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Gil Thorp, 6/26/21

So the B-plot to this spring’s library administration nonsense has been Corina Karenna nonsense, in which the beloved (?) and sassy new Mudlark has resisted all of Coach Mrs. Coach Thorp’s entreaties to take her prodigious softball skills to college, using the facts that she spent much of her high school years at an “alternative” school and her mom needs care due to unspecified mental health problems as excuses. But it turns out that her grades are actually great and her mom wants her to go to college, so her mom and Mimi conspired to get her enrolled, problem solved! Anyway, none of that is very interesting, and mostly what I want to talk about in today’s strip is panel two, which takes the “it’s OK for a character to have a word balloon attached to them even if they’re obviously not talking” position to a radical extreme. Not sure if we’re meant to understand that Mimi is taking a big sip of iced tea to wet her whistle and prepare to unleash this long sentence, or if she’s drinking it to soothe her parched palate after saying it, or if (best option, in my opinion) she’s just kind of burbling her words through her beverage. Gil, who is used to Mimi’s bullshit after however many decades of marriage, will refuse to acknowledge this.

Marvin, 6/26/21

Say what you will about Marvin, but at least it doesn’t have an ongoing plot I feel obligated to recap just so I can talk about some visual element that annoys me in today’s strip. That visual element is Bitsy’s foot. It’s got paw pads, like a dog’s foot should, but also distinctly human toes. It’s gross and I hate it! This concludes my Marvin commentary for today.

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Gil Thorp, 6/17/21

Good news, everyone! The library fight in Gil Thorp has ended in a classic “We’re not so different, you and I” situation, in which Abel wants to cut government funding from public services and Zane wants public services to pivot to profit-making ventures. Surely there’s some beautiful synergy to be had there! Hey, you’re probably wondering why library workers tend to be such stick in the muds about patrons eating or drinking in the library, and as a former library worker I can tell you that it is 100% because food attracts bugs and mice and bugs and mice eat books. Just putting that out there! Anyway, the important thing is that Zane has defeated Kathy’s dad in the marketplace of ideas, and that has Kathy all hornt up, which means that natural balance has been restored to the universe.

Pluggers, 6/17/21

My sympathy is with this poor dog-child. Can you imagine a plugger leaving comments on your social media posts? While making that facial expression? Truly chilling.

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Gil Thorp, 6/11/21

I guess what’s going on here is that each of the Coaches Thorp is sitting with their own student-athlete in the teen vs. teen’s girlfriend’s dad library board interview competition, and “we’re all rooting for the library” is some kind of statement of neutrality, like “We may disagree on the details but I’m sure whoever wins will do a great job for this institution that we all respect, so let’s all just go out there do our best.” That’d be a lot more believable if Katy’s dad’s whole platform wasn’t literally defunding the library. Anyway, I assume that weird hand position in panel three is Coach Mrs. Coach Thorp getting ready to throw up some really exaggerated chef’s kiss gestures when Katy’s dad loses.

Pluggers, 6/11/21

You know what hour a plugger is happiest? When they manage to doze off, their troubles and cares briefly annihilated by blessed unconsciousness. It’s only an hour, though, when they pass out in their chair from pure exhaustion; presumably they spend the night tossing and turning in bed due to their various anxieties and disappointments. “Lots of pluggers everywhere” wrote in with this one!

Mary Worth, 6/11/21

God damn it, Ashlee, don’t you dare go soft on me, returning sad Drew’s precious Rolex from his dead mom! The only acceptable thing happening here is that you’ve realized the Coreys have generational wealth and you need to be working on a much more ambitious grift.