Post Content

Happy 4th of July, everybody! It’s the day when everyone, Americans and non-Americans alike, comes together to celebrate America. How are you spending the holiday?

Mary Worth, 7/4/24

Are you doing it the “right way” — by contemplating the legal and administrative aspects of the termination of the American-British colonial relationship, while silently watching fireworks?

Gearhead Gertie, 7/4/24

Or are you doing it the “wrong” way — by contemplating the forcible displacement of your ideological and cultural enemies to a faraway place? Remember: one of the potential drawbacks of a mass ethnic cleansing campaign is that you may one day decide you also want to possess the area where you exiled your opponents to. Think of how spectacular bank turns and car crashes would be in Mars’s lower gravity! Can we afford to leave this beautiful, exciting planet in the hands of anti-NASCAR scum?

Judge Parker, 7/4/24

You might remember a throwaway line from a few weeks ago when Sophie claimed that she had “no romantic drama in [her] life.” In fact, there’s a Lucas, a guy who has feelings for her that she doesn’t reciprocate (or maybe does, but she feels like she can’t be in a romantic relationship because her last one ended in that whole car accident/kidnapping situation), but she told him she still wants to be friends and they’re still hanging out, and I realize that Sophie is just in college and not wise in the ways of love yet, but I regret to inform her that the situation I just described does in fact constitute a certain kind of romantic drama, and a not a fun kind. Anyway, this boy is also super rich, and has invited Sophie and her friend to his family’s compound on Long Island and let them go to their private beach unattended, neglecting to mention to them that the adjacent waters are shark-infested. This will be just like the movie Jaws, which took place over 4th of July weekend!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/4/24

Sorry, I don’t have a 4th of July tie-in for this one, but I do want to point out that the Rex Morgan bully has a dumb dad who looks almost exactly like him, but older. How do I know he’s dumb? Because he clearly doesn’t know who’s calling him in panel one and doesn’t want to talk to them but answers the phone anyway. It’s 2024, buddy! You can just send it straight to voicemail, except you never set up your voicemail, so the person calling you can’t even leave a voicemail!

Post Content

Judge Parker, 6/14/24

Hey, remember “Declan,” Neddy’s fiance, who in previous appearances on this blog gave the general vibe of “amiable enough” and “amiable enough, possibly a little mid-afternoon wine drunk“? Probably what you’ve been thinking about him is “Well, I don’t really have a sense of Declan, but he seems amiable enough. Certainly his attitude isn’t going to take a sudden, sour turn as he rants about his decade-old family estrangement over multiple days and we don’t even get to see any of the story in a flashback or anything but it’s OK because it’s all business stuff so probably it would mostly be people standing around talking and frowning aggressively, just like this.” Unfortunately for all of us, it turns out that you are incorrect on that score.

Hi and Lois, 6/14/24

I don’t know why it bothers me so much that these two have the exactly same configuration of freckles, but it really does! It makes them look too much alike as they stare into each other’s eyes in panel one. The fact that this annoys me so much more than a pair of teens cheerfully setting the ticking timer on their relationship probably says a lot about me, and none of it good.

Mary Worth, 6/14/24

“Wait, he’s going to talk to it the whole time? No. Absolutely not. I’m out.” –Dr. Jeff, right before he chucks the keys to his boat into the water and stalks up the pier to his car

Post Content

Dennis the Menace, 6/8/24

“Dennis shit-talks his mother’s cooking” isn’t my favorite trope in this strip, but I feel you at least have to respect the form: he should either be poking sullenly at his food, glowering at everyone, absolutely ruining the energy of the family meal, or he should be making some witty quip that emotionally devastates Alice while Henry barely conceals a smirk. But while the dialogue here works, the art is all off: Dennis looks extremely pleased by the high-nutrition meal that’s been prepared for him, and his parents are all smiles. This frankly is so un-menacing that it loops all the way around to menacing again because it’s so deeply uncanny.

Judge Parker, 6/8/24

OK, since I’m embracing being a cranky old man who hates change, I’m just going to say it: “eloping” is supposed to mean that you sneak off and get married without telling any of your friends and family, often without even being formally engaged first. But more and more people are just using it to mean “We’re going have a small wedding, actually, even though we told some people we were planning to have a big one at some point in the future,” and I hate it! The secrecy is the point! You don’t just wander in and announce it while your fiancee is in the middle of a Zoom call with her mother!

Blondie, 6/8/24

YES IT CERTAINLY IS ANNOYING WHEN A CHILD SHOWS UP AT YOUR HOUSE AND EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE DOING OTHER STUFF YOU’RE EXPECTED TO PAY ATTENTION TO THEM