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Blondie and Hi and Lois, 5/20/23

As a participant in the childfree lifestyle, I appreciate what representation I can find in the comics, even if it’s just Dagwood and Blondie’s best only friends Herb and Tootsie, or Hi and Lois’s best friends Hi’s coworker Thirsty and his wife Irma, who they keep at arm’s length. Anyway, Thirsty has at least come round to his opinion on procreation based on hard experience over a too-short fence, whereas Herb seems to be guessing at “parenting” activities based on movies he saw 20 years ago.

Judge Parker, 5/20/23

Oh, right, remember Eric, the traumatized son of the murderous meth judge? Well, his dad went to jail and now he’s living with Abbey, or maybe with Abbey’s horses. Abbey has been “feeling lost” ever since her dumb business venture, her political career, and her marriage all failed, but she has an idea, if Sophie is willing the help! (The idea is using Eric and Sophie to breed a new “master race” of weird sad foundling kids who ended up on Abbey’s ranch for whatever reason.)

Beetle Bailey, 5/20/23

OK, so the bad news is that we’re fighting another war, but the good news is that after like 70-plus years, the military has determined that Beetle is finally adequately trained to fight in it.

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Dick Tracy, 5/18/23

A question I have often had reason to contemplate is “Who is [any given legacy comic strip still being produced in the year 2023] for, exactly,” and it’s pretty clear that the answer the current Dick Tracy creative team has landed on in their own case is “longtime fans of Dick Tracy and other classic comics and adjacent memorabilia.” Which is fine, really, but it does meant the strip can get loss in a self-referential haze now and then, producing storylines fully baffling to the uninitiated, like the occasional dreamworld interactions between Dick Tracy and Fearless Fosdick (seen on the right in panel one here). Fosdick was a long-running spoof of Dick Tracy in Al Capp’s Li’l Abner strip, and given how reverential towards the strip history modern Dick Tracy is overall, it’s kind of funny how often Fosdick shows up, because by “long-running spoof” I mean a not particularly friendly parody that Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould apparently hated. (Gould himself was lampooned as “Lester Gooch” in the multilayered narrative in which Fosdick appeared within Li’l Abner.) Anyway, today’s strip is truly incredible because it asks the question “What if Li’l Abner had lasted long enough that Fearless Fosdick could have spoofed the 1990 Dick Tracy movie,” and the answer it comes up with is “it would have a parody version of Madonna named ‘Fuddonna.’”

Hi and Lois, 5/18/23

I don’t know who Hi and Lois is for, really, but I’m excited to see the strip start to work its way through some serious philosophical problems. The Flagston children represent theological concepts of increasing sophistication: Trixie’s belief system is “God is visible in the sky and is my friend,” whereas Dot and Ditto think that God exists to hand out rewards and punishments based on a moral code that they’re capable of understanding, even though they disagree on the particulars. Can’t wait for us to get to Chip’s chapter in this saga; hopefully it’ll be some really esoteric and mystical stuff.

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Gil Thorp, 5/17/23

How is Gil’s arch-rival Luke Hernandez dealing with Gil’s secret baseball weapon, a blind pitcher teaching the Mudlarks to open their third eye and achieve cosmic oneness with the universe? Well, he’s flying to Korea with his assistant Coach Kim to try to recruit one of Kim’s relatives, who’s apparently some kind of baseball superstar. I’m assuming he’s going to pull a picture of Gil out of his wallet and show it to Kwan and say “See this man? He deserves death. He must be destroyed. You shall be the instrument of my vengeance.” Kwan doesn’t speak English, but just the power of Luke’s simmering hatred will be enough to get him onboard.

Mary Worth, 5/17/23

God, can you imagine how much Mary wishes she could just stare at her phone rather than listen to Jeff blather on about whatever it is he thinks is interesting or important? She’s just a little too old and polite to do it, but she envies the freedom of the young.

Hi and Lois, 5/17/23

I didn’t think we could get sadder than “Trixie is left on her own for hours on the floor to stare into the sun,” but I think “Trixie is left on her own for hours on the floor to stare at the TV, which is not turned on” might do it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/17/23

Uh oh! Looks like word’s gotten out that Mud Mountain Murphy is extremely easy to trick. At his next concert, he’ll still be singing “Muddy Boots,” but he’ll also be asking if his fans would be interested in helping him launch MudCoin, his own namesake cryptocurrency, with the help of his new best friend here!