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Mary Worth, 4/21/20

OK, I’m sorry, I hereby declare Hugo a fake French geek boy. Sure, one minute he’s sneering at America’s finest Broadway offerings, but the next he’s shouting “Gosh! I’m looking at a very big city from very high up!” like a rube from the sticks, when he should be sneering about how the Eiffel Tower is infinitely more daring aesthetically than this bland, glass-plated contemporary monolith. Say what you will about Jared being a Star Wars-addled nerdlinger, but at least he fully commits to the bit.

Gasoline Alley, 4/21/20

Ah, a song specifically about how urban modernity is more attractive both culturally and economically to most people than agricultural life! This is a great choice for a campaign theme, just not for the reasons they think.

Hi and Lois, 4/21/20

Hey, have you been wondering how the Flagstons are doing financially this year? Well, it turns out: not great!

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Judge Parker, 4/10/20

Oh, shoot, let’s catch you up on some Judge Parker storylines I’ve been neglected: Toni is indeed working out her political irritations by running for mayor, and Sophie, who was already looking for a non-Alan campaign to latch onto in order to irritate her family, is volunteering for (and possibly running?) Toni’s campaign, and also Neddy and Ronnie’s Netflix show about April has started filming in Cavelton. Today we learn that, despite all the narrative excitement of the mayoral race being focused on the Alan vs. Toni battle, there’s apparently an incumbent mayor who’s also running, who under normal circumstances would probably be heavily favored! Now, I’m not a data-obsessed geopolitics expert like Sophie, but if I were running an ex-newscaster’s insurgent mayoral campaign, I’d be advising her to leverage her regional fame and media contacts to get her message out rather than, apparently, having her teenage campaign manager yell things to disrupt a TV production that’s probably making a bunch of local hires and boosting the town’s economy.

Hi and Lois, 4/10/20

Damn, Hi and Lois, climate change is old news — it’s all about global pandemics now! Try to keep up with the depressing, depressing times, won’t you?

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/27/20

My Uncle Bob is a bassist who currently plays in a blues band called Bottleneck Bob, but back in the late ’70s and early ’80s he was part of a New York new wave band with Demi Moore’s first husband called the Dates that played at CBGB a few times. Anyway, once in the late ’80s, after he had moved to San Francisco, we were visiting him and watching MTV and I declared that songs with drum machines “didn’t have any soul,” expecting it would be the sort of musical sentiment he would agree with, and he replied, “One thing about a drum machine is that it never misses rehearsal because it’s hungover.” What I’m trying to say is that I’m honestly impressed by how Rex Morgan, M.D.’s country roots country guitarist has found the least edgy reason to be glad to be rid of his drummer that I can possibly imagine.

Crankshaft, 3/27/20

Wow, this whole Crankshaft arc has been a real paean to the importance of the traditional media: That podcaster just asked Lillian a bunch of softball questions, while NPR’s hard-hitting reporter has immediately realized that Lillian is in fact the person who murdered all those people who came into her bookstore.

Hi and Lois, 3/27/20

Boy, this comic sure makes Dot and Ditto look like real pieces of shit who don’t care about their father’s love, doesn’t it?