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Dustin, 1/9/23

Dustin is still doing the “Dustin’s dad wants to do pole vaulting” “plot,” for a second week, which I’m reasonably sure is the longest I’ve ever seen it do a “plot,” and I feel like the way Dustin’s mom is reacting is kind of the key to why I hate this strip so much. Ever since she found out that Dustin’s dad wants do this, she’s been in a simmering fury, which I assume we’re supposed to understand is because, deep down, she loves her husband and is scared of him acting self-destructively, but we (and, presumably, her husband) never hear the “she loves her husband” part and instead she’s just immediately gone from zero to “HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD TIME IN HELL THINKING ABOUT ME FUCKING HOT YOUNG DUDES.” Which, I realize these are “jokes” and exaggerated versions of real-life behaviors and whatnot but it feels of a piece with the vibe where Dustin’s dad gives Dustin constant shit for being a loser, and maybe if asked he’d say (or the creators of the strip would say) it’s because he loves his son and wants him to succeed but if the “love” part is never expressed it’s just people being mean to each other, you know? Sorry to not be making any jokes here but it’s wild that there’s this family comic strip about a family incapable of expressing affection towards one another, maybe because they don’t actually feel affection, and we’re supposed to like or root for these people. Like at least when the Lockhorns do it, it’s explicitly the entire bit of the strip, plus they’re weird little gnome people so it’s funnier to see them fight.

Marvin, 1/9/23

Marvin is also a strip about a family that doesn’t like each other, but I’ve long resigned myself to that, so now I’m intrigued by a potential pivot from “Marvin poops himself” to “Marvin plans to defeat his father, who he does not like, in hand-to-hand combat.”

Dick Tracy, 1/9/23

Looks like our assassin “Kyptonite,” previously identified as “Kriptonite,” is in fact Just Some Guy, not even weird in the Dick Tracy sense. It’s particularly wearisome that he makes a little joke about his name in the final panel here. You’re the one who picked this nickname, man! Sorry if it results in confusion that you feel like you have to deflect in advance, before you agree to just shoot some guy with a gun, for money.

Hi and Lois, 1/9/23

Hi and Thirsty are definitely at Chez Thurston (you can tell by the patched couch), so it’s very funny to me that Thirsty made exactly one hamburger, for himself, then didn’t bother asking Hi if he wanted one until he sat down and was on the verge of shoving it in his hamburger hole.

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Blondie, 1/4/23

There are, I think I don’t have to tell you, a number of subtle ways in which the syndicated comic strip Blondie reinforces the patriarchy. Among them is the fact that Dagwood and the other male characters are allowed a full range of broad, cartoonish facial expressions, while Blondie and her mini-clone Cookie have their pretty girl faces mostly botoxed into place. I will allow, however, that in today’s strip the rigid components of their faces do subtly shift from their usual meaninglessness to allow a glimpse at the true horror both characters feel at the way your one wild and precious life can be consumed by the endless maw of the social media feed. This is, I think, ultimately preferable to Dustin’s thousand-mile social media stare, even though Dustin has correctly identified the website actually beloved by teens, whereas anyone who claims that the average high schooler is addicted to Facebook is either living in a fantasy world or desperately trying to buttress the value of their Meta Platforms, Inc., stock.

Hi and Lois, 1/4/23

I also enjoy the facial expressions on the up-and-coming new associate at Foofram Industries LLC in this strip. He may be new on the job, but he’s been there long enough to know that Thirsty generally doesn’t do anything very quickly, because he’s usually either very hungover or actively drunk.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/4/23

Oh, does the comic strip Rex Morgan, M.D., not have enough “medical” drama for your tastes? Did you decide that a guy pretending to shit his pants on stage so he can move up from opening act to headliner really falls into the category of a moral and ethical dilemma rather than one requiring the attention of a doctor or a nurse? OK, fine, uh, what about [thinks for exactly seven seconds about a scenario that would require medical intervention] a guy falling down in a parking lot. How about that. Are you happy now? Are you?????

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Curtis, 12/13/22

Part of the whole comedic engine that makes Curtis work is that Greg Wilkins is kind of a square. Still, I hadn’t guessed just how much he eschewed the modern world’s loose morals — and how much he secretly yearned to emulate them — until today. “Dare I?” he thinks. “Dare I take off not just my shoes, but my socks — and not in the shower or under the covers at night, but in out in the open in the living room, where anyone who lives here can see my bare feet? I mean, why not? If I have to look at naked toes every day thanks to the out-of-control liberal media, plus all those foot fetish websites I keep accidentally ending up on when I do innocent Google searches like ‘is it legal to go barefoot’ and ‘punishment for barefoot in public’ and ‘big toed nymphos can’t stop foot-fucking,’ then who am I to cling to the old ways?”

Hi and Lois, 12/13/22

As you should know by now, my favorite kind of Hi and Lois strip is the kind where we see just how dark the Thurstons’ lives are, and today’s really pays off in that department, with Thirsty sitting in his patched chair in front of his computer where he’s watching the game on some janky illegal stream from Slovenia that’s downloading malware right now, maybe because he failed to pay his cable bill, maybe because he’s in a fight with Irma and they’ve divided the house in half with masking tape, I Love Lucy-style, and she’s claimed the living room. Either way, I assume that “My football team is having a losing season” is code for “I’ve lost a ton of money betting on the NFL this year,” and his depressed slouch tells me he was in for a lot on Portugal over Morocco too.

Mary Worth, 12/13/22

I know we’ve all been trying to figure out what exactly Zak’s deal is over the course of this storyline, but I really do think we need to apply Occam’s Razor and accept the simplest answer, which is that Zak is just kind of dumb.