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Mary Worth, 7/3/24

Do you, Jeff? Do you know what’s like to go through a rough patch? Because I’ve been reading this strip for a while, and as near as I can tell the Dr. Jeff Corey Emotional Spectrum mostly ranges from “wry amusement” to “mild annoyance.” Whenever truly powerful emotions make an appearance — an urge to be of service, say, or rising panic as your sinuses begin to clog — you simply flee the area (to Vietnam and away from Mary’s cat-dander-filled apartment, respectively). And this is, frankly, how Mary likes it! Wilbur may be OK as a “quirky good friend,” but when it comes to sort-of-boyfriends, our gal demands an even keel and does not want to have her Bum Boat dinners interrupted by a lot of “feelings.”

Pluggers, 7/3/24

Now, probably you’re expecting me to try to figure out whether the point of this joke is “pluggers don’t take Viagra because, despite their age, their erections are still firm and vigorous” or “pluggers don’t take Viagra because nobody wants to have sex with them.” But, nope! That’s not an angle I care to explore. Sorry to disappoint! No, I have a different complaint. I take levothyroxine daily, as it happens; I’m not even sad that this gives me something in common with pluggers, because not long after I was diagnosed with a hypoactive thyroid, we found out that Mary Worth’s Iris had a similar ailment, so frankly nothing can hurt me in that regard. But why is this plugger’s levothyroxine blue? Mine is just boring white. Do I not deserve a little splash of color in my morning? Should a plugger live a more aesthetic life than I do?

Gasoline Alley, 7/3/24

I really appreciate the visual storytelling here. As this tree guy says “$7,000,” he’s pointing to the part of his estimate where “$7,000” has been helpfully printed in a large, bold font, which tells us that not only is Walt’s hearing aid acting up, but he needs a new glasses prescription as well.

Family Circus, 7/3/24

Over the years of doing this blog, the strip I’ve gained the most respect for is the Family Circus. The stereotype is that it’s all panels of kids saying the darnedest things that old people lovingly cut out of the paper and hang on their refrigerators; but two or three days a week on average, the joke is actually that little kids are very annoying. Maybe old people cut these out too, but then casually cover them up with mediocre report cards or whatever when the grandkids come over.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/1/24

Obviously Snuffy Smith’s whole deal is that he doesn’t care about the greater good of the polity and routinely engages in lawbreaking and antisocial behavior, but I gotta say that this is a new low. Many Hootin’ Holler residents who enjoy a lazy day on the lake fishing from their little canoes — including Snuffy himself! — will now have their leisure disrupted by flatlanders zooming around in their big powerboats. And for what? Was this little joke so irresistible that he had to have the sign in his bedroom, and are his literacy and scrapwood-scavenging skills so lacking that he had to take the extremely nonprofessional looking sign down from the lake?

Dick Tracy, 7/1/24

Mr. Borden is being blackmailed by Mr. Gabriel in some way related to those those salacious pictures in a manila folder that were hinted at a couple of weeks ago. I’m impressed that today’s strip includes a shoutout to the famous album cover of Big Black’s “Songs About Being Blackmailed Over Salacious Pictures In A Manila Folder.”

Hi and Lois, 7/1/24

No you absolutely can not, kids! Something you did is what’s made her so upset in the first place!

Mary Worth, 7/1/24

Oh, silly Wilbur! Fish are innocents, incapable of sin, and you will not be meeting Stellan again in hell.

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Beetle Bailey, 6/30/24

Once again, the throwaway panels across the top of this Sunday strip deepen the narrative considerably. Without them, we just have a story about the General giving up on the pretense of fulfilling his job duties once and for all; with them, we see that, having been denied in his own home, he is chasing his obsessive need to practice putting no matter the professional cost. The throwaway panels also really raise the question of why, given that it’s the middle of summer, he doesn’t simply play golf outside, like a normal person, and so we are left speculate that we’re looking at the world in the wake of some environmental catastrophe that rendered outdoor games like golf unplayable.

Mary Worth, 6/30/24

Loving Dr. Jeff’s face at this big reveal in the bottom left-hand panel. “Wait, so this whole thing is about his ex-girlfriend? The one who dumped him once and for all after he let her think he was dead for a week? That’s … that’s worse than just being bereft over a fish! I can’t put my finger on why but it’s definitely worse!”

Marvin, 6/30/24

Ah, what a nice change of pace, a Marvin without a poop joke! Nope, it’s just about Marvin and a bunch of cats getting into a sandbox-related dispute over who has or has not “put down a deposit” and … oh. Oh, I see. God damn it.