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Gil Thorp, 5/12/21

Today’s a great day in Gil Thorp for groups of three Mudlarks experiencing approximately the same emotion! Panel two is easy to parse: Three boys thrilled to have won a game in a comeback. Panel three seems to affirm the idea that teen girls have more complex emotional lives than their male counterparts. Who wants to go to Ricozzi’s with Zane and Katy? The prospect fills numbers 10, 15, and 33 with a feeling of subtle dread that they can’t quite articulate.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/12/21

As a guy who struggles a lot with writer’s block, I have to wonder: Would staring at a giant question mark taking up most of my monitor be more or less motivating than just staring at a blank document? I’m honestly willing to try anything at this point.

Marvin, 5/12/21

“Ha ha, get it? Because the word ‘test’ has a number of slightly different meanings? Anyway, I’m probably dying.”

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Mary Worth, 4/27/21

Oh man, I honestly don’t know where this is going exactly but I’m very excited about it. I think every soap strip should do a storyline about social media influencers, because I want to find out what all of them think social media influencers are! Anyway, this strip is chock full of things I love, including but not limited to (a) Ashlee responding to Drew asking her if she takes photos by specifying that she takes selfies and then (b) immediately showing him a picture that is obviously not a selfie (side note, I’ve been obsessed with a Buzzfeed article I read last month about the theory that many influencers’ “mirror selfies” are actually just pictures of them taken by someone else while they hold up their phone, but Ashlee isn’t even doing that level of pretense), and (c) Drew says “You certainly have the looks to be one!” only after seeing the picture of her, even though he’s been looking at her IRL all this time. Anyway, I certainly hope that Ashlee initiates a torrid sexual relationship with Dr. Drew in hopes that he’ll post some of her selfies to his high-profile account and in so doing boost her Instagram following, which is probably the saddest reason to sleep with someone that I can possibly imagine.

Judge Parker, 4/27/21

Judge Parker isn’t doing a social media plot, but a storyline where Sam Driver gets punched in the face is almost as good.

Gil Thorp, 4/27/21

After blowing up a perfectly nice dinner, Abel Brito has been presented with a choice: either he drops the subject of libraries, or he works to join the library board and implement his vision of transforming money-losing libraries via a public-private partnership into profitable Amazon Reading Centers™ that are free to enter for all Prime subscribers.

Pluggers, 4/27/21

With all the shit I give Pluggers on this blog, you might be surprised to learn that some days it moves me and spurs me to make a difference in my life. For instance, today’s panel moved me to finally text our plumber to come deal with the toilet handle, after I tried and failed to fix it several weeks ago. Congratulations, Pluggers, on providing this call to action. I thank you, and more importantly, my wife thanks you.

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Funky Winkerbean, 4/23/21

When I wrote about the many different strategies comic strip artists were taking to address (or not) the coronavirus pandemic, one I definitely didn’t have on my bingo card was “ignore it while it was happening, and then, as it seemed to be on its way out, pretend that it had been happening all along, and reminiscing about what it was like for your characters.” Anyway, today we, and Funky’s hapless AA meeting, learn that Montoni’s was apparently shut down (though presumably not for long, as pizza is a notoriously delivery-friendly food format?) and that Montoni’s also has a liquor license, and that Funky was full of dark thoughts of boozing it up with his imagined version of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, but then remembered “Oh, wait, drinking is bad for me” and didn’t. Anyway, good for him for staying sober in trying circumstances, but too bad for these poor alcoholics that they have to listen to Funky’s loopiest, most rambling monologue since he spent a day muttering to nobody about how Elvis died on the toilet.

Gil Thorp, 4/23/21

Ahh, it’s that beautiful moment in any Gil Thorp storyline, the one where we finally begin to see how all the different characters we’ve been frenetically switching back and forth from kind of relate to each other. Turns out Zane Clark hasn’t been around much because his parents lost their jobs and his family went into a financial spiral and he has a hard time getting to school events because he works nights to help out, and his girlfriend Katy is the daughter of Abel Brito, who found out that tax-funded community services exist a couple weeks ago and is still absolutely furious about it, apparently. How is he going to deal with his daughter dating a [dramatic music sting] poor person? Very excited to find out!