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Mary Worth, 8/8/20

You gotta respect that, despite the fact that Toby is Mary’s only real friend, Mary maintains the upper hand in their relationship by keeping her in constant terror that Mary will reject her for some unforgivable transgression, like making subpar banana bread. Don’t hate me, Mary! Don’t cast me out into the outer darkness! Don’t leave me alone with nobody but Ian to talk to! Ian, for God’s sake! I couldn’t take it!

Dennis the Menace, 8/8/20

Starting with a healthy skepticism of the motivations behind the actions of powerful institutions but then veering into increasingly deranged paranoid conspiracy theories is a little on the nose for our current menacing moment, thank you very much!

Shoe, 8/8/20

“Because I and all the customers are birds. You know, animals, like you’d see in the zoo. Is there a special word for a bird-zoo? An avarium or something? Is that a thing? Anyway: birds.”

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Mary Worth, 8/5/20

Hey, have you been wondering what Toby’s been up to in the two months since we last saw her, back when she was expressing mild trepidation over having agreed to make a dessert for the next Charterstone meeting? Well, turns out she’s been 100% fucking up the dessert she agreed to make for the next Charterstone meeting! The best part is definitely Toby looking at her kitchen iPad or whatever that is and yelling “What the…?” like she’s shocked to learn her goal is supposed to be a loaf of some sort rather than the two big bowls of goo she’s managed to produce, but I really enjoy the little details, like the fact that she appears to have just cracked a raw egg onto her countertop and is it letting it sit there breeding salmonella.

Daddy Daze, 8/5/20

Obviously it’s just yet another instance of slapdash syndicate coloring, but Daddy Daze Daddy’s icy white skin in panel one makes it look like he was under some kind of wizard’s curse that can only be lifted by an baby’s smooch. It’s pretty creepy! Not as creepy as the overall premise of the strip, which is that a terribly sad and isolated single parent spends all his time projecting his increasingly manic and baroque fantasies onto his preverbal infant, but creepy nonetheless.

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/2/20

Man, Funky Winkerbean is really going for it with this fire, huh? This strip strongly reminds me of one from 2009 (note to self: embark on a rigorous journey of self-discovery to learn why I have instant recall of eleven-year-old Funky Winkerbeans) where Funky gets a text from his doctor about his cancerous prostate while a TV in the background drones on about the collapse of the economy. Today’s strip has a different vibe, though, in that the foreground action is actually upbeat for once. I’m assuming that everyone’s happiness is going to be upended when the fire destroys, you know, everything, but it would be kind of funny if we never hear about it again, but we should just keep in mind that it was there during a happy moment, like a skull hidden in the corner of a painting from one of the Dutch Masters to remind us of our own looming mortality.

Judge Parker, 8/2/20

I’m not really sure if calling the wife of one of your opponent’s primary backers is the “obvious angle,” actually, but I guess I’m only beginning to appreciate how byzantine and vicious the politics are of a small suburban town in Connecticut (?), where I assume the primary job of the municipal government is to negotiate contracts for snowplowing services.

Mary Worth, 8/2/20

Aww, despite her initial hostility, Madi has finally made friends with both Mary and Greta. Will she also bond with Saul? I hope not! I hope she keeps leaving her clothes all over his condo for the next three months, until her CIA assassin dad comes back to collect her!