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Oh my gosh it’s the last week of August, and if kids haven’t already gone back to whatever passes for school in 2021, they’re thinking hard about it. Let’s join in …

Baby Blues, 8/30/21

“Kids don’t want to go to school, and their parents can’t wait to get rid of them” is a trope usually found in family comic strips. But once Wanda finds out Darryl is working from home this fall, they’ll be smack in the middle of Lockhorns country.

Crankshaft, 8/30/21

Ed Crankshaft’s clients avoid him at the cost of their own convenience and their children’s futures. Checks out.

Gil Thorp, 8/30/21

Gil Thorp kicks off the school year with sports-team carwashes on every Milford streetcorner. Mom Claxton seems to think these have something to do with getting your car cleaned, but Tevin knows the score. And as an avid consumer of such services myself, I can pass along a tip: “Psst, Tevin—Girls’ water polo.”

Rhymes with Orange, 8/30/21

Yikes, who would have expected Rhymes with Orange to take the baton from Dick Tracy in the “Ironic Deaths” relay? Those sprinkles are just twisting the knife.

Garfield, 8/30/21

Oh, come ON! What do you think this is, Heathcliff?

— Uncle Lumpy

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Slylock Fox, 8/25/21

Based on the animal quiz that accompanies this drawing, that’s clearly supposed to be a wolf out there howling at the moon, and I’m very intrigued that the anonymous syndicate colorist chose to give him Slylock’s bright red fur. Clearly the reality is that they saw “canid in Slylock Fox” and used the fill tool with web-safe bright red without really thinking about it, but I’d like to believe that they briefly contemplated the idea of this strip’s normally cerebral title character stripping off his clothes and howling at the moon, and they said “Honestly? Good for him.”

Dustin, 8/25/21

Sorry, I refuse to believe Dustin’s dad likes impressionism at all. He is absolutely one of those people who would look at any art that isn’t photorealist portraiture and sneer “My kid could’ve done this.” (Then he’d look at Dustin and say, “Well, somebody’s kid could’ve done this, I guess.”)

Gil Thorp, 8/25/21

Oh, wow! Marjie Ducey, the Thorp-friendliest media figure in Milford, is going to retire, and now the paper’s going to hire a woman who was literally Gil’s student like two years ago to replace her! I certainly hope Marty Moon has something to say about this blatant conflict of interest, though we haven’t heard from him in quite a while, and frankly he may still be having some kind of hallucinatory experience in the wooden crate that serves as the Milford press box.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/25/21

We all, of course, have our own personal “what’s the worst recurring theme in Funky Winkerbean?” take, but I think we can all agree that “sometimes the strip hints that there may be multiple rivals for Les’s sexual attention” is in the top five.

Family Circus, 8/25/21

Look, Billy’s all hyped up because he’s been huffing pine cones! And honestly? Good for him.

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Gil Thorp, 8/23/21

Say what you will about Gil Thorp, and I’ve said a lot, but at least it has a certain level of realism that other strips lack, in the sense that it’s about a high school sports program and the teams have mediocre seasons more often than not, like most high school teams do. This realism even extends to its characters’ everyday non-sports lives! Did you know that proving your mettle with some cool detective work isn’t going to secure you a journalism career? It really isn’t! Sorry, Heather! I guess you’ll be breaking the glass ceiling and becoming the first woman to get an unpaid “job” coaching high school football in Milford, I’m sure that will open up all sorts of opportunities for you.

Dick Tracy, 8/23/21

One of my favorite sci-fi short stories is Isaac Asimov’s “The Dead Past,” about a near-future society where technology that can view the past has been invented but its nature is kept secret and its use is heavily restricted by the government, and a group of heroic historians and scientists manage to reinvent it and publish the plans worldwide, only to realize too late that a machine that can see 1,000 years into the past can also see 30 seconds into the past and they’ve just eliminated privacy for everyone, everywhere, forever. Dick is going to be thrilled to hear about this invention, in other words.

Rex Mogan, M.D., 8/23/21

“Plus, uh, remember all that stolen valor I did? Probably for the best not to invite those guys, is what I’m saying. I’m all about the future, not the past!”

Curtis, 8/23/21

You can put your dad’s face on your social media accounts, Curtis, but his butt? That’s reserved for paying subscribers to big_ass_greg’s OnlyFans account.