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Archive: Gil Thorp

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He’s definitely right in the sense that I’ve never seen Dagwood care one bit about the troops before today

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Blondie, 5/25/20

If you had asked me to make a list of Dagwood’s trademark “things,” obviously sandwiches would be at the top, but I’d also say sleepiness, being a slacker at work, insatiable hunger (if we’re thinking of that as a separate thing from the sandwiches), his constant physical abuse of the mailman, and his weird passive-aggressive relationship with his supposed “best friend” and next door neighbor. “Classic TV” wouldn’t appear anywhere on the list, and while as written for the last decade or two Dagwood has embodied powerful boomer vibes and I’d definitely believe that he’s into classic TV, all the TV jokes in this strip are about made-up shows with food themes that he’s obsessed with (see “insatiable hunger,” above). This strip, in other words, has shaken me to my very core.

Gil Thorp, 5/25/20

“If you hadn’t imposed a life-altering punishment on a student for an extremely minor infraction, you could’ve been fired and reduced to penury yourself! Remember, in this totalitarian panopticon, we are simultaneously the enforcers of arbitrary rules and subject to them. It’s very grim!”

Marvin, 5/25/20

Man, it took me a lot longer than it should’ve for to realize that by “poor loser” the girl baby whose name I refuse to learn or look up means what a normal English speaker would call a “sore loser”; I thought she meant someone who was a loser because they were poor, and I actually started getting indignant on Marvin’s behalf. He’s not poor at all! Have you seen his bathroom? It’s a fucking palace!

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Soapy Wednesday

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Mark Trail, 5/20/20

Wow, Geoff really is working his way up Maslow’s hierarchy for Kevin, isn’t he? He’s managed to see to Kevin’s safety needs (preventing him from being burned to death in a forest fire) and physiological needs (getting him with a family who will feed and house him). When will Kevin experience belongingness, esteem, and emotional self-actualization? (Trick question: nobody in Mark Trail has any handle on what an “emotion” is or how to deal with experiencing them, other than punching.)

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/20/20

“Hmm, you’re saying I should … care about the opinons of women over the age of 21? That’s seems crazy. I’ve never done it before … but what do I have to lose, at this point?”

Gil Thorp, 5/20/20

“Look, see this sunset, or possibly sunrise? It symbolizes your new day dawning, or maybe the end of your time at Milford, depending on which one it is, but the important thing is that once you submit to your new and totally unfair fate, you’re not my problem anymore, so why don’t you get on that? The sooner the better.”

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Looks like “The Mayor”’s been [puts on sunglasses] impeached

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Gil Thorp, 5/18/20

Oh, wow, it turns out Mike “The Mayor” hasn’t just been suspended or kicked off the team for his knifecrime; he’s been expelled from school, which has him understandably soured on the American education system! Still, I don’t like the sneering way he labels a woman who I assume is his mom as a mere “real estate appraiser” unfit to deliver insights into Southern Gothic literature or whatever. You can learn a lot from a real estate appraiser! Obviously they use a lot of applied math in their job, and they’re mostly independent small business people with a lot of practical knowledge of what that entails. They also are pretty attuned to the nuances of the real estate market, and how it’s connected to both macroeconomic and socioeconomic conditions — and because they go inside a lot of people’s homes while they’re still living in them, they can tell you quite a bit about the diversity of human private lives. That’s gotta be good for, what, a week or two of home-schooling, until Gil grandstands at a school board meeting and Mike’s back in class, stabbing whoever he wants?

Dennis the Menace, 5/18/20

The gap between “Margaret has a weird romantic obsession with Dennis” and “All the things that are ‘annoying’ about Margaret are actually future marketable skills, whereas all the things that are annoying about Dennis are actually annoying” has never been greater than it is today. Margaret is sitting there with a Bluetooth headset and a laptop because, I assume, she has an actual white-collar job now, whereas Dennis isn’t even making a joke here, he’s just painfully stupid. Painfully stupid. And by Margaret’s face, she may have finally wised up.

Mary Worth, 5/18/20

“No resistance on his part? Or did he stay behind enemy lines, plotting with confederates, importing weapons with the help of British spies, occasionally assassinating Gestapo officers, and preparing for the day when the rest of the Allies and an army of colonial troops would arrive on his shores, and your relationship would once again be liberated from the boche, who I guess is Jared, in this scenario?