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Pluggers, 10/6/18

A good example of the stranglehold Baby Boomers have had on American self-image comes from the weird version of real-life Comic Book Time that defines the life history of people in syndicated newspaper comics: young-to-early-middle-aged adults who still have kids at home somehow went to Woodstock or enjoyed disco fever at its peak, despite the fact that real-life humans who fit that demographic were busy being born during those cultural moments. That’s why I have to give grudging admiration to today’s Pluggers, because however you define a plugger, you have to admit that they’re old. You’re old, Boomers! It’ll happen to me someday — some might argue that it’s already in the process of happening — but I just want to hear you admit it, and I will take this syndicated Pluggers panel as a confession.

Mary Worth, 10/6/18

Ahhhhh, it’s a strange little old man slowly loping down a condo complex hallway, past discount art purchased in bulk at Pier One, grouchily refusing Mary’s plea to engage in some emotional processing. Has a more perfect Mary Worth ever been created?

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Mary Worth, 9/28/18

One of my very favorite things that sometimes happens on this blog is when I make an outrageous prediction about the future course of some soap opera strip’s plot that then almost immediately comes true! So yes, Mr. Wynter really did spend more on his dog’s grave than on his wife’s. At least Bella’s monument is relatively tasteful, with Bella depicted as she was in life, wearing her adorable bow tie, and not as some kind of terrifying supernatural winged cat chimera like whoever’s buried in the plot just behind her. The second panel is great, because it shows what Bella would see if she were buried alive and had like a little hole in her casket attached to a periscope or something.

Six Chix, 9/28/18

Look, one of the advantages of having a multi-artist production like Six Chix is that you get a variety of perspectives and voices, so I’m as confused and disappointed by “big horny animal week” as everybody else.

Spider-Man, 9/28/18

“Say, Danny, have you ever considered using the incredible privilege and authority you wield in our society to better people’s lives, instead of putting on a mask and punching people unusually hard? Just spitballing here!”

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Mark Trail, 9/26/18

OK, wait, what? Are these guys not in league with artifact-napping Becky? Are they actually a rival gang, working at cross-purposes with her? Or are they part of Mexican law enforcement, investigating in plain clothes to try to break up an artifact smuggling ring? When Rusty and Mara confront Jo(s)e and his associates, they’ll say “Kids, you’ve got it all wrong! We’re federales! You know, the Policía Federal, the institutional successor to the former mounted police!” And then Rusty and Mara will say, “If you’re the police, where are your badges?” And they’ll say, “Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We’re working deep undercover and can’t afford exposure. Showing you any stinkin’ badges would risk all of our lives!”

Mary Worth, 9/26/18

Oh, man, Mr. Wynter is an old grouch because he was forced to marry a woman he didn’t love! I certainly hope that we get smash cut from Bella’s lovingly tended grave in the pet cemetery to the overgrown potter’s field into which his hatèd wife was tossed without ceremony when Mr. Wynter was finally, blessedly, free of her.

Dick Tracy, 9/26/18

I’m reasonably sure that’s been well established that Honeymoon and Crystal are social outcasts at school, what with them both being mutant freaks and all. Still, I have to give props to this drug gang for trying to map out the social networks of the schools where they’re trying to sell their wares in order to maximize brand awareness rather than just having someone stand outside and say “Hey, kid, wanna get high?” to everyone indiscriminately like some half-assed dealers we could mention. It’s like the time the illicit tattoo parlor in Gil Thorp tried to woo twentysomethings by getting high school-aged customers: wildly misguided, but at least you’re putting in some effort to come up with something clever.

Hi and Lois 9/26/18

Hey, kids, it’s 2018! Why not try to get your fairly specific fetish into an extremely square syndicated newspaper comic strip? Nothing matters anymore!