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Mary Worth, 4/21/22

I hope I have made it very clear on this blog that I love snide, catty Ian much more than I do boring, supportive Ian, and if you need more proof, I didn’t bother to show you yesterday’s strip, where Ian said it wouldn’t be surprising if one of Toby’s students fell for her because she’s so lovable, but definitely wanted to share today’s, when he stares thoughtfully at the spoonful of grey-beige slurry he’s about to try to choke down and says “Oh, yeah, sometimes students flirt with you for grades, that actually makes a lot more sense, actually.”

Curtis, 4/21/22

Friends, I have been reading the comic strip Curtis for most of its 33-year history, and one thing I have always loved about it is that Curtis’s dad works at the DMV. It’s very specific in a way that a lot of comics dad office jobs aren’t, and specific things are always more interesting than vague ones. But I have to confess that I always — always — assumed that he was one of those stone-faced bureaucrats who sat behind the desk and told you that you needed to bring in a different proof of address when you’re trying to renew your license or whatever. The idea that he’s the guy who goes out in the car with you on driving tests has completely blown my mind. Completely! My image of the man is upended, and I can barely focus on the fact that apparently someone puked all over him today.

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Mary Worth, 4/19/22

Oh ho ho, our man Ian has finally found out what’s troubling his young-ish bride and isn’t going to fly into one of his trademark rages at all! No, he’s had enough red wine to be positively mellow about this whole Cal situation, though it’s not entirely clear what kind of mellow he is: the kind where he’s ruefully amused by the hilarious predicament his dim wife has gotten herself into, or the kind where he’s hoping that his wife and her new boyfriend will be open to letting him discreetly watch.

Dick Tracy, 4/19/22

The current Dick Tracy storyline involves a guy named “Matt” who is pretending to be a dead Dick Tracy villain named Tonsils, and also dating the real Tonsils’s former girlfriend, who knows he’s not the real Tonsils but is still into it? It’s not as sick as a guy getting eaten by rats, but, real talk: it’s not not sick, either. Anyway, Dick is trying to tell Matt about how Tonsils came to a bad end and he needs to stay on the straight and narrow, but I’m sorry, are you painting a word-picture of a guy waving a bottle of GASO[LINE?] around while terrified people shove money at him and you expect us to not think he’s awesome? Please.

Dustin, 4/19/22

This joke depends on the structure of the comics delivering us instantly from panel two to panel three and it works more or less fine on that level, but I’m still trying to visualize how this would play out in real life. I don’t care how fast you work, it’d take at least 30 seconds to wolf down each of these two full-sized donuts, and I’d like to imagine Dustin’s dad’s discomfited coworker staring at him silently the whole time, waiting for him to blurt out this punchline along with a shower of crumbs.

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Dennis the Menace and The Family Circus, 4/15/22

Oh, man, this is it. This is the nadir. The Keane Kids have ruined their parents’ outing to an art museum, Dolly and Jeffy are consumed with self-loathing, Billy is actively furious at the family’s attempt to to expand their cultural horizons. Meanwhile, what’s going on with Dennis? He’s weeping because he stubbed his toe and now his mom is offering to pray for him? Honestly, what the fuck. That is so much less menacing than the Family Circus that the menace levels could not be detected by the most carefully calibrated instruments menace science has to offer. For shame, for shame!

Mary Worth, 4/15/22

Sadly, this whole week has been taken up not by more hilarious dream sequence action but by Toby telling Mary about her little Cal problem in judiciously elliptical detail, which has been significantly less fun. I do like today’s strip, though, as it implies that Ian cares less about Toby’s romantic fidelity than he does about her ability to “handle” sticky situations, which I assume means that either Helen or Cal — or possibly both — will be dead by the end of the week.