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Mary Worth, 1/27/20

Finally, it’s Monday and it’s time for a new Mary Worth plot and … oh, wait, no, we’re still talking thyroid stuff! You’ve probably been wondering how Iris’s thyroid condition would affect her enjoyment of sandwiches, and the answer is: not at all! Gluten free sandwiches are great! Even Zak likes them! And if you’re wondering if Iris enjoys that sandwich lyfe with Zak more than she did with Wilbur, well, never forget that time Wilbur took Iris to his favorite sandwich joint and they sort of rubbed the sandwiches on their lips while staring off into space with dead, joyless eyes. Whereas today Zak and Iris look like they’re high on some wonderful drug while they chow down gluten free sandwiches. It’s no wonder the “you!” is Iris’s word balloon is italicized, as everything is, predictably, better with Zak.

Crock, 1/27/20

Ah ha, women, amiright? They sure love bingo! And colonialist powers, amiright? They sure lose all understanding of ethical behavior and, in a desperate attempt to maintain their control over an unwilling populace, resort to measures like rounding up and interning noncombatants, even attempting to cast such war crimes as “moral victories!” It sure is a crazy world out there!

Dennis the Menace, 1/27/20

This is it. We’ve reached a true nadir of menacing. Dennis is crying involuntarily because his mother is cutting onions, and it makes him think of all the times he cried at school because a mean kid picked on him. This is as non-menacing as it gets, and it makes me sick.

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Mary Worth, 1/20/20

Well, Thyroid Awareness Month has wrapped up nicely, with Zak doubling down on his grim determination to be the most supportive boyfriend possible by buying Iris healthy food and not making her feel bad about doing less volunteer work so she can conserve her Hashimoto’s-sapped energy. Now we’re shifting gears: did you know that January is also There Are No Good Men Left Once You’re In Your 60s So Just Settle For Whoever Or You’ll Die Alone Awareness Month? It’s true! And Estelle and Wilbur are going to make you ever more aware of this over the coming weeks, as Estelle forces herself to laugh at Wilbur’s terrible jokes and tries to forget his appalling behavior and just generally unpleasant personality.

Gasoline Alley, 1/20/20

I’m not even going to bother bringing you up to speed on Gasoline Alley, but I am going to say this: if you’ve given one of your characters a “whimsical” name like “Baleen,” I think it’s kind of weird to milk laughs out of other characters finding it strange? I dunno, it just seems kind of overdetermined to me. Long story short, I hope our salty waitress has a long and serious talk with this young man about the difference between baleen whales, which use bony plates to filter food out of the water as it passes through their mouths, and toothed whales like the orca.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/20/20

Back in the days when Woody Wilson wrote this strip, people used to give the Morgans stuff all the time: free tickets to SeaWorld, steeply discounted vacation homes, and so on. But under Terry Beatty’s watch, the gravy train has been slowed somewhat. Sure, June and Rex scored some free toddlers a couple years back, but her best friend had to die to make that happen. Fortunately, the Morgans don’t care about other people’s well-being, really, so Aunt Tildy’s transparent hint that she’s gonna drop dead soon really ought to have June’s ears pricking up. What are they going to get in the will, do you suppose?

Crankshaft, 1/20/20

Man, I am mesmerized by whatever is in Crankshaft’s spoon here. Sure, he could easily make himself some kind of soggy off-brown slurry to eat at home for much less money, but then he wouldn’t be able to trade bon mots with his friends as he chokes the tasteless stuff down, you know?

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Slylock Fox, 1/13/20

As everyone knows, my favorite kind of Slylock Fox is not the kind where he uses (useless) FACTS and (dubious) LOGIC to DESTROY CRIME or whatever, but rather the ones where we get a glimpse of what the strange, terrifying moment of Transition must’ve been like, when the animals suddenly became sapient and human civilization was wiped away in a wave of chaos. Clearly, humanity lost: the only humans we ever see in the world of the strip are Slick Smitty and Count Weirdly, who live on the fringes of the new animal society built on our ruins. But in those first (or last, depending on your point of view) few chaotic days and weeks, things must’ve gotten pretty crazy, and I absolutely believe that some desperate humans eventually resorted to just ramming their cars into the newly aware but still confused animals that were wandering through the cities, still not entirely sure what they were looking at or dealing with. This scene must have been towards the end of the carnage, as the giraffe is being tended in what looks like a human-built hospital; if the H. sapiens behind the wheel survived the crash, they were presumably thrown into a cage at an abandoned veterinary clinic by a jeering hippo or something.

Mary Worth, 1/13/20

Guys! Did you know that January is Thyroid Awareness Month? Are you more aware of disorders that affect the thyroid, such as Hashimoto’s, thanks to the syndicated comic strip Mary Worth? Looks like the PR firm repping the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists finally got tired of banging its head against a wall with Rex Morgan, M.D., and sent this year’s press release over to the Mary Worth team instead.