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Dustin, 4/1/23

Today’s Dustin is based on one of my least favorite (which is really saying something) running strip premises, which is that the supposedly young characters attempt to meet other young people for romantic reasons at fern bars where the guys all drink pint glasses of beer and the gals all drink wine, rather than by staring blankly at their phones and putting forth the minimum physical effort necessary to swipe in one direction or another for hours on end. But if we’re accepting this make-belive fantasy world, I approve of today’s strip, in which one of the aforementioned wine-drinking ladies decides that she’s going to make a move on the gents! You go, girl! I guess Dustin’s friend Fitch, whose whole characterization in the strip thus far has been “is stupid,” can now additionally be characterized as “is supposed to be reasonably attractive in-universe.” Obviously she leaves immediately once she get’s a whiff of their terrible personalities.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/1/23

Hootin’ Holler has long been completely isolated from mainstream civilization save for the occasional faint radio broadcast, so taking care to tend to the calendar and its associated set of holy days is a quite important task! Sadly, it’s yet another one that apparently only the women of this community are capable of performing.

Gil Thorp, 4/1/23

Oh, hey, I don’t think I mentioned this, but the Mudlarks have a disturbingly lifelike peacock mascot now, which I believe is a reference to a 2013 storyline where one of the kids thought a peacock he saw was a reincarnation of his dead brother that granted the team good luck, but it just ended up being a peacock that belonged to some guy. This honestly is fine, given that the bird sometimes called a mudlark is usually called a “magpie-lark” and is kind of boring-looking, and I guess we’re all too “PC” now to have a disgusting Victorian urchins looking for scraps of metal on the banks of the Thames to resell as a team mascot.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/1/23

“Sugar on a spoon?” Is this a song about heroin? Is Prof. Augustus Mirakle his dealer? Maybe the tales of Mud Mountain’s digestive distress aren’t finished yet.

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Hi and Lois, 3/30/23

“Oh, are you giddy with anticipation over a fresh new year, full of infinite possibilities? Well, have you considered that, since those possibilities are truly infinite, some of them … are bad, actually? That you could experience lows almost as intense as the highs you’re experiencing now, and indeed have, just as recently as last year? Just a thought to leave you with, I’m going to go ruin somebody’s else’s week now. Maybe I’ll tell Trixie that the sun is millions of miles away and doesn’t think about her at all!”

Mary Worth, 3/30/23

I was about to yell “STOP TALKING ABOUT EUTHANIZING PETS ON DATES, ED” at our poor burned out doctor, but you know what? The last date these two had, he couldn’t shut up about euthanizing pets, and then he tried to blow her off and she basically begged him for another one, so I guess he knows what he’s doing.

The Lockhorns, 3/30/23

Holy crap — Leroy whined about the ability of his cell phone to accommodate the fact that he uses it constantly and someone (presumably a Baby Boomer) tried to burn him by handing him an old landline phone? Folks … you’d better believe that the Lockhorns are Millennials.

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Some sad news for folks who are longtime fans of Mary Worth (which, I assume, is all of you): Joe Giella, who was the strip’s artist for more than 20 years before he retired in 2016, passed away this week at the age of 94. A lot of people out there remember his lifetime of work in superhero comics, but we Curmudgeons know that Mary Worth is his greatest legacy. His successor June Brigman posted this heartfelt note on her Facebook:

Cartoonist and friend of the blog David Willis posted a long Twitter thread of his favorite Giella Mary Worth panels and I really do urge you to go through it, some truly delightful stuff here. He will be missed but it’s also great that he got to enjoy some years of retirement!

Meanwhile, please enjoy this comment of the week:

“In March all red-blooded American men are required by law to at least pretend to be experts on college basketball, but Paul’s one-upping everyone else by going full paternal with it. No longer content with just one biological son, Paul will daddily daze the entire NCAA. Chew on that, people who say single-parent homes aren’t a danger to society!” –jroggs

And your runners up! Very funny!

“Snuffy gives the parson an orange can cozy rather than an orange hat or orange jacket because of the harsh economic realities of Hootin Holler: when parson Tuttle gets mistaken for a bear and shot, he’ll be there to scoop up the collection can, and he wants to make sure it isn’t shot up, too.” –gardenornament

“I found this group called ‘Not One More Vet.’ Turns out there are way too many veterinarians! You should retire!” –Peanut Gallery

“If Dr. Ed really is depressed it’s his nephew’s fault, you know. That kid was the one all bummed out about the job. Then he talks to Ed, and Ed catches depression. What if Ed infects Estelle? Oh, she’d be a huge downer. They need to find that nephew! You have to kill the head vampire to cure everyone else!” –made of wince

“The way the Doc is yelling and Bil is crying I figure ‘flu’ is their agreed upon code word for gonorrhea.” –Hibbleton

“I’m sorry that Daddy has the flu, kid, but the facts that Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne had a son in violation of his monastic vows, that his son still somehow lives over 1300 hundred years later, that his son has studied to become a doctor and a general practitioner, and that his son actually does his own medical billing instead of sending you down the hall to talk to the ‘ladies in billing,’ is the real story. We truly do live in a time of miracles.” –Voshkod

“I’m more worried that Keanes’ doctor makes him undress for a flu test. Next week’s panels are drawn by the courtroom sketch artist.” –Donny Ferguson, on Twitter

“Oh come on. There’s no way five Milford players know who Kareem is. At least one of them would say something idiotic like ‘Gordon from Sesame Street! What the hell?’” –KMD

“Ok kids, for starters, the most important thing in basketball is to be 7′2″. What? How can you expect me to help you if you aren’t willing to even do that? Goodbye, losers!” –cheech wizard

“Say what you will about Gil Thorp, but the strip is rendering its readers the ultimate daily comics service: the opportunity to be smug about knowing a celebrity the youngs do not. This will sustain their righteous snit for weeks, I tell you!” –pastordan

“Uh oh. Looks like Dr. Ed has mistaken a bottle of horse liniment for beer.” –Charterstoned

“Oh, that’s his LEG. I thought he was holding a burlap bag in the same hand as his beer for some reason. To put the cat in? Before pitching it in the river? There are easier ways to quit the profession, Dr. Ed!” –Twinkles the Elf

“I know that Ed is talking to his cat, but I think it would be pretty funny if it were revealed that he worships a pantheon of ancient Norse gods. I mean, something is going to get in the way of his relationship with Estelle, can’t it be something fun?” –pugfuggly

“‘Going physically to work to ask for the current day off‘ joins ‘dating Beetle’ in Incomprehensible Shit Miss Buxley Does.” –nescio

“Maybe coffee is the solution to every plugger problem. You just have to be creative enough to see it. Just imagine how much happier that rhino man would have been if instead of taking his TV to the pawn shop, he had thrown a cup of hot coffee into the face of the pawn broker, robbing him while the poor beast-man recoiled from second and third degrees burns to the face! Look out world! Pluggers have hot coffee, an increasing lack of regard for the welfare of others and lots of problems that need solving!” –Lionheart

“Snuffy and Barlow have been bitten by paralyzing spiders, who even know are fashioning their bodies into bait traps for flies.” –Schroduck

“Coffee? Coffee? Boy, the Duct Tape people and the makers of Bisquick are going to be absolutely furious when they see this.” –Old School Allie Cat

“Remember what I did last time you were here? I moved the furniture into awkward positions, and now we have to live with it!” –BigTed

“The ‘living it up’ version of this cruise seems to be having a drink on the balcony lounge chair while wearing jorts, so I am going to assume that no one involved with this creative team has much experience with ‘living it up.’” –Drew Funk

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