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Mary Worth, 5/15/24

Oooh, look everyone, Mary Worth is doing a bit where Wilbur is shouting “Stella!” like Stanley from A Streetcar Named Desire, except it’s “Stellan,” the name of his fish, and instead of demanding forgiveness from a wife he’s just assaulted, like Stanley from A Streetcar Named Desire, he’s just sad because the fish is dead. Is this what you want, Mary Worth? That we all notice and pay attention to this truly outrageous stunt? That we all titter knowingly at the reference, and maybe post on social media that we realize now that you’ve been playing the long game on this one, for two and a half years? Well, fine, fine, we’ll pay attention to you, but keep in mind that not all attention is good attention.

Slylock Fox, 5/15/24

The central fact of the world of Slylock Fox is that one day, for reasons nobody clearly understood, almost all the animals simultaneously Ascended to sapience, and every strip, in ways ranging from the trivial to the profound, attempts to grapple with the implications of that transformation. For instance: what happens when creatures that had long been solely concerned with eating and sleeping, escaping predators and perhaps experiencing bodily pleasures, suddenly become aware that there is a world out there beyond themselves, a world vast and unknowable — or, perhaps even more terrifying, knowable? What happens when they happen upon a discarded book of spooky fish tales, and learn that their bodies and the sea that sustains them is not all that makes up a fish’s world, but there is spirit and divinity as well? Would they be struck, all at once, with a combination of wonder and terror, like Adam and Eve in the garden, realizing what good and evil were, wondering what comes next?

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Daddy Daze, 5/13/24

One of the most fascinating and bonkers “big ideas” books of the ’70s was The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, which posited that before about 800 BC, human beings weren’t “conscious” in the way that we now understand it and were not capable of introspection, but instead perceived decisions formed in one part of their mind as hearing “commands” from a “god” telling them what to do. While I do not actually believe this theory as an explanation for human consciousness and the beginning of civilization as we know it, I do think it explains what’s going on in Daddy Daze, as the Daddy Daze daddy engages in an endless series of unhinged philosophical discussions with his “infant son” (actually the other hemisphere of his bicameral mind, which rather than guiding him instead torments him with a series of playfully deranged falsehoods).

Alice, 5/13/24

Ruh-oh! Looks like those aliens have successfully kidnapped Alice and trapped her in a featureless, silent void. Realizing that their captive needs some sensory stimulation, they’ve decided to let loose with a little “swing”! (“Swing Music”: A musical style that was popular from the late 1920s – 1940s, big thanks to the King Features editorial intervention that explains the least confusing thing about this entire comic.)

Arctic Circle, 5/13/24

That sky is bright blue and it’s clear the sun is out. That poor vampire you woke up is going to vaporize in mere seconds! You monsters!

Mary Worth, 5/13/24

Guess we need to rephrase this: time to eat Stellan and Willa!

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Beetle Bailey, 5/10/24

The thing I like about this strip is how numb Sarge looks in the second panel. He scarfed down two plates full of burgers and fries and guzzled two waters in just a few minutes, and for what? Does he feel any better? Does he feel sated? Will he ever feel sated? He didn’t even wash his hands. He ate dinner with dirty hands, and he didn’t even enjoy it.

Mary Worth, 5/10/24

Seeing a disheveled Wilbur gesticulating with a sandwich and talking about “turning off the world” is genuinely chilling. Did he use his Wilbur-Man powers to transform the whole universe outside of his apartment into an endless void? Hopefully his abilities allow him to create as well as destroy, or that’s the last sandwich he’ll ever eat. Eternal peace … but at what cost?

Blondie, 5/10/24

Somebody in the Blondie supply chain has been having real fun with bold and chunky color gradients lately, and I just want to say: I see you, and I appreciate you.