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Family Circus, 5/28/23

The Good Place was a great philosophical afterlife sitcom, and in its later seasons you learn that the titular Good Place (its cosmology’s equivalent of heaven) hasn’t had any new arrivals in centuries, because an increasingly complex and intertwined society has made it impossible for a living person to make any choice that doesn’t directly or indirectly cause harm to someone else. Today’s Family Circus, however, posits the flipside of this scenario: due to an overall lowering of human misery (in the long view violence worldwide really is probably lower now than any other time in history) plus a radical increase in population, heaven is simply being overwhelmed by a number of souls that its infrastructure simply isn’t equipped to handle, leaving the virtuous dead to sit packed together on clouds with little to do to occupy the rest of eternity, like inmates in an open-air prison camp. It’s not surprising that these spirits need to occasionally sneak back to the plane of the living to experience just enough sensory input to keep them from going mad!

Mary Worth, 5/28/23

Excuse me, Mary Worth, I thought it should’ve been obvious that when I called for a preemptive bans on “dogs in peril” plots, I meant not just that Eve’s dog should get a clean bill of health from the vet, but also that Greta should not be dognapped by a traveling dognapper who drives around in a muddy van with tricked out rims. Sorry, I guess I’ll try to be more specific next time, but until then let’s work on getting Greta liberated post-haste, OK?

Pluggers, 5/28/23

A plugger loves his wife … but he also loves the beast within her.

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Mary Worth, 5/23/23

We don’t know a ton about Saul’s past, but we do know that he was forced by his family to abandon his true love and enter into some kind of arranged marriage, presumably in order to consolidate their feudal landholdings and take advantage of agricultural efficiencies of scale. It was a loveless relationship and Saul bought a bigger tombstone for his dog than his wife, so I’m not sure how blessed any children would’ve felt being raised in that environment.

Pluggers, 5/23/23

I had a professor in college who once told me that “Ptolemaic Egypt was a theme park, and the theme was death,” a sentence I think about all the time. Anyway, pluggers are, like many of the Egyptian deities, half-man/half-beast creatures, although they lack pretty much any degree of those Gods’ dignity; still, it may be appropriate that they live their lives defined by an ever-growing army of the deceased.

Dennis the Menace, 5/23/23

I respect Mr. Wilson’s quest for perfect, unbroken silence, but I have serious questions about what exactly are in those things under the “Audiobooks” sign. Are they … CDs? Cassette tapes? Nobody actually listens to audiobooks off of physical media anymore, do they? Perhaps the Wilsons are shopping at The Big Warehouse For Old People Who Haven’t Figured Out What “Streaming” Is And Don’t Plan To In The Future, fighting against menacing changes in the media landscape the only way they know how (by keeping their VCRs working through dutiful maintenance).

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Gil Thorp, 5/22/23

Oh, were you wondering if the Great Vape Caper was still underway and still funding the Milford Athletic Department and/or the lifestyles of certain Mudlarks? Well, it seems that the kids are still in it just long enough to pull off one last score, which is too bad because Marty Moon has finally gotten bored enough to start following teenagers around and taking pictures to see if he can find any who are doing something interesting enough to put on his podcast before he gets arrested for it. Normally at this point in the season Marty would be very drunk most days and wouldn’t have the energy or initiative for this, and I don’t think Gil and the gang have reckoned with how their lives are going to be more difficult now that their main antagonist (media division) is sober.

Mary Worth, 5/22/23

Oh, were you wondering if the next Mary Worth plot would be about that couple at the Bum Boat who were looking at their phones instead of talking to each other? Well, too bad, it’s going to be about Estelle and Ed’s vet clinic, and about Old Man Wynter and his giantess girlfriend and their respective dogs. Those dogs better get a clean bill of health! I know I just made fun of Rex Morgan for having zero narrative tension, but I don’t want to see any god damn animal suffering in this strip! We do not need to see any more enormous dog tombstones, you hear me?