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Blondie, 9/21/23

Way back in 2006 — which, I take no pleasure in reporting, was a full 17 years ago — there was a weird rash of syndicated newspaper comic strips doing jokes about how crazy it was that people would actually pay extra for distressed jeans. This was not exactly fresh material even then, but that didn’t stop They’ll Do It Every Time (RIP) and Six Chix and Pluggers and Curtis from making hay out of it. Normally I’d cruelly mock Blondie for being close to two decades late on this trend, but I do have to grudgingly respect the fact that instead of just laughing at this hot youth trend, Dagwood and Blondie are instead figuring out how to profit from it, like the innovators they are.

Marvin, 9/21/23

I genuinely kind of love that Jenny has the same bright smile in both the first and third panels of this comic. They even didn’t have a fight or anything! Instead she had the extremely freeing experience of hearing her spouse’s opinion and realizing she just didn’t care about it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/21/23

Look, Rex Morgan, M.D., has one (1) recurring bad guy, so I’m going to need more evidence before I believe that he’s been brought to a state of blubbering catharsis by having his own pop-psychology scam repeated back to him by a roots country star. It seems more likely to me that, despite his understandable desire to get the money he’s owed, he’s been overcome by a similarly understandable desire to not hang around with these two drips anymore and sees a sudden change of heart/personality as a good opportunity to leave this scene behind him.

Mary Worth, 9/21/23

What do you guys think is in the bag, huh? A human head? It’s a human head, right? [everyone starts pounding rhythmically on the table] HU! MAN! HEAD! HU! MAN! HEAD!

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Mary Worth, 9/20/23

You know, if you’re a Worth-head come lately, you might think of Mary Worth as a strip primarily about a core rotating cast of characters (Mary and Jeff, Wilbur and the sad parade of women who at one time or another had sex with him for some reason, Saul and Eve and their dogs, Ian and Toby if we’re really desperate). But for most of this strip’s history, Mary was a sort of Rod Serling-esque figure who served to introduce us to stories about one-off characters who wandered through Charterstone and/or the greater Santa Royale area and then left once their plot had been resolved, never to be seen again. I sincerely miss stories like “An old lady does not want her daughter to date” and “Charterstone’s local pervert uses truly sick art to seduce the unwary” and “Uh oh! A child has been kidnapped!”, and I am honestly very hopeful that the absolutely huge slab of man-meat that is Keith Hillend (he’s named that because he’s bigger than the end of a hill) will end up being the center of a new self-contained story instead of getting entangled with, say, Dawn.

Gil Thorp, 9/20/23

I don’t care that much about this flash of intra-Mudlark coaching staff drama, but I do want to say that it very much tracks that the Coach of the Year Award, a trophy they apparently just give to Gil every year, is referred to by its abbreviation, COTY, pronounced “coaty” and so universally known that you can just slip it into indignant accusations like “You insulted Gil when he won COTY!” and be sure that everyone will know what you’re talking about.

Pluggers, 9/20/23

That’s a murder weapon, right? Those stains are more blood than rust? We can all agree this plugger is going to “fix” things, via murder, which ought to “do the trick”?

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Crock, 9/17/23

I’m going to choose to believe that this strip is one where the Crock creative team retained a flicker of memory that this strip is in fact supposed to take place in French-ruled early 20th century North Africa. Yeah, this guy’s a true Parisian scumbag, probably picked up one too many times by les flics and given the choice of either going to jail or joining the Legion and being shipped off the colonies. He promptly washed out of the Legion, his behavior too erratic and aggressive even for them, and ended up here, drunk in the back room of a broken down clothing store on the edge of the empire. He may be “Roy,” but believe me, he’s no king.

Gasoline Alley, 9/17/23

Ahh, a heartwarming meeting between two beloved characters in this century-old strip. “Hey, Uncle Walt! Heard you haven’t moved in a while. You dead?” “Nope!” Great! Well, see ya!”

Mary Worth, 9/17/23

Finally

The Saul-Eve story is over

and

The Ass™ has arrived