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Pluggers, 7/24/19

If I were to make a joke about exurban American old people obsessively watching Matlock, it would be rude, but since Pluggers is a feature by and for exurban American old people, they can say it, and I respect that. Anyway, my guess is that what the dog-man plugger is attempting to convey is less “I use the syndicated rebroadcasts of classic TV shows in the pre-local-news programming block to tell the time, just as my ancestors used the position of the sun and the stars” and more “woman, please hold your tongue and do not interrupt me during my favorite stories, it makes it hard to focus and solve the mystery, we discussed this.”

Mark Trail, 7/24/19

I always knew Mark Trail was in the tank for the Fourth Estate, but who knew that the payoff of this story would be that good local journalism was the real treasure all along — more valuable than gold?

Mary Worth, 7/24/19

Dawn has spent most of this date using factoids from the “Trivia” section of Wikipedia articles she got to from clicking names in the “List of French people” at random as conversational prompts, and somehow it’s still going better than the last one did.

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Mary Worth, 7/15/19

Oh wow, it looks like the extremely terrible trend of “negging” has finally hit France, or maybe Hugo has learned it as part of his cultural studies here in America, but either way he’s taking it to the next level by negging not just Dawn’s appearance or personality (seems like there’d be a lot of rich material with that one in particular) but her whole country. Which, yeah, we have a lot to answer for, especially when it comes to culinary matters, but I think you lose your right to talk smack about how and what other people eat and drink when you’re in the middle of eating a sandwich with a fork.

Hi and Lois, 7/15/19

Ha ha, kids today and their Wi-Fi, amiright everybody? Anyway, feel free to speculate how long Chip has been isolating himself socially and refusing to leave his room that he’s forgotten that his wireless connectivity ends when he leaves the house.

Dick Tracy, 7/15/19

Well, it’s Monday and it’s time for a new Dick Tracy storyline, and this one starts with … Dick being gunned down in the pouring rain right outside his precinct? That’s pretty solid, actually, though it’s honestly weird to see it so soon in the week, as it’ll be pretty hard to top.

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Mary Worth, 7/10/19

Well well well, it looks like Dawn’s big summer romance is going to be with Hugo Lambert, a handsome French exchange student (do they call them “exchange students” in college? I’m pretty sure they don’t) who took Ian’s class with Dawn last year. (Side note: how is it that we never got to see Dawn take Ian’s class? I for one would’ve loved to have seen her smirk her way through Ian’s bloviating lectures about how Tess of the D’Urbervilles will change your life.) Anyway, you can tell Hugo is French and definitely not some kind of con artist because he speaks French for things that English speakers could quickly grasp in that language, but otherwise speaks perfect English. Plus he kisses Dawn’s hand! No American man would be that romantic, based on what I’ve learned from TV sitcoms!

Mark Trail, 7/10/19

Say what you will about Mark Trail, but he’s always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. Like, maybe JJ just doesn’t know that it’s illegal to threaten people with a gun and force them to give you all the gold they found in a hidden, magical mine. Or maybe he forgot! He just forgot that he wasn’t supposed to do this! That’s a whoopsy that could happen to anyone, and it’s kind of Mark to jog his memory a bit before punching the shit out of him.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/10/19

Wow, look at that smile on June in the last panel! Literally nothing that’s happened to her in the past decade of this strip — certainly not any of her interactions with her husband or her growing brood of children — has made her as happy as the thought of checking out a website that will tell her how much money dumb people are willing to pay to have their auras laundered or whatever.

Gil Thorp, 7/10/19

Oh, I see how it is: it’s OK for Hadley and Jaquan to live in two different places just because she already has an established legal career and he’s an NBA player who doesn’t get to choose where he lives but also he’s rich so they can afford it, but when Tiki Jansen wants to live in two different places at once so he can go to the school of his choice, he gets in trouble? This is precisely the kind of outrageous double standard that Hadley used to oppose. You’ve changed, Hadley. You’ve changed.