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Hello everybody! Welcome back to the Comics Curmudgeon, your #1 blogging website for syndicated newspaper commentary! How was your holiday experience over the past week or so?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/25/21

Did you manage to arrange your facial features to indicate some modicum of holiday cheer, like June and the Morgan children, or did you spend the whole time looking like you wanted to die, like Rex?

Dick Tracy, 12/25/21

Did you spend Christmas cuddling on the couch with a loved one, like Dick Tracy, or were you shivering out in the cold staring jealously at the righteous, like a bunch of deformed criminals?

Mary Worth, 12/25/21

Did you get that special gift you had been waiting for all year? In Dr. Jeff’s case, that gift was his one (1) allotted annual open-mouth kiss from Mary Worth.

Anyway, let’s do our annual roundup of what the soap and soap-adjacent strips got up to in my absence!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/26/21

We’re all looking for some good news for 2022 and it looks like we got it with the return of … Rene the art forger, baby!!!!

That’s right, everybody! Rene might do fake art and new age spirituality and COVID cures, but the love for him in our hearts isn’t fraudulent at all. It’s very real!

Gasoline Alley, 12/27/21

Oh, wow it looks like Hollywood — or [squints at kerning in headline] “Holly Wood” — is coming to Gasoline Alley! Will this turn out to be interesting? No, it won’t, and we won’t be revisiting the subject in this post.

Mary Worth, 12/27/21

DECEMBER 27, 2021: Syndicated comic strip Mary Worth reveals that Wilbur Weston will be taking a cruise.

DECEMBER 30, 2021: The CDC advises everyone to avoid cruise ships.

COINCIDENCE???? WE THINK NOT!!!

Gil Thorp, 12/28/21

Over in Gil Thorp, it looks like the Valley Conference’s refs are taking a “kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out” attitude towards calling fouls this season. Looking forward to a winter and spring of basketball carnage!

Mary Worth, 12/28/21

“Good luck, Estelle! I say that with total and complete sincerity. You are absolutely going to need it!”

Mary Worth, 12/29/21

“You’re not inconveniencing me! Jeff won’t be able to come over due to his allergies, which I don’t consider an inconvenience at all! Quite the opposite, in fact!”

Curtis, 12/29/21

Oh hell yes, Curtis is delivering another Kwanzaa tale for us this year! We all of course remember previous fables, which involved bat-winged bears and telepathic otters and trunkless elephants and creepy masks and, uh, social media. Anyway, this year’s story involves a girl in a drought-stricken village who has discovered a magical source of infinite water. The villagers who are mad that she’s hoarding all the water for herself are apparently the bad guys in this situation?

Dick Tracy, 12/30/21

Hey, remember the lady who didn’t want to manage an escort service? Well, Liz is pretending to be her, and is going to learn the ins and outs of managing an escort service, everything from recruiting sex workers to keeping detailed records of their financial transactions! The goal is to combine boredom and titillation into a new and hitherto unexplored emotion, which I think is a really innovative thing to do in the comics.

Mary Worth, 12/30/21

“Let’s do it, Wilbur! I’m just going to keep shouting things at the top of my lungs to convince myself that I want to do them! Fake it till you feel it, baby!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/31/21

An actually interesting Rex Morgan medical plot would be a deep dive into how narratively convenient amnesia works, biologically and psychologically! And if the Morgans are utterly ruined financially in the proces, I won’t complain one bit.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/1/22

Funky Winkerbean is doing a supposedly heartwarming storyline about Harry Dinkle getting to march in the Rose Bowl Parade with a bunch of other retired band directors. Anyway, I know I spent a lot of time during the Great Los Angeles Fire plot complaining about this strip’s wild misunderstanding of Southern California geography, but that doesn’t mean I want a dry recitation of various Pasadena intersections, either.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/2/22

God damn, he’s doing a whole press conference, you absolutely love to see it. I particularly appreciate the hand gesture he’s flashing in the next to last panel. “I want three million dollars. My left index finger represents one million dollars, and the three raised fingers on my right hand represent that I want three of those one million dollar units.”

Dick Tracy, 1/3/22

Ha ha, did I say that boredom was going to be leavening the titillation in this Dick Tracy storyline? How wrong I was! I’m not sure exactly who’s hitting on who here, but it’s all extremely erotic.

Hi and Lois, 1/3/22

Is Hi and Lois a soap opera strip? No. Do I feel compelled to show you today’s installment, just to let you know that Lois has absolutely given up on 2022 less than 72 hours into it? Very much yes!

Mary Worth, 1/3/22

But we haven’t given up on the year yet, and why would be, with wonders such as “Wilbur has a manic episode and makes an extremely ill-advised marriage proposal” to come? I will be comics blogging this year and every subsequent year as long as I have strength in my body, so thank all of you for coming along for the ride!

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Blondie, 12/23/21

Not to be smug, but the idea that cowboys on long-range cattle drives would kill the cows they were being paid to transport to market and then butcher and eat them out on the trail rang extremely false to me when I read this, and after about 15 seconds of Googling I found a Medium post from “a CPA who writes about a diverse set of topics including the American West, entrerpreneurship [sic], and the legalization of cannabis” that affirms my previously held opinion, so I’m going to go ahead and declare victory on this one. I’m not even going to bother looking up research on how many fortysomething dads are watching old western films with their teenage sons in real life in the year of our lord 2021, because I’m very sure the answer is zero.

Hi and Lois, 12/23/21

I was going to make fun of this, but you know what? I absolutely buy that two grade schoolers would believe that Santa only grew his beard out five years ago. “Yeah, five years ago is the first time I remember seeing him with a beard,” they think. “This tracks.”

Dick Tracy, 12/23/21

“I managed a small accounting firm! I don’t have any background in sex work. This is a mismatch to my skills and I resent it!”

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Dennis the Menace, 12/22/21

I’m sorry, I absolutely refuse to believe that a kid who goes to church on the regular would know what a “manger” is but also think Jesus’s name was “Wayne.” The only menacing thing here is Dennis’s obvious cognitive deficits.

Hi and Lois, 12/22/21

I guess the joke here is supposed to be that because Foofram Industries didn’t have a holiday party last year, this year’s is extra lit, and horny? I have a hard time squaring Thirsty’s line about not needing to spike the punch with the little bubble and asterisk things floating around amongst the partygoers, which are generally used in the comics to denote drunkenness, though I suppose in this case they could be representing the omicron variant of the novel coronavirus.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/22/21

“They’ll find something soon enough, because — and we’re married, so I know what I’m talking about here — you’re not actually very interesting.”