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The Lockhorns, 2/6/23

A thing I like about The Lockhorns is that it’s a comic about a marriage that has spiraled into truly dark territory, but most of the individual strips aren’t necessarily about incandescent moments of hate. Instead, you just get a series of small disappointments that add up to a wasted life. Like, today, you have to imagine that Loretta got it into her head that they should be a tea family, or at least that they should try it out, and she went through the trouble of putting together a matching tea set, and now, on morning one, Leroy just stares dully into his cup and is like “enh, let’s not.” Devastating. Devastating! And the most devastating thing is that they can still devastate one another like this, without even thinking about it.

Slylock Fox, 2/6/23

I feel like Weirdly has honestly put more work into his alibi here than he usually does. “Who, me?” he says. “I just got back from bowling. Haven’t even bothered to put my ball away yet, and my phone still hasn’t fully recharged. I was just sitting down to get on the computer and hadn’t even had time to enter my password!” The boiling flask isn’t that suspicious to me, it’s not like Weirdly has ever given the vibe of being really concerned about safety so he could’ve just left it boiling while he was out, or left one of his menagerie in charge of it, like the purple thing or the [record scratch] WAIT HOLD ON A SECOND COURT WEIRDLY HAS A MAX-ANALOGUE SIDEKICK? With the same color/dress scheme except he’s like … a tiny canid predator of some sort? Is that a small fox, specifically chosen to taunt Slylock? More on this story as it develops.

Pluggers, 2/6/23

It’s hard to get more Pluggers that today’s Pluggers, in which a plugger looks more smug than you can possibly imagine after completing a basic task that used to be something everyone did and now is something that nobody actually needs to do.

Shoe, 2/6/23

It looks like, after literally years of me demanding that Shoe start doing jokes that play off the strip’s basic premise, which is that all the characters are birds, that they finally did one. Honestly, I feel nothing about this. Nothing at all. This should be a big day for me, and yet: nothing. Going to go somewhere quiet where I can contemplate what I’m doing with my life for a bit.

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Beetle Bailey, 2/1/23

Is the Comic Sans font trademarked in some way? Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t, but the important thing is that writing an email to the boys in legal to find out would cut into time relaxing on the golf course, so let’s just err on the side of safety, shall we?

Pluggers, 2/1/23

So you’re telling me that pluggers are unfamiliar with Simon Peter, Cephas, Prince of the Apostles. St. Peter. The guy at the pearly gates. That guy. Pluggers have never heard of him. You sure about that? You sure about that, Pluggers? I don’t want to get into an argument or anything, but I gotta say that I myself am not so sure about that.

Marvin, 2/1/23

“Oh, do you think having to read about a baby who’s constantly pooping and pissing in his diaper is gross? Well, what if instead of a baby, it was a five year old boy? That would be worse, right? It would be a lot worse. So just think about the stuff you complain about. Because it could get a lot worse.” –the comic strip Marvin, in a threat directed against me personally

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Mary Worth, 1/24/23

You might remember that a bit over a year ago, Estelle, owner of two pets — a cat who defeated Wilbur in a piss fight and a dog that Wilbur had to give to her because the dog didn’t like him — went on a fateful date with her vet during one of the off-again lulls in her on-again, off-again relationship with Wilbur, and that date was the night of the fateful karaoke battle that she and Wilbur waged against one another. Ed the vet left immediately, obviously, and they hadn’t spoken since, but last week she decided to take her pets back to him for a checkup, and I guess hoped that he wouldn’t mention it? But he did mention it, and they had a good laugh and decided to do another date, which I didn’t discuss here because it was all pretty boring.

Today, thought … today has potential. There’s one thing any person absolutely loves on a date, and its when their date arrives late, sits down directly next to you, and says “Sorry about the wait, but I was up to my elbows in dead pomeranian like 15 minutes ago. Wasn’t my fault, honest, thought it’s not like you or the pomeranian’s owners could tell if it was, ha ha!” Anyway, after Wilbur and Arthur Z, Dr. Ed should have a very low bar to clear in terms of Estelle romantic partner quality, so I’m excited to see how it botches it.

Dick Tracy, 1/24/23

It’d be pretty wild if this Dick Tracy storyline ends with the criminals all killing each other before Dick even has a chance to! Maybe one day these guys will learn that it’s better for everyone concerned if contracts are enforced by a state apparatus with an elaborate system of civil law and, ultimately, a monopoly on legitimate violence, rather than just the fickle promises of other criminals.

Pluggers, 1/24/23

Sure, you laugh, but this is actually a great screening and diagnostic technique. If you come back and the patient is angry-crying about how they’ve pissed themselves waiting for you, you know you should schedule them for an appointment right a way, whereas if they’re just annoyed you can fit them in next month sometime.

Shoe, 1/24/23

“Wait, aren’t you like eleven years old? That frankly makes even less sense.”