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Blondie, 10/10/23

I once saw an interview with John Singleton and Stephanie Allain, the producers of the movie Hustle and Flow, about a scene where the characters kick a woman out of the house they’re living in, and how physical to make that confrontation, and they settled on using as a model Fred Flintstone gently yet firmly dropping Dino on the front stoop in the opening credits of The Flintstones. Fred’s act in turn has a context in the time not so long ago when people’s pets freely roamed outside much of the time and in particular were not expected to stay indoors at night, though dogs at least usually got their own little house in the yard for shelter. This was an arrangement that might still hold in rural areas of the U.S. today but has been unheard of in cities and suburbs long enough that I found it puzzling when I watched decades-old Flintstones reruns in the early ’80s; but legacy newspaper comics are the most ossified form of cultural production known to science, and so Blondie was still sticking with it as late as 2007. Today, finally, in the futuristic year 2023, we have confirmation that Daisy lives inside full-time with the Bumsteads (though frankly we knew even back then she slept indoors some nights). Honestly the most unrealistic thing happening here is that Elmo knows what a “doghouse” is.

Gasoline Alley, 10/10/23

I don’t want to sound like a killjoy but, talking bears aside, the moral of this Gasoline Alley plot seems to be “if you find a child and don’t know where their parents are, and the child seems to like you, you can use trickery and force to stop the evil government from attempting to reunite the child with said parents,” which seems, uh, not great? Obviously it would be worse if anyone read Gasoline Alley and it had any chance of influencing any opinions about anything, but still.

Dennis the Menace, 10/10/23

Setting whatever menace Dennis thinks he’s perpetrating here aside, we need to acknowledge his “dentist” is clearly just Mr. Wilson, who has “disguised” himself by shaving his mustache. As a retired postal carrier, Mr. Wilson lacks any of the skills necessary to be a safe dental practitioner, but I fear that’s exactly the point.

Hi and Lois, 10/10/23

Sure, working as cartoonist for a legacy newspaper comic is probably not that creatively fulfilling and doesn’t pay very well either. But when it comes to turning an annoying experience you had into a “joke” that you can be sure literally hundreds of people will read, it simply can’t be beat.

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Blondie, 10/7/23

As a rule, I try to keep my contact with young people to an absolute minimum, so maybe I’m wrong, but it’s not really normal for a kid to wander around the neighborhood in full football getup, helmet and pads and ball included, right? I mean, it’s the year 2023, children are hypersupervised and they don’t wander around the neighborhood and talk to non-relative adults period, so I guess we have to understand that this strip just takes place in a world of visual signification that gives us information about the characters and setting but isn’t meant to be interpreted literally. Like, for instance, it’s important that we know that Elmo is on the team, so this whole discourse is really more self-loathing than insulting.

Dennis the Menace, 10/7/23

You know, I often make fun of Dennis not being menacing, or claim that he’s being menacing in ways that aren’t the intended reading of the text, but today’s panel is just Dennis being a mean little shit to his long-suffering neighbor and I’m here for it. Not sure what scenario I like better: that Dennis walked into the Wilsons’ house already holding that plate and chewing on cake, smacking his lips and talking about how delicious it is, or if he wheedled Mrs. Wilson into making it for him and has spent the last half hour watching Mr. Wilson squirm.

Hi and Lois, 10/7/23

Man, look how happy Thirsty is! It’s fun and cool to go through life as a perpetually buzzed liar, and Hi looks sad because he knows he doesn’t have the guts to do it.

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Between Friends, 10/5/23

Many years ago, when I first started this blog, it was called “I Read The Comics So You Don’t Have To,” and sometimes I feel I’ve lost sight of that missions, so, here you go: Between Friends has been doing an on-again-off-again plot for it seems like weeks where Susan here is on Zoom with a coworker who has young kids and is very excited about getting away from them for a few days on a work trip. This is, I do not deny, hashtag relatable, but there’s just been so much of it, and if you’re just seeing this strip in isolation, you’re probably like, “I don’t see why it’s worth complaining about,” but trust me: I have read the comics so you don’t have to, and I’m here to tell you that it’s gotten real old and shows no sign of not getting older. I feel like today’s strip, which is just a bunch of dialogue coming out of a computer screen while a person makes various facial expressions in response, is particularly egregious. There’s a lot to say about the post-lockdown persistence of white collar work-from-home jobs, and as a longtime home office worker I’m generally in favor of the trend, but it’s a real problem for comic strips that rely on people interacting at work for visual interest.

Hi and Lois, 10/5/23

Man, I wish I could get as excited about anything as this child is hearing an old man talk about the last 30 years of technological progress! Or, well, given the medium and its current readership, I guess I should say I wish I could get as excited about anything as this child is in this fantasy deliberately engineered to make old people feel like children might be interested in what they have to say.