorp, 7/11/22

Big news, everybody! Neal Rubin, who in my mind had been writing Gil Thorp forever but in fact started the gig just a few months before I launched this blog in 2004 (nervous, uncomfortable laughter), has written his last storyline and is passing the baton to new hands. It seems that the subtle “Be Seeing You” in Thursday’s strip wasn’t a reference to The Prisoner so much as a good-bye, though I could see how writing Gil Thorp might eventually come to feel like being trapped in a bizarre small town where full of weird people with inscrutable motives and nobody can give you a straight answer about what’s happening.

Anyway, the new writer is comic book vet Henry Barajas, who claims that the strip “holds a special place in my heart,” so it’s exciting to see what happens next! Day 1 is here to reassure us that this isn’t going to be some gritty reimagined Thorpiverse or anything. Gil is the coach, Gil is good, Gil is getting a major award in the middle of the summer, how dare you impugn Gil’s good name, ALL HAIL GIL

Mary Worth, 7/11/22

Speaking of impugning people’s good names, I’m afraid I misunderstood the original strip in which Jess appeared as saying that she had been the victim of domestic violence, when in fact she suffered an attack by a stranger in the course of a robbery. Does this make her resulting meet-cute with Jared less distressing? I’ve given it a lot of thought, and while the whole thing is still bad, I’m willing to downgrade it from “NO NO NO NO NO NO NO” to “eeeuuurrrggggghhhhh.” I’m not made of stone!

Marvin, 7/11/22

Really appreciate how much effort has been put into the blazing rays of the sun outside the window in today’s Marvin to make sure we understand that a smugly smiling Jeff is talking about getting “peace and quiet” by leaving his terrible son out in the summer heat, to die.