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Slylock Fox, 12/14/20

Longtime readers of this blog know that I’m a big fan of the ordinarily audacious Reeky Rat, and it’s a little sad to see him so humbled here, without even shoes to wear in court. The solution to the “mystery” is just the punchline to an old joke — Reeky is going to pay his bail in quarters, the quarters he stole, ha ha! — but really, this is just Reeky soberly assessing his options. He needs to pay bail, and the only money he has for bail is those quarters. Is his method of bail payment legally admissible evidence? Probably his lawyer could tell him that, if he had a lawyer, but I guess you don’t get a defense attorney in Owl Court. Reeky’s on his own, and he’s just gotta put one foot in front of the other to figure out how to get out of this mess, and it’s sure gonna be a lot easier to do that if he’s not in jail, so it’s time for him to call his nephew to get that suitcase out of the storage locker down at the bus station.

Gil Thorp, 12/14/20

Welp, football season’s over, everybody! Are you ready for some basketball? Charle Roh is, despite the turmoil at home that probably arose when his stepdad engaged in cybercrime in order to advance Charlie’s athletics career, presumably leading to a messy divorce. Marcel Irby is, and he’s probably hoping for more in-strip time than last year, when he rated a single panel for his surrealist performance art. And Leonard Fleming is … not, because Gil threw him in as starting QB entirely for the purpose of punishing his other two QBs, and then he got injured in a meaningless game. Remember back in 2009, when former ace pitcher Marty DeJong, who blew out his arm under Gil’s “care” in pursuit of a championship, came back to Milford looking for revenge? Well, I hope Leonard has the guts to follow through, instead of meekly agreeing to coach little leaguers like Marty did.

Hi and Lois, 12/14/20

“It’s weird, it’s almost like we’re trapped in some inexplicable time distortion where technology and associated social mores change but our kids still stay the same age! Anyway, I guess Dot and Ditto both want an ‘Oculus Rift’ for Christmas, whatever the fuck that is. If they’re gonna text this stuff to me they could at least text me an Amazon link.”

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Hi and Lois, 11/30/20

The full range of generational reactions on display here really makes this comic for me. Chip is, as one expects, contemptuous; Lois is pleased to have a nice “conversation piece” for the living room and Hi is more bemused anything elese. But Dot and Ditto are fucking gobsmacked by the existence of this encyclopedia, on some very fundamental level. They’re like “Books? On paper? We heard about these things, but we’ve never seen them before. And now there are a bunch of them, right here in the house. Holy shit. Holy shit.”

Mary Worth, 11/30/20

Sorry Tommy: what Brandy needs to talk about it that she’s about to start a union organizing drive at Freda’s and the last thing she needs to deal with are any kiss-asses amongst the workers. Looks like you picked the wrong time to try to impress your boss!

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Hi and Lois, 11/22/20

Hey, I get where Hi is coming from here! All of these strips have their gimmicks: wacky relatable Vikings, a sassy cat, children let loose in a world without any apparent adult intervention. Even Blondie and Family Circus, which are both more grounded “family” strips, feature heightened, exaggerated characters, each with their own set of recognizable tics. But Hi, and Hi’s world? Well, he’s just a regular middle-class guy living with regular people in regular American suburbia. There are no strict limits on his behavior but no simple prompts to action either — in other words, he can do pretty much anything, but has to choose on his own to do it, which is terrifying. In that sense, his dilemma is the most relatable on the comics page.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/22/20

Sorry, did that get a little Too Real? Well, here are some unlikeable Funky Winkerbean characters (BUT I REPEAT MYSELF! [rimshot]) making puns at each other. The throwaway panels at the top are actually crucial to today’s strip: without them, it looks like Harry is the only one doing irritating wordplay, but when we see the full picture we understand that we’re witnessing interlocked acts of mutual ongoing passive aggression.