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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/12/23

You guys know I dearly miss the days when Sarah was a weird precocious adult-child, back before before she got hit by a car and it reset her brain back to normalcy. I don’t know if we’re every going to see a return to form on this, but I feel like her walking in and angrily saying the first paragraph of the “Valentine’s Day” Wikipedia article at her brothers is a good start.

Hi and Lois, 2/12/23

Today’s throwaway panel really changes the whole tone of the strip, in my opinion. Sure, Lois and the kid are having some good clean fun in the kitchen, but what of Hi? He thought today was going to be for bonding with his family while watching the big game, but instead he’s all by himself while they deliberately ignore him.

Daddy Daze, 2/12/23

We all, of course, have been worrying about the Daddy Daze daddy’s mental and emotional health for some time, but I think today is the first day that we learn that, in a probably related development, he’s not doing great financially either.

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Crock, 2/4/23

My attitude towards most of the comics on this site range from “I make fun of this because I love it” to “I make fun of this but I grudgingly respect its history and craft” to “I make fun of this because I love it ironically, which over the years has become increasingly impossible to distinguish from just loving something the normal way,” but there are a few that I genuinely dislike and think are bad, and I don’t think it’ll come as a big surprise to anyone that Crock is one of them. That’s why, in the interests of intellectual honestly, I feel compelled to confess that I think this is a really good joke.

Hi and Lois, 2/4/23

I can’t tell if Lois’s facial expression in panel two is meant to indicate that she just didn’t want to look at a little white spot up by the ceiling for the next five years and didn’t think Hi would take it so personally, or if she’s thinking “Wait, Hi thinks Michelangelo had a wife? Oh, you sweet summer child.”

Crankshaft, 2/4/23

“Back when I was a high school band director … it seemed like we were always in a strip called Funky Winkerbean. And now that I’m a choir director for St. Spires … we’re always in a strip called Crankshaft, which presumably had its own characters and plotlines that its readers enjoyed at some point.” “The more things change…” “Amen!”

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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.