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Mary Worth, 6/30/22

Look, I’m not what you’d call particularly “hip” (SAYS THE GUY WHO’S BEEN WRITING A BLOG ABOUT NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS FOR 15+ YEARS, ENTIRELY UNNECESSARILY), but there were some things I was onto “before they were cool,” and one of them was straight-up hating Jared. When did it become cool to hate Jared? Not sure, but it doesn’t matter, because I was in before that, as I hated him on sight, with the main reason being that his whole personal brand is that he’s just a klutzy, nerdy, nice guy, but he’s actually emotionally manipulative and also was very clearly interested in Dawn romantically from the very beginning, so leaving anguished voicemails demanding that she “remain” friends with him is frankly pretty rich. Anyway, Dawn is not great but Jared is terrible, so on this occasion I am rooting for a member of the Weston family to “win” this breakup, as much as that goes against all my values.

Shoe, 6/30/22

I admit, I probably go to the “the syndicated newspaper comic strip Shoe’s character are all bird-people, but the jokes they wrote for it make it seem like they forgot about that” well too often, and now I kind of feel like I’m the Boy Who Cried Unrealized Bird-Man Joke saying this, but: a strip about a man who got laid off from a job at the mirror factory with some vaguely mirror-related wordplay isn’t very funny, but a strip about a bird-man who got fired from his job at the mirror factory on his first day because he saw his own reflection and went crazy and attacked it would, I hope we can all agree, have been very funny indeed.

Sally Forth, 6/30/22

God damn I did not have “Ted Forth gets Oedipally cucked and also regular cucked by the same hot old dude” on my list of summer predictions, but you know what? I’m here for it. Here for it.

Hi and Lois, 6/30/22

“I mean, I’m drunk right now. I don’t want to be here at all!”

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Hi and Lois, 6/5/22

I think telling stories out of chronological order has gone from being an innovation to something of a crutch or gimmick at this point, but there are times when it still works. Like, I’m thinking about this Hi and Lois from a couple weeks ago totally differently now that I know that the twins are trying to get extra scoops of breakfast ice cream at like 8 in the morning, and their dad is waiting in the car because he’s still groggy and disoriented.

Crankshaft, 6/5/22

One of my very first shocking insider discoveries about the comics-production process when I started doing this blog was that the daily strips were colored in by syndicate folks who aren’t the strip artist, leading to occasionally troubling errors. But the Sunday strips? Those, in theory, are colored by the same people who draw them, which means you can treat the entire scene as a unified whole. That explains why all these people have fallen asleep, because they’ve clearly decided to have their Sunday Afternoon Book Club at a law office and are having a hard time staying engaged while reading the identically bound volumes of the city code cover to cover.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/5/22

I love how angry Rex looks when he says “You want me to come down there in the middle of the night just to save somebody’s life?” but as soon as the cop is like “Nah, you’d just get in the way,” he’s like, “Of course, officer, I’ll help in any way I can. I’m a hero!”

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Beetle Bailey, 5/30/21

Hope you’re having a happy somber and meaningful Memorial Day, everybody! Beetle Bailey, America’s #1 only military-themed comic strip, is honoring our war dead by depicting our NCOs as brutes whose murderousness can only be deflected by their encouraging their ravenous appetites. Someone has desperately spray-painted “ALWAYS REMEMBER!” on one of Camp Swampy’s buildings, in an attempt to force these people to remember the real purpose behind today’s celebration (it didn’t work).

Hi and Lois, 5/30/21

Hi Flagston is so disgusted by his brother-in-law’s unit that he and Thirsty are spending Memorial Day giving what I assume is a shoutout to Popeye and, by extension, the forgotten veterans of the Merchant Marine, who had a higher rate of casualties during World War II of than any other service.

Marvin, 5/30/21

Speaking of stolen valor, I think it’s important that names like “M.U.T.T.” only be used for robot dogs, with the initials standing for “Multipurpose Unified Technological Terrier” or something like that. Insult Bitsy without treading on the prerogatives of the noble cyber-dogs, Marvin!

Dick Tracy, 5/30/21

“Oh, man, that sounds like white collar crime, which I definitely don’t care about. Next you’re gonna ask me to do something about wage theft! Ha ha, go call some lib who cares!”