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Mary Worth, 8/14/22

Behold DaWnilbur, everyone! I love the way this matches up with realistic dream logic in that Dawn was spending hours before falling asleep saying “It’s like I’m turning into my father!” but once in the dreamscape she’s totally unsuspecting and when her hair starts falling out she doesn’t immediately grasp the metaphor, but just looks at it quizzically as the Transformation gets underway. Anyway, I truly enjoy the next-to-last panel here, in which we learn that even fully Wilburized, Dawn will still have pretty, pretty eyes.

Dick Tracy, 8/14/22

It’s never been entirely clear what form of energy the Lunarians harness/generate with their antennae, but I guess we now know that it definitely raises temperature, right? Like if poor Marina had been torn apart by, like, magnetism or antigravity or something, her killers wouldn’t be staring at the carnage in icy disdain making a cruel remark about how it all smelled, the way they would about charred flesh? Or maybe they would. I don’t know what it smells like when someone is killed horribly by space aliens, I live my life correctly, thank you very much.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/14/22

Here’s a strip where the throwaway panels at the beginning make the whole thing profoundly sad. Like, Jughaid was explicitly invited to join a band, and but then sometime afterwards either left or was forced out and is now trying and failing to make it as a solo act. What emotionally fraught Fleetwood Mac-level band drama are we not being shown here?

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Mary Worth, 8/10/22

A relatively recent and welcome addition to the Mary Worth storytelling canon is the wacky dream sequence, in which the characters confront whatever their current dilemma is in a series of images that are simultaneously hallucinatory and extremely on the nose. Anyway, it’s already Wednesday, so we’d better get full week and half of whatever Weston chimera, half-Dawn and half-Wilbur, is going to be the horrified and horrifying subject of this next nightmare. Not sure if Dawn’s “AUGGGH!” is meant to indicate that we’re already in the dream and she’s beginning to experience the awful physical transformation into Wilburdom, or if it’s just because her lower GI tract is firing on all cylinders thanks to that chili.

The Lockhorns, 8/10/12

Absolutely loving the contrast between Loretta’s whimsical flotation device and her utterly dead facial expression here. Maybe she thought this would get Leroy’s goat more than it actually ended up doing, or maybe she thought they’d both have a little laugh about it. But you can tell that she realized it would just make her look dumb before Leroy even saw her. It was too late to change course, though. A Lockhorn always commits to the bit.

Hi and Lois, 8/10/22

“Ha ha, it’s funny because he’s a known alcoholic, and we’re using beer, the very thing to which he’s tragically addicted, to convince him to take care of our house! We’re drinking wine, because we’re sophisticates. Hey, have you seen the kids? Did we forget to bring them?”

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Beetle Bailey, 8/7/22

Say what you will about Beetle Bailey — and lord knows I’ve said a lot over the years — but it can be extremely comforting in its on-the-noseness. What does a nerd look like? Well, he looks like Plato, with glasses. And what does a girl nerd look like? She looks like Plato as well, with glasses, but also slightly longer hair and crudely drawn boobs. What to they do on a date? They talk about Kierkegaard, obviously. That guy was smart! That’s why the nerds respect him, because he was a nerd like they are! Do the nerds have sex, on this date? Absolutely not. How dare you suggest such a thing. How dare you. You’ll rile up our readers with such talk!

Mary Worth, 8/7/22

I think all of us have wondered at one time or another: what is our purpose in life? Well, it looks like Wilbur’s finally about to figure out why he’s been put on this Earth: to serve as a cautionary example for others. Or maybe he won’t figure it out, I dunno, he’s not very smart or self-reflective. Anyway, kudos to Dawn for realizing she’s a bad person, but I honestly could’ve done with at least four or five more panels of Wilbur rattling off cruel adjectives others have used to describe him before she had her epiphany.