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Gasoline Alley, 5/1/22

I gotta say, this Gasoline Alley was a real journey for me, in the sense that the opening title led me to hope that, finally, Rufus and Joel, my least favorite characters out of a cast in which I don’t like anybody, would be horribly murdered by some kind of undead fiend who drained their bodies of blood, but then it turns out to be some kind of weird meta-thing involving people and details I refuse to research further. On the bright side, though, we do get pretty solid confirmation at the end that our rustic duo are thoroughly illiterate.

Blondie, 5/1/22

Look, if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s when comics stretch out what could’ve been been a weekday strip to fill the Sunday panels and trash all their world-building and continuity in the process. What I’m saying is that Dagwood has exactly one friend, and it’s Herb, and they don’t even like each other. I have no idea who these other two people are. I assume they’re Dagwood’s neighbors whom he vaguely knows, and they’re being a lot more polite about this than I would be.

Mary Worth, 5/1/22

Mary Worth, on the other hand, often does a pretty good job of doing a Sunday strip that’s mostly a recap of the week’s plot but contains one little detail that rewards you for reading it in addition to the dailies. Today, that detail is Ian’s little note in the fourth panel. Ian is 100% a guy who would have an inappropriate sexual relationship with a student that was destined to leave her emotionally fucked up for decades and then write “with much affection” in her yearbook.

Pluggers, 5/1/22

Hey, look, buddy, the point of Pluggers is to use furries to illustrate down-home real American anecdotes that manage to be self-deprecating and smug at the same time, OK? It is not a venue for working out your extremely petty and very specific marital grievances, do better everybody

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Pluggers, 4/28/22

One of the most controversial takes I’ve ever unleashed on Twitter is that the Lockhorns are Millennials. Conversely, reporting that pluggers are almost certainly now Gen X makes my 1974-born heart heavy, but I don’t think I’m really going to get any pushback on that, and it’s true that I’m probably among the lower end of the age range that actually had to worry about paying a long distance bill. Speaking of pluggers and phone stuff, a thing that wife and I constantly chuckle about is that her dad moved to a new city a while ago — several years ago, but, you know, well into the era when nobody pays for long distance anymore — and even though he had a perfectly good phone cell phone number, he jumped through all the hoops to get a new number with his new local area code, which strikes me as something that would work for Pluggers, maybe? I don’t really have a punchline here, I’m just pitching a Pluggers idea, which makes sense because I’m Gen X, like, as noted, most pluggers are.

Mary Worth, 4/28/22

Ian Cameron is also probably supposed to be Gen X, but he’s no plugger! He put on a suit and tie to go loom menacingly in the shadowy doorway of his ex’s (?) office (?) like he’s in some German expressionist film because that’s the kind of classy and sophisticated man he is. Are he and Helen going to kiss? I sure hope so! I sure hope he maintains that glowering facial expression throughout the entire process, too!

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Pluggers, 4/24/22

When I lived in Oakland, California, there was a plumber’s truck that parked near my apartment building all the time with the business name “KING OF THEM ALL” emblazoned on the side of it. This was in 1999 or so, so it wasn’t a given that every business would be online, but they also had a URL proudly emblazoned on the side, “kingofthemall.com”, and I always thought that whoever was the King of the Mall must have been pretty pissed! Anyway, it’s now the year 2022, kingofthemall.com is an SEO spam site filled with uncanny valley prose written by a machine, nobody cares about URLs any more anyway because now to find out about a business’s hours or contact information you have to look on their Instagram stories for some reason, and Pluggers are here to inform you that if your small vehicle-based business has an even vaguely creative name, you have given up your plugger status no matter how blue-collar you are. Apologies to the King Of Them All, wherever you are.

Dick Tracy, 4/24/22

Gotta respect that Dick Tracy, whose antagonists all have based their entire identity on some weirdo shtick, is willing to engage in banter with said antagonists about said shtick. This is more important to the criminals of Neo-Chicago than their so-called “civil rights,” which is good because Dick Tracy definitely will be violating those.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/24/22

Oh dang, is our hero, the “Street Sweeper,” who apparently built his vigilante identity around his quotidian day job, going to become an super villain? If some guy pissed all over the floor and told me “Hey buddy, you missed a bit over there,” that would do it for me! I wouldn’t take offense at random passersby making fun of my identity, though. That’s just part of the risk of being a superhero, and you need to develop a thick skin against those sorts of criticisms. But the pee thing? Unacceptable.

Mary Worth, 4/24/22

Haha, yes, at last some real Ian drama, which is all I’ve ever craved from this Toby storyline! Were Ian and Helen enemies? Lovers? Enemies to lovers, one of the most popular tropes in the romance genre? Can’t wait to find out!