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Gil Thorp, 3/6/25

Damn, Gil Thorp really has become a playground for amoral narrative outcomes. First Marty falls off the wagon and improves his drip immeasurably, then Coach Gerads bounces back from being beaten up by his own students to become the insouciant antihero of the Valley Conference. Goshen’s defeat of Milford on the football field presumably drove a local car dealership out of business, but Coach Gerads clearly doesn’t care who he drags down to hell with him.

Wizard of Id, 3/6/25

You guys know how I’ve been adding some old reliables into my rotation again? Well, Wizard of Id is on the list, but I haven’t really talked about it here because it’s frankly even more dire (in a boring, non-fun way) than I remembered. But a strip where the title character attempts to bend the cost curve of his avian-flu-stricken kingdom by shitting out a bunch of eggs? Well, I admit that one caught my attention. Not sure if the stars floating around his hindquarters are supposed to represent pain or magic or maybe both.

Luann, 3/6/25

“Sounds like you need to kiss?”

“What? Kiss?”.

“Yeah. Komfortabler Innovativer Spurtstarker S-Bahn-Zug. It’s a family of bilevel electric multiple unit trains built by the Swiss company Stadler Rail. I think taking a train ride through the European countryside could really help you focus on what’s important in your life.”

“Wow, this is a pretty strange way to flirt.”

“Flirt? You mean Flinker Leichter Intercity- und Regional-Triebzug?”

Heathcliff, 3/6/25

Heathcliff’s father is out of jail now, but after years of incarceration, he still has psychic scars. In a twisted way, prison feels like a safe place to him. His soul will never be free, and I think that’s sad.

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Marvin, 3/1/25

When I was in graduate school, I was the TA for a class taught by an elderly British professor who was eccentric in ways that were variously entertaining (he took snuff in the middle of lecture, much to the students’ confusion and horror) and off-putting (the class was “Intro to Western Civ” but he built it around four or five specific and obscure topics from ancient Greece and Rome for which the students had no real context but which he found interesting). He wanted no contact with undergraduates beyond lectures, and we were expected to run interference for him. I didn’t think much of him as an educator, as you might be able to tell, but I didn’t wish any specific ill upon him. I later learned that he had, after being married his entire adult life, been recently widowed; because he no longer had anyone to cook for him, he was losing weight, but he also didn’t have anyone to pick out new clothes for him, and so one day, in the middle of lecture, his pants started to slowly fall down. There was a brief moment when my fellow TA and I looked at each other in horror — was it our job to intervene? — but he did eventually realize what was happening and pull them up, continuing to write on the chalkboard the entire time, and nobody ever said anything about it, not even the students, who generally liked to ask about his odd behavior during section in an attempt to avoid talking about the ancient world. This incident made a big impression on me, and I’ve thought a lot about what it says about what happens when you age or when your life circumstances abruptly change, and I bet a not insignificant number of older men go through something similar. So if I were the syndicated newspaper comic strip Marvin, I don’t think I’d be so cavalier about old people losing a bunch of weight and their pants falling down in public, because let me tell you, even though this strip is ostensibly about a baby and his parents, old people are reading it. Old people are all the comics have left! Don’t freak them out!

Archie, 3/1/25

When I was in high school, I was on the speech and debate team, and my senior year we organized a tournament at our school, with us students put in charge of doing a lot of the scut work for it. One of my tasks was to get the trophies, and let me tell you, discovering that you could just go to a store and buy a trophy that says you’re the best debater or whatever completely rewired how I thought about trophies and awards. They’re just things you can buy! They’re not even that expensive! Anyway, as a high school principal, I assume Mr. Weatherbee has a preferred trophy vendor and buys in bulk, and under those circumstances I have to imagine that temptation to do little bits like this would be overwhelming.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 3/1/25

Not sure why, but I really enjoy the choice to set this cartoon on a plane. They could’ve done the same joke in a restaurant, but this just seems more specific, which I like. I’m sure that smells great in an enclosed space!

Luann, 3/1/25

How’s Luann’s date with some guy named “Phil” or whatever going? Well, good news: she’s been told up front that she will not be getting any action at the end of it, which should really make it an enjoyable experience overall.

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Luann, 2/24/25

It’s been fun (“fun”) revisiting Luann for the first time in years and figuring out what’s changed (there are some new characters I guess) and what’s stayed the same (literally all the vibes and various plot cycles). Like, Luann is still falling for bland guys named “Phil” or whatever and losing her shit over performing basic social interactions. I do enjoy that Bernice is also still in her typical role, as the one to say “YES LUANN NOW THAT YOU’RE CHANGING THE NATURE OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THIS GUY NAMED ‘PHIL’ OR WHATEVER THE STAKES ARE HIGHER AND THAT’S CAUSING HEIGHTENED ANXIETY, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, IS THIS NOT OBVIOUS TO YOU????” I find it soothing in the way that comics are quite frankly supposed to be.

Hi and Lois, 2/24/25

You know what’s not soothing? The way Dot’s head remains fixed facing the exact same direction between these two panels but her body turns completely around. This unnatural range of neck rotation plus her weird awkward embrace of the digitization of human souls tells me that she’s been replaced by some kind of advanced robot, or perhaps has been one all along.

Mary Worth, 2/24/25

I feel like the “your” in “How’s your vegan ice cream, Dawn?” is pretty key to understanding the dynamic here. “How’s your vegan ice cream, Dawn? The stuff that I went out of my way to obtain for you, to prove I’m better than your meat-pushing boyfriend? No, I won’t be eating it, of course. Ho ho ho. Me eating vegan ice cream. The very idea.”