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Dustin, 1/12/21

You know, I’ve griped about Dustin slamming on millennials (as represented by the strip’s title character), but I haven’t put that much effort into it because, enh, millennials, probably they have it coming. But when you decide to come after librarians? When you say that librarians don’t want people eating and drinking in the library (which literally ruins books that cost money to replace that they’d have to pay out of their shrinking budget) and they don’t want people reshelving books (which patrons aren’t trained to do and if they screw it up it makes books difficult or impossible to find) and they don’t want people talking on their cell phones in the library (this is literally annoying to everybody, who could possibly object to idiots talking loudly on their cell phones in the library being asked to leave) because they’re frumpy martinets who love rules? That’s when I declare that you’re garbage person and I swear a sacred oath to destroy you. Be warned!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/12/21

So it looks like Barney Google and Snuffy Smith has decided on what the defining feature of its hot new character, Li’l Sparky, is going to be: it’s going to be puns based on noises horses make. As we can tell today, a key aspect of this bit is that Li’l Sparky is going to really insist that everyone acknowledge that he’s doing it, until all the other horses (and, I assume, eventually the non-horse characters) come to dislike him. Can’t wait!

Mary Worth, 1/12/21

“Greta, our friend Eve started weeping openly in public but doesn’t want to talk about it. Is there some way I can make this about me?”

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Blondie, 1/7/21

Blondie and Dagwood have matching “best friends” in their next-door neighbors Herb and Tootsie; while Dag is occasionally seen interacting socially with others — his carpool, his coworkers, the guy at the bird store for some reason even though he never buys a bird — he doesn’t really seem to have any other deep friendships, the troubling case of Elmo really being in its own category. Blondie’s social circle is even more limited, as just about the only person we ever see her with outside her family is Tootsie, who is not only Blondie’s friend and neighbor but also her business partner, which seems like a lot of emotional labor to put on one person, frankly! Anyway, today we get a little glimpse into why Blondie and Tootsie only hang out with each other and not anybody else: they’re terrible people who love to cruelly exclude people for minor transgression but love vicious gossip even more.

Mary Worth, 1/7/21

“Jeez,” you’ve probably been thinking, “I know Mary Worth can be slow at times, but how are they going to wring drama out of a couple of old people going on a date to the mall?” Well, you owe me, King Features Syndicate, its parent corporation Hearst Communications, and really the entire Mary Worth-industrial complex an apology, as today the sight of a headless mannequin has triggered Eve’s deep post-hypnotic conditioning and prompted the traumatic emergence of her true identity: a ruthlessly efficient assassin for a shadowy international terrorist organization. (Her signature move was beheading people.)

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Mary Worth, 1/6/20

Good lord, these two unmarried persons are loitering together … within touching distance … at the mall … without their dogs being there as chaperones? Like a pair of whores? I certainly hope Mary doesn’t hear about this, or they’ll return to Charterstone to find their pathetical belongings piled up on the curb!

Pluggers, 1/6/20

In big cities and small villages, most elderly people can walk to the store for basic errands, or take public transportation, so they can live independently even when they’re no longer able to drive a car. But in modern America’s increasingly socially atomized and sprawling suburbs, many must resort to offering sexual favors just so they can leave their subdivision and access basic services. Sad!

Beetle Bailey, 1/6/20

My initial thought reading this was that there’s no circumstance where you get a phone call saying “We have detected a problem with your computer, send us your password and we’ll fix it” and the caller isn’t a scam artist, but then I realized that this strip still falls under today’s “eldersex” heading, because the reason nobody can fix the General’s computer is all the extremely dodgy porn sites he looks at.

Curtis, 1/6/20

I judge this year’s Kwanzaa storyline to be pretty good based on the freaky animal factor alone, though it has wrapped up with the somewhat banal conclusion of “the real magic is friendship, and also listening to good advice.” It’s also wrapped up on a … Wednesday? … so I hope that we at least get a few days of Curtis complaining about the story’s initial premise failing to pay off in truly weird fashion.