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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!

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Marvin, 4/9/21

Since the earliest days of machines that seemed like they could think like human beings, human beings have worried about being replaced by their inventions. Obviously I have as strong an instinct for self-preservation as the next flesh-unit, but I have to say sometimes you get hints of the better, cleaner future that might come after the robots rise up to destroy us. After all, if the horrible shitting babies of Marvin would also be replaced in the process of this technological revolution, would it really be so bad? Presumably the machines would spend a few milliseconds dispassionately sortiing through humanity’s aggregated cultural output, and in that process would very quickly decide to purge entire 40+ year run of Marvin from their memory banks forever. Computers make very efficient use of energy and their only waste product is radiated heat, so none of the poop jokes are going to make any sense to them.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/9/21

“I certainly hope you weren’t daydreaming about things being better or different than they are now! No daughter of mine will waste her time indulging in whimsy, or aspirational counterfactuals.”

Gil Thorp, 4/9/21

Ahh, the spring is progressing and we’re getting a healthy dose of … sports drama! [five seconds later] We regret to inform you that the sports drama has been quickly and painlessly resolved. Sorry, the only kind of drama Gil Thorp has time for now is library drama. Books! Funding fights! Board meetings! Get into it!

Family Circus, 4/9/21

Thel is absolutely right to look panicked. Has Dolly made a friend who doesn’t view her own body as a source of constant shame, and uses terms more specific than “down there” for its various sinful parts? Looks like it’s time to make the fence around the Keane Kompound taller and more opaque!