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Gil Thorp, 2/19/25

Gil Thorp of course always deals with teen issues both of-the-moment and timeless, and there’s one of the latter type that I don’t think we’ve seen before, which is the phenomenon of the Horse Girl. We’ve actually been in the middle of a wrestling-themed story for the past few days so I’m not sure if this is a classic Thorp-style abrupt transition to the spring B-plot, which will involve the intensely competitive and hitherto undocumented Valley Conference equestrian tournament, or if Valley Conference wrestling follows WWE rules and allows unorthodox techniques like riding a horse into the ring. Either way, I’m looking forward to learning more about this young athlete who loves Silver in a way that the Lone Ranger never could.

Heathcliff, 2/19/25

It’s very true that you can’t judge a book by its cover. There really are people out there who appear to be ordinary, solid citizens — collared shirts, flattop haircuts, the whole nine yards — and yet behind closed doors full-on bathe in meat, like absolute freaks. Only animals with powerful noses can identify these sickos!

Dick Tracy, 2/19/25

Today’s Dick Tracy really has a lot to say about contemporary journalism. Sam reacts with irritation and impatience to Dick’s attempt to explain the corpsenapping background to him: “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says, thrusting a broadsheet into Dick’s face. “I know all that, I read about it in our constitutionally protected free press, ever heard of it?” But in the final panel, a local citizen refers to “tottering Tribune towers,” a reference to the fact that Chicago’s largest newspaper was forced into bankruptcy by vulture capitalists and is now part of a hedge-fund-owned chain that’s increasingly starved of resources. (The tower in this case is metaphorical, as the real one was sold and converted to condos in 2018.)

The Lockhorns, 2/19/25

Cases in divorce court almost never involve jury trials, of course, which means that Leroy lied to Loretta about having jury duty and convinced her to accompany him to the courthouse just so he could do this bit. Ironically, this just shows that he’s willing to put in the work to keep their dysfunctional marriage fresh and interesting.

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The Lockhorns, 2/12/25

Inexpensive compared to what, Leroy? Eating at a “nice” restaurant? It still is! Eating at home? It never was! No, you’ve just decided to make Loretta feel bad because she begged to go out to eat somewhere, anywhere for once. Isn’t it cruel enough that you’re forcing her to split a single order of fries with you? Why can’t you be more like the guy in the background, who sincerely appreciates all the fast food industry’s deep bench of food scientists have done in terms of creating meal-like experiences suffused with the proper combinations of chemicals to activate the exact same part of your brain that reacts to cocaine?

Dennis the Menace, 2/12/25

Normally I’m not a fan of the “Dennis shit-talks his mom’s cooking” strips, but I gotta admit he’s really selling it here. That’s the face a guy with a mouthful of sawdust. That’s the face a guy who hasn’t tasted anything other than sawdust in years.

Pluggers, 2/12/25

Either pluggers swap sexual partners so often they can no longer be bothered to keep track of their fuckbuddies’ names, or they’re suffering from some kind of tragic brain ailment that’s causing early onset dementia. I leave it up to you to decide which possibility is more disturbing.

Mary Worth, 2/12/25

“I am now that Jared has pointed out that ‘Dirk’ rhymes with ‘jerk’! That’s a great mnemonic to remind me that he’s a jerk! Usually I just see his pretty eyes and beefy forearms and forget.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/12/25

Ha ha, it’s funny because everyone in town knows that Snuffy is a financial, legal, and emotional burden on all of his loved ones!

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The Lockhorns and Blondie, 1/11/24

The word app, as a shorthand for application in the computer programming sense, was as attested as early as 1992, which was 32 years ago. However, it probably didn’t really penetrate into the public consciousness until the dawn of the smartphone age, when Apple started using it to describe the small, self-contained applications running on its new iPhone platform and sold through its App Store, launched in 2008; by 2010, the term was used freely by iPhone and Android users alike, and had become so prevalent that it was the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year. This was 13 years ago, which, I regret to inform you, is quite a long time, actually, and the window for doing a strip where the punchline is just the word “app” has long closed. Comics creators: please make a note of this.

Gil Thorp, 1/11/24

How do you think Marty Moon’s recovery journey is going? It seems that he’s reached that long plateau, where a dry life extends endlessly before him and, while he’s not in immediate risk of backsliding, it’s hard to shake off the lethargy and emotional numbness. Oh, it’s in from midrange. Oh, Leo Atazhoon is going to be interviewed on the podcast. Ho hum. Nothing exclamation point-worthy. Look at these young men celebrating. Marty used to be like that once. Marty used to feel things. This strip needs to do right by our boy Moon and give him a wild and wacky subplot, something that’ll get him to snap out of it!