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Mary Worth, 1/19/25

“Josh,” you’re probably wondering, “how can this storyline about Dawn’s relationship with her new emotionally volatile bully of a boyfriend get any more off-putting?” Well, what if we dragged in her emotionally manipulative creep of an ex, Jared, for good measure? Really loving his thought balloon here: in the Girl Race he and Dirk have cooked up, he’s cheering for his champion the Right Way, while Dirk’s technique is gauche and over the top. Does this presage worse things to come? He’ll hold his counsel, for now.

Dick Tracy, 1/19/25

Sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date on how things have been going in Dick Tracy over the past few months, but it turns out that the storyline that appeared to be about some construction industry corruption has ended in … Nazis! Nazis, and the Nazi-curious grandchildren of Nazis, the latter of which are assuming important roles in American business and industry. Dick thought he had defeated the Nazi menace by selling war bonds, but clearly that wasn’t enough.

Hagar the Horrible, 1/19/25

Personally, if I were one of a host of resentful vassals of a rich and powerful duke, I would simply rise up with my fellows and plunder his castle myself. Accepting token bribes from some outside raiders to look the other way so that they could go and seize the duke’s wealth seems like an overly complicated transaction that quite frankly doesn’t adequately reward me and my comrades for our crucial role in how things play out.

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Mary Worth, 12/14/24

OK, reading this almost sent me into a downward spiral — and here I will pause to tell you that after typing that, I thought, “Hmm, is this really a thing I want to admit out here in public on God’s own internet?” but then I realized that you guys have read this blog, I’m obviously in the top percentile worldwide of people who are most likely to have been sent into a downward spiral by a Mary Worth comic — but anyway, I got sent into a downward spiral by the thought that Dawn had a whole-ass relationship that I had forgotten about. Who is this “Billy” character? When did we meet him? True, Dawn said they only went out for a “few weeks” but Mary Worth chronology is notoriously languorous, so that could refer to a storyline from months or years ago. I think the last time we heard about Dawn’s love life was when she fled down to go live with her mother because she was still broken up about her comical drip of an ex Jared, only to return when it turned out that her mother didn’t really care for her either, but it nags at me that there might be an entire earlier “Billy” storyline that I’m somehow forgetting. Was Billy the guy with a tiny face she ogled at the zoo? Some dude she picked up at da clurb? Or just some loser so dull he didn’t even rate an appearance in the syndicated comic strip Mary Worth? Anyway, I look forward to learning whether Dawn’s newfound veganism is a pathetic attempt to spite him somehow or an even more pathetic attempt to win him back.

Judge Parker, 12/14/24

I was going to object that Judge Parker Senior lives in leafy suburbia on an estate large enough to have its own hedge maze, so it seems weird to think there’d be CCTV cameras around, but then I remembered that he’s a notorious criminal himself, so the local authorities are right to be careful.

Hagar the Horrible, 12/14/24

Today’s Hagar the Horrible is about Hagar’s emotional life and how it affects his interactions with his friends and family. Honestly, I like it!

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Mary Worth, 12/8/24

Hello, fellow young people! Like me (a young person), you have no doubt been using the word “cringe” in its relatively new slang sense, as either an adjective meaning something embarrassing or awkward, or as a noun to denote something that inspires the feeling described by the adjective. This is a use of the word that we young people like to deploy on social media sites such as TikTok and [what are the other ones? Is TikTok still what young people like? double-check this].

Sadly, however, we’re all going to have to stop using the word that way, because Wilbur Weston just did, in the comic strip Mary Worth! Ironically, this act itself is incredibly cringe. That’s the last time I’ll use that word in that way; now, as a young person, I will be moving on to new forms of slang that are inscrutable to the many, many people who are older than me.

Pardon My Planet, 12/8/24

Hello, fellow young people! Are you familiar with the hot new musical film Wicked? Fun fact: it’s actually a prequel to another film, The Wizard of Oz, and this syndicated newspaper cartoon is a joke about the characters from that older movie! You’d think it’d be more direct to just do a joke about Wicked, the movie that’s currently popular, but that would require some research to determine what exactly its characters look like, and that sort of effort simply isn’t part of the Pardon My Planet game plan.

Daddy Daze, 12/8/24

Good news, everyone! The Daddy Daze daddy is dead. The Daddy Daze baby captured and killed him. Now, does this mean the Daddy Daze baby will soon himself die, from neglect? Unclear. He’s a baby, so normally I’d say yes, but he managed to capture and kill his father, so he has powers and capabilities beyond those of ordinary babies.

Hagar the Horrible, 12/8/24

Hey guys, if you’re so scared, why don’t you attack the castle during the day? Idiots.