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Spider-Man, 7/30/17

You know, this is the second Newspaper Spider-Man Mole-Man adventure I’ve covered on my blog, and it occurs to me that I don’t know if he has any particular … powers? … other than his now-lost political dominion over Subterrenea. He seems to have the ability to effectively hit people with sticks, but other than that, does he have … mole-strength? Mole-vision, which would be the actual opposite of a superpower? Why does he wear those glasses all the time? Does he even have eyes? According to Wikipedia, he has “highly developed ‘radar senses’ to help his weak normal vision,” and said vision was weakened when, soon after falling into the underground realm, “he suffered permanent damage to his eyes when he gazed directly upon a highly reflective deposit of diamonds,” which, that is in no way how any of that works, man. Anyway, the point is that today we learn that, whatever his vision situation, he at least has working tear-ducts, and a working heart (I’m speaking metaphorically here but no doubt his literal heart also works).

Meanwhile, we should believe Peter when he says that he never thought he’d hear himself say that he thinks his aunt’s wedding should go on as planned. That’s because he doesn’t want her to remarry, because he can’t handle not being at the center of her emotional life. He’s a real dick!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/30/17

Ha ha, whoops, Margie isn’t dying, she’s just dying to get her hands on some sweet, sweet pills, and the Morgans are only people with a prescription pad that she has even a tenuous relationship with who she hasn’t alienated yet! Anyway, it’s nice to know that America’s #1 serial comic strip about medical issues has finally decided to tackle America’s current #1 medical issue, after having warmed up over the past year or so with storylines about non-blockbuster problems like sleep apnea and dehydration.

Mary Worth, 7/30/17

There are few things that will get Dawn “in the mood” like a cute guy muttering about his post-divorce loneliness while staring into a highball glass! This is gonna be one of those magical “when depressed and predatory meets naive and low self-esteem” romances that you read about in storybooks.

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Mary Worth, 7/29/17

Looks like we’re learning what sort of “Dawn romance” storyline we have lined up for us: a storyline where Dawn, a college-age temp worker at a hospital, is romanced by a handsome, prestigious older doctor, who likes to (a) refer to non-medical staff at the hospital where he works as “his” employees, like he owns the place or something, and (b) do little things like take “his” employees who work late nights out to dinner, alone, so he can get to know them under the romantic glow of the moon. Dawn hasn’t jumped starry-eyed into a thicket of romantic red flags like this with a medico since that time she set her sights on Dr. Jeff’s son Dr. Drew, who unfortunately was dating another lady at the same time, which earned him a thorough slapping that haunted him literally for years. Say, whatever happened to Dr. Drew, anyway? I think the last we heard of him was when he volunteered to preside over the hospital ethics board show trial and execution of the poor smack-addled Dr. Kapuht, so he should eventually have a lot of interesting things to say about this management/employee sexual fraternization.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/29/17

Wow, I apologize for thinking this storyline was going to be boring! As a non-doctor, what appeared to me to be idle chit-chat about nerd bullshit was actually a very careful and subtle diagnostic process. As medical pros, Rex and June can smell a dying woman a mile away, especially a dying woman who probably doesn’t have any health insurance and plans to name them the guardians of her gross non-Morgan child in her will.

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Mary Worth, 7/25/17

It’s not a secret than the world of newspaper comics is small and getting smaller, and that I’m the only person who’s written about newspaper comics every day for the last 13 years, so obviously I’m on the radar of a lot of comics creators. And sometimes they let me know that they’ve taken notice of me, by means ranging from outright hostility in the comic itself to sending me free stuff in the mail in a successful attempt to get me to promote their branded products. So whenever someone who looks kinda like me pops up in a strip, I think, “Hmm, is this someone who looks kind of like me … supposed to be me?” Generally things are made more ambiguous by the fact that my look isn’t exactly the least common around. Anyway, if this redheaded goateed doctor is in fact supposed to be my in-strip avatar, I take that as a compliment, as he seems supportive of his colleagues, a quality I admire and aspire to. Also the artists have noticed that I started wearing glasses last year, nice job!

One thing I (or my alter ego) won’t have to worry about is being the object of Dawn’s moon-eyed affections, which is I assume where this plot is going, since the Dawn plots always seem to involve her sad romantic life in some way, whether it involves her slapping people she was actually dating when she discovered them two-timing her or prolonging weird, sexually charged friendships with various amputees and adjunct community college faculty members. Our beardy doctor is clearly just passing through this plot to establish the awesome diagnostic prowess of the handsome Ned, who can swiftly identify rare and obscure maladies but also grows his hair long enough to cover his ears, because he doesn’t care what The Man thinks. Just the sort of fella to catch a young girl’s fancy, if you know what I mean, and you will definitely know what I mean after Dawn mopily falls in love with him for the next six to eleven weeks.

Family Circus, 7/25/17

Aww, Billy was going to feed that human finger to one of the tigers and make its whole day. Why you gotta be such a narc, Dolly?

Beetle Bailey, 7/25/17

You know, I had a post all planned out today about Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft, and how the decade-wide time discontinuity between them is increasingly irritating — I even had some reference data about the average price of movie tickets over the years! — but then I realized that I was failing on my stated intention to not actually care about that, at all. They’re getting inside my head, man! So instead, here’s today’s Beetle Bailey, which is about how Otto the dog hates cat beatniks but sure wants to fuck sexy lady dogs. Also, this sexy lady dog may be a prostitute.