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Judge Parker, 5/8/21

You ever spend like 15 minutes of your day staring at a comic strip character’s ear? Zooming in on the image file while yelling “Enhance! ENHANCE!” at nobody in particular? No? You haven’t? That’s just me, a guy who started a comics blog on a lark in 2004 and this is my life now? Well, anyway, I’ve spent some time looking in April’s right ear, and it certainly doesn’t look like she’s wearing an earpiece, and you’d think that she would’ve lost access to any truly invisible gee-whiz tech when she parted company with the CIA. Maybe she’s just doing the “putting her finger to her ear so she can listen to her earpiece better” thing to impress Randy? Or maybe she’s just using her spy instincts and I’m misinterpreting it. “Twinge in my knee? That means a rainstorm’s brewing. Twinge in my jaw? That means they’re coming.”

Crankshaft, 5/8/21

You ever open the comics page and get the distant echo of a joke that probably seemed extremely topical and funny a year ago, when it was written? That’s gonna be the experience of reading the Funkyverse strips for the next who knows how long!

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Dennis the Menace, 5/3/21

Man, clearly the menace here is not Dennis, who’s merely playfully experimenting with the results of intensifying ontological categories, but rather Henry, who’s walking away from the table with a smug little smirk on his face. “Ha ha, Dennis you scamp,” he’s thinking, “Can’t let her get too comfortable! I’m carrying exactly one bowl into the kitchen, so I’m doing my part to clean up.”

Dick Tracy, 5/3/21

Say, how’s Sam and Dick’s witness babysitting going? Well, they lost him, but then they found him again. Ha ha, police work isn’t all fun and games! Sometimes it’s grinding attention to detail in pursuit of a suspect, and sometimes it’s endless bureaucracy and red tape. But other times it can be an invigorating round of hide and seek, which is, literally, fun and games. Enjoy it while it lasts, boys!

Judge Parker, 5/3/21

You’ve been tracking … the CIA’s movements? Like, the whole CIA? All [checks Wikipedia] 21,500 employees? Maybe the CIA shouldn’t have let April quit, she seems like she’s pretty good at spy stuff.

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Mary Worth, 4/27/21

Oh man, I honestly don’t know where this is going exactly but I’m very excited about it. I think every soap strip should do a storyline about social media influencers, because I want to find out what all of them think social media influencers are! Anyway, this strip is chock full of things I love, including but not limited to (a) Ashlee responding to Drew asking her if she takes photos by specifying that she takes selfies and then (b) immediately showing him a picture that is obviously not a selfie (side note, I’ve been obsessed with a Buzzfeed article I read last month about the theory that many influencers’ “mirror selfies” are actually just pictures of them taken by someone else while they hold up their phone, but Ashlee isn’t even doing that level of pretense), and (c) Drew says “You certainly have the looks to be one!” only after seeing the picture of her, even though he’s been looking at her IRL all this time. Anyway, I certainly hope that Ashlee initiates a torrid sexual relationship with Dr. Drew in hopes that he’ll post some of her selfies to his high-profile account and in so doing boost her Instagram following, which is probably the saddest reason to sleep with someone that I can possibly imagine.

Judge Parker, 4/27/21

Judge Parker isn’t doing a social media plot, but a storyline where Sam Driver gets punched in the face is almost as good.

Gil Thorp, 4/27/21

After blowing up a perfectly nice dinner, Abel Brito has been presented with a choice: either he drops the subject of libraries, or he works to join the library board and implement his vision of transforming money-losing libraries via a public-private partnership into profitable Amazon Reading Centers™ that are free to enter for all Prime subscribers.

Pluggers, 4/27/21

With all the shit I give Pluggers on this blog, you might be surprised to learn that some days it moves me and spurs me to make a difference in my life. For instance, today’s panel moved me to finally text our plumber to come deal with the toilet handle, after I tried and failed to fix it several weeks ago. Congratulations, Pluggers, on providing this call to action. I thank you, and more importantly, my wife thanks you.