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Blondie, 11/5/17

Wow, generally I think of Dagwood as being pretty cheery and not at all prone to self-reflection, so it’s kind of amazing amazing to see him waking up in the dark and staring out at the reader saying “Time for another day” in genuine despair. The only thing Dagwood really consistently dislikes is work, and this strip is canonically happening on a Sunday! Today is a harrowing look at the yawning emptiness at Dagwood’s core, the one he can never fill no matter how many sandwiches he stuffs down his gullet. In the final panel, he learns about the Daylight Savings Time mixup and realizes that at least it’s socially acceptable to escape into the blankness of sleep for another hour.

Mark Trail, 11/5/17

Ha ha, that got grim, didn’t it? Uh, well, let’s cheer up with Mark letting us know that sometimes animals do weird stuff, and it “goes viral” online! Can anyone explain why it happens? Mostly not! Mark, innocent lamb that he is, believes the scientists who tell him this bird’s mothering instincts were triggered by the fish’s mouth-hole. Here’s the truth, Mark: they’re kissing. That’s what kissing looks like. I know you think you need to work your way up to that with a rousing game of “got your nose”, but you’ve got to understand, these are animals.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/5/17

Our hero Buck has come a long way since he became dangerously dehydrated from walking around a comic-book convention. But today he’s facing a foe that will challenge all the physical conditioning he’s been doing since then: stairs.

Spider-Man, 11/5/17

AHAHAHAHA

SPIDER-MAN GOT DISTRACTED BY TALKING INTO HIS CELL PHONE AND WEB-SLUNG FACE-FIRST INTO A BUILDING

THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE

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Gil Thorp, 11/1/17

OH SNAP IT’S THE SHOCKING MID-SEASON GIL THORP TWIST!!! See, we all thought Rick was going to get a concussion like his Uncle Gary was so worried about, but nope, he just got a “classic” sprained ankle, “classic” because that’s the sort of injury football players used to get, back when men were men, you know? Nobody complained about poor widdle babies getting concussions back in the day, probably because people were tougher and hadn’t been pussified by liberals and feminism, or maybe because concussions and brain injuries were harder to diagnose with older medical techniques and thousands suffered for reasons they never fully understood, who can say. Anyway, the good news is, while a traumatic brain injury would probably interfere with Rick’s promising YouTube singing career, a sprained ankle will only serve as a solid gimmick to help him stand out from the pack as “Gimpy Golden-Voiced Rick Soto, Modern-Day Crooner.”

Mary Worth, 11/1/17

In Iris’s cold calculus, a man can be hot, rich, age-appropriate, and/or Wilbur, and he needs to match at least two of those qualities to be her boyfriend. So, good news for Zak! He seems so different now, possibly because they’ve entered some murky parallel dimension where everything is purple and also traditional morals and values are inverted and Mary will advise her to definitely link herself to the sexy game-designing millionaire and convince him to cash in before the stock inevitably tanks.

Mark Trail, 11/1/17

LITTLE KNOWN FACT: When “black box” devices are recovered from crashed aircraft, more 90 percent of the time the final words recorded in the cockpit are “It is getting harder to control the plane!”

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Mark Trail, 10/24/17

Hey, remember this guy? The guy from the bank-robbing gang who was so worried about the fancy new facial recognition software the FBI has on hand? Of course you do, because the last time you saw him, way back in April, it was literally the same drawing:

Now, I know what you’re saying: “Ha, this guy was worried about facial recognition software but he thinks he can beat it by just getting a haircut?” Well, sadly, he didn’t even do that! He just died his ponytail to match the upholstery in his plane:

Anyway, I’m not sure why, if the bank-robbing gang had access to a plane, they didn’t just all get in the plane to escape, rather than one guy getting in it and the other two taking the money and a hostage to a remote airstrip and meeting up with the plane guy there. I guess that’s why I’m not in the bank-robbery game! Too many moving parts for my feeble intellect!

Hi and Lois, 10/24/17

There’s so much that I don’t understand about what’s going on here. Is there an occasion for this strip, in which Hi and Thirsty are suddenly taking the subway home with Leroy Lockhorn, Walt Duncan, Greg Wilkins, Homer Simpson, Mario, and … an Orthodox Jewish (?) character in the foreground I don’t recognize? Is there some common theme holding these guys all together, other than “they’re from cartoons, or, in the case of Mario, a video game?” Aren’t crossover events usually cheerful affairs? Why is this one built around a totally unrelated “joke” about how Hi and Thirsty feel unmoored and adrift in life, with everyone looking extremely depressed? Why does Walt look so disheveled? Why is Homer given a standard white-person flesh tone rather than his native bright yellow? Why are Thirsty and Hi on a train when they’ve always been depicted as driving back and forth to their pedestrian-hostile suburb?

Funky Winkerbean, 10/24/17

Funky Winkerbean: You Always Swore You Were Going To Get Out Of This Town, But Somehow You Never Did™!