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Hey, everybody! Just thought I’d briefly toot my own horn and point out that today is my ninth blogiversary. That’s right, I’ve been making fun of the daily comics more or less daily for nine years now. Which is … impressive? Horrifying? An internet eternity? Whatever. Thanks to everyone who’s been reading my blog since the beginning, or who only just now started. I really appreciate your patronage and support! If you’re interested, here’s my first week of blogging, which is in some ways cringeworthy for me to look at now and in some ways pretty much what I’m still doing. Will I still be doing this nine years from now? Who even knows! I would’ve pegged this blog’s lifespan at about six months back in 2004, so I’m done making predictions.

By the way, just to prove I’m still “hip” and “with it” now that this blog thing is on its way to Internet dinosaur status, I have a Twitter and a Facebook and a Tumblr and a Google+, and you might want to click those links if those are things you like!

Anyway, I begin my tenth year of blogging the only way I know how: by whining misanthropically about Gasoline Alley.

Gasoline Alley, 7/11/13

Shockingly, the Wikipedia entry for Gasoline Alley does not include a complete list of all the characters in the strip’s sprawling cast. For that, you have to go to this lovingly maintained site that, like mine, was created in 2004, though it maintains some classic 1997 Web design aesthetics. Anyway, I was really hoping that Slim’s befuddlement in panel two meant that he had never seen this lady before in his life, and she was using his low emotional state and pliable mind to worm her way into his life and rob him blind. But no, it appears that Slim does in fact have a daughter named Gretchen, which means that his complete failure to recognize her puts him in the running for the worst dad of all time.

Mark Trail, 7/11/13

So not only is Mark not wearing a disguise, but he went undercover at this illegal poaching camp by registering under his own name! Lucky for him there’s no way for anyone to quickly determine if, say, someone were a prominent crusading journalist who wrote for a high-profile magazine focusing on outdoor living. Since all of our knowledge is limited by our own memory, Mark’s secret is safe, forever.

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Gil Thorp, 7/5/13

Well, this is it: I am officially allowing myself to get excited about the Gil Thorp storyline, seeing as it’s going to be about the colorful history of professional wrestling! See, Oldguy McFisticuffs is Herk the Mauler, and is a former pro wrestler, as is his son, who apparently has some connection to Gil, so it’s WRESTLEMANIA until football starts! (Not literally.) (WrestleMania is registered trademark of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.) Can you believe we had (I think, I’m not going to bother going back to check because they were soooo boring) two summers in a row about golf when we could have had wacky tales of regional wrestling from back in the day? Pro wrestling is genuinely fascinating, a weird combination of athletics and improvisational theater with a complex vocabulary, and it did indeed emerge from regional scenes in the middle of the 20th century. Anyway, when Herk wasn’t being a heel in whatever the regional wrestling equivalent of the Valley Conference was, he was “Johnny Blaze” “out west” in a wrestling scene that did as little as possible to mask the sport’s homoerotic undertones.

Herb and Jamaal, 7/5/13

You know, if I were going to do a joke about someone who always speaks her mind and has a hard time holding her tongue, I probably wouldn’t have her deliver the punchline in thought balloon form. But Herb and Jamaal chose a different path.

Mark Trail, 7/5/13

Rusty and the Otters: A play in one act

RUSTY: Don’t wander off, adorable otters!

ADORABLE OTTERS: [Immediately wander off]

FIN

Apartment 3-G, 7/5/13

You know, if I were going to do a plotline about one of my soap opera strip characters trying on a bunch of fancy clothes, I probably would actually depict her wearing some of the fancy clothes instead showing her in between bouts of fancy-clothes-trying-on, wearing the same boring clothes she always wears. But Apartment 3-G chose a different path.

Mary Worth, 7/5/13

Oh, man, Toby does not want to go on this vacation with Mary, you guys.

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Momma, 7/2/13

If you somehow encountered this Momma comic in complete isolation, not being familiar with its characters or narrative conventions, you’d probably be pretty confused by it, right? I was pretty confused by it myself, at first. I guess it’s supposed to mean that Momma has been answering the phone, and Ed thinks that Momma is an answering machine, because … he’s a moron? Which I guess means that Marylou lives with Momma? I suppose that I’m one of the very few people in the world who ought to know the living arrangements of the characters in Momma for his job, but I confess that I actually am pretty surprised by this. We all know that Francis lives in a disgustingly filthy apartment and Thomas and his wife live in their own house where they can have sex with each other in private, or so they think. I guess I always just assumed that Marylou had her own place. I think … I think there ought to be more Momma-and-Marylou-drive-each-other-crazy jokes to be gotten out of her still living at home? No, wait, I don’t mean to suggest that Momma do more of any specific kind of joke, or indeed any jokes at all. Forget I said anything.

Better Half, 7/2/13

Hey, everyone, Stanley just read his credit card number aloud, right here in the newspaper/on the Internet, where everyone can see/hear it! Why not try buying things with it? Just change a digit or two! Sure looks like a credit card number to me!

Mark Trail, 7/2/13

Mark Trail … in disguise? Mark Trail in disguise. Mark Trail in disguise you guys OMG OMG

Family Circus, 7/2/13

“But sometimes when you hurt inside it’s because you’re bleeding internally, and then hugging makes it worse. You can tell which is which by the screaming!”