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Hi and Lois, 7/12/22

Though I strongly believe in the comedy principle that specific things are funnier than vague things, I have kind of come to respect the fact that most comics dads have the same extremely ill-defined white-collar jobs they’ve had since the ’50s. Their wives got their jobs in the more specific ’80s and ’90s, so they’re in identifiable businesses like “real estate” or “catering,” but the husbands are still going to generic offices doing generic professional stuff in the year 2022. Today even Mr. Foofram looks utterly exhausted by this ruse, as he urges his employees to give 110% with an affect indicating that he’s giving about 35%, 40% tops.

Crankshaft, 7/12/22

On Sunday, America’s comics-reading public was “treated” to Ed Crankshaft — and this is no time for delicacy, so I’m just going to say it — fucking his girlfriend in a car less than three feet away from impressionable children. Today we learn that he likes to leave plates of rotting meat out to attract flies. I fear that this strip is beginning to realize that its main character will never experience any pushback or consequences for his actions, and that’s taking things to a very dark place.

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Crankshaft, 7/10/22

This week, Crankshaft already delivered some “fan service” to that portion of the reader base who, like me, are interested in seeing the title character stung by dozens of bees, so I guess I have to accept that they also have to cater to those who want to see Crankshaft having sex in a car, or at least blowing his nose so vigorously that the windows steam up.

Family Circus, 7/10/22

Speaking of hanky panky, some might see this strip as showing Big Daddy Keane imitating his worst son in an attempt to convince his wife to initiate sex, but check out how genuinely sad he looks in the last panel: I think it’s just about the affectionate physical touch he hasn’t received in years and will continue not receiving in the future.

Hi and Lois, 7/10/22

Man, this is a real bummer for me, because for a long time this has been one of my go-to Fun Facts to drop at parties or whatever but now that I see that a boring suburban dad like Hi is enthusiastic about explaining it I’m reevaluating my whole attitude about this! Although, one thing he leaves out is that people didn’t just do chores when they woke up in the middle of the night; that was also a popular time for religious devotion, and a lot of what we know about this whole sleeping schedule comes from prayer books written specifically for this contex[I AM PULLED OFF STAGE BY A GIANT VAUDVILLE-STYLE HOOK]

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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!”