Post Content

Mary Worth, 2/9/22

“Yes, it seemed that all hope was lost as I plunged into the cruel sea. But I lifted up a prayer to the Lord above to spare my life. ‘Please, heavenly Father,’ I asked, ‘let me live long enough to go to Toby’s next birthday party!’ Where is the birthday girl, anyway? Oh, she’s crying in the bedroom over her lost youth? Welp, more muffins for me, then, ha ha!”

Mark Trail, 2/9/22

Little does Wilbur know that when he took that plunge off the boat, he tore a hole right in the fabric of his own reality, splitting his soul in two! Sure, one half of him is back in Charterstone, right as rain — but the other, which must carry the weight of his misfortune, now haunts the nightmares of Rusty and all his little friends.

Daddy Daze, 2/9/22

Jeez, I know Daddy Daze has been getting increasingly depressing, but I still think that it’s a real escalation to do a week’s worth of strips where the Daddy Daze baby crushes the Daddy Daze baby by dropping a huge stuffed bear on him, and then the Daddy Daze daddy slowly dies, and then the Daddy Daze baby eventually dies of starvation as well.

Hi and Lois, 2/9/22

“When mommy just parks the car, puts San Diego in the GPS, and just sits there for an hour staring silently through the windshield, eventually sighing and turning the GPS off and going back home real slow? That’s less fun, I gotta say.”

Post Content

Mary Worth, 2/2/22

No. No! No! You’re backsliding, Mary! I’m not sure what sort of brain parasite Wilbur slipped into your tea back in 2014 or so, but for a brief, shining moment your rage cleared away the mental fog and you saw him as he truly was. But now, suddenly, while Wilbur’s own daughter and a woman who has willingly had sex with him still seethe with anger, you’re nattering on about “the highs and lows of life with Wilbur!” Don’t you see, Mary? This is how it started with Barney Google! If five years from now this is strip is called Mary Worth Presents: Life With Wilbur and you haven’t made an on-panel appearance since 2024, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Hi and Lois, 2/2/22

Beetle Bailey was originally a college-based strip that pivoted to the military for a change of pace, and we can all agree that that didn’t work out so great in terms of realism. But when Hi and Lois was launched as its sister strip, with a mission to capture the crushing, soulless ennui of middle-class American suburban life? Well, they really nailed it.

Post Content

Hi and Lois, 1/29/22

Man, all the facial expressions in that last panel are great: Hi and Lois, desperate to salvage whatever joy they can from their planned date night; the maître d’, furious because this is not, in fact, how reservations work; the twins, deeply suspicious of any meal that isn’t buttered noodles at room temperature, just the way they like them. But most heartbreaking of all is Trixie, who is absolutely beaming, presumably because for once her family has decided to not just leave her crawling unattended on the floor for the day but are actually including her in their activities.

Gil Thorp, 1/29/22

The non-gambling spring Gil Thorp plot involves the girl’s basketball team captain figuring out how to be a leader, and possibly it’s just by berating teammates with questions about their bodies? She recently got into the Air Force Academy, so this is going to have to do with her future as an officer, maybe? Anyway, it’s so boring that the Kellogg Company has refused to allow the Pop-Tarts® brand to be associated with it.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/29/22

Look, I don’t want to just throw around terms like “incitement to genocide,” but I am saying that any flatlander communities immediately downhill from Hootin’ Holler should be wary of “Sterilizin’ Exp’dishuns” being sent out as this kind of rhetoric escalates.