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Blondie, 10/2/20

One of Blondie’s less pleasant running bits is about how most poor people are scam artists, actually, and I feel like today’s strip started out as being a variation on that but somehow become something much, much weirder. This dude isn’t drawn as the typical long-haired scruffy Blondie panhandler; he’s just a regular guy with normal clothes, a respectable haircut, an unsettlingly piercing gaze, and a desire to engage with you about the professional upkeep on his toes. The fact that he’s actually wearing closed-toed shoes makes the whole interaction even more off-putting for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, maybe because the strip is demanding we think about this guy’s feet but isn’t showing them to us so we need to use our imaginations.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/2/20

Well, it seems what “does it” for Buck and Mindy, sexually, is when things more or less work out for the best without anyone having to really do all that much, so I have some good news for them about the comic strip they currently inhabit.

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Dustin, 9/26/20

You know, for a brief, shining moment, I assumed the joke here was that “tuna” just means “fish” in its language of origin, and I thought to myself that “Hey, the few seconds I spent thinking about Dustin today won’t be wasted, for once, because I’ve learned something,” but nope, it turns out the word tuna ultimately derives from the Greek thynnos, which means, well, tuna. So “tuna fish” may be repetitive in that you’re naming a thing and then the larger category of thing that the thing belongs to, but it’s repetitive in an entirely different way than when you name a team after a city, but do so by translating the city’s name into English. And let’s not even get into how the team was for decades called the California Angels, which was actually a fairly clever way to nod to L.A. while claiming territory all over the state after they moved to Orange County, and only recently changed to Los Angeles Angels and it was a whole big controversy! Anyway, the big news is that I got so mad about this that I wasted a lot more than a few seconds thinking about Dustin today.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/26/20

Man, who could forget the Glenwood Motel, the depressing place where Truck was forced to quarantine in isolation for days because he was suffering from a persistent respiratory illness? Normally you’d say this experience was a terrible theme for a song, but occasionally, an artist stumbles into his perfect historical moment.

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Mark Trail, 9/22/20

Oh man, Woods and Wildlife editor Bill Ellis is just having a fuckin’ meltdown that Mark would even consider tending to his wounded dog instead of flying into New York for the big Conservation Writer of the Year banquet at the Waldorf Astoria. Doesn’t Mark know how much is riding on this? The notoriously cutthroat Conservation Writers of America society will just not give you the award if you don’t show up in person to accept it, so they’ll hand it to the runner-up (some guy from Ranger Rick, probably?) and then Bill, Woods and Wildlife, and their publisher (a disreputable hedge fund that bought the W&W intellectual property at fire sale prices from the Hearst Corporation in 2015) can kiss all those sweet CWotY pageviews and subscription renewals goodbye.

Dick Tracy, 9/22/20

Ha ha, teen girls! This weird professor, who is literally wearing fangs right now, is definitely not into the vampire lifestyle, which he just brought up to see if you were as not into it as he was, even though, as he can’t emphasize enough, it’s all safe and consensual. Here, read these pamphlets and check out these websites! If your opinions about modern, progressive vampirism change, don’t hesitate to get back in touch.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/22/20

CONFIDENTIAL TO BUCK: If the lost revenue from your convention circuit sales is offset by the fact that you no longer have to pay the expenses associated with your convention circuit sales, your business may be, to use a technical term, “unprofitable.”

CONFIDENTIAL TO MINDY: The idea that someone would be glad to be stuck in the house with Buck is not believable. Is this a hostage situation? Are you in danger? Blink twice if you need help.

Pluggers, 9/22/20

A plugger romantic dinner is when a wife constantly begs to go eat somewhere that isn’t fast food, just this once, and her husband finally agrees but he’s really passive aggressive about it all evening.