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Blondie, 8/12/20

It’s both incredibly sad and entirely predictable that Mr. Dithers, in a moment of madness, gave Dagwood the power to authorize any spending he wanted out of company coffers, and instead of immediately draining every DithCo account dry and disappearing to whatever tropical island nation without an extradition treaty with the US has the best sandwiches, he instead bought a panini press for the breakroom. Truly pathetic.

Mark Trail, 8/12/20

Meanwhile, this Mark Trail rerun is here to cement Mark’s place as the most level-headed man on the comics page. Did Mark get nominated for a major award? He’s grateful not for the glory or recognition, but that his work has touched readers around the world. Is he excited about traveling to New York for the ceremony? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, there are a lot of other great nominees, so he’ll be staying in Lost Forest until he gets word that he won, thanks. Of course, by that time he’ll be trapped at the Trail compound because the only road out has been blocked by beaver-felled trees, but there’s no way he could know that now.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/12/20

Sure, the coronavirus epidemic has killed hundreds of thousands of people and disrupted the world economy in unprecedented ways, but look on the bright side: it’s provided a great excuse for Rex to not have to share a bedroom with his wife!

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/9/20

Oh, God, sorry to be the insufferable Los Angeles geography knower but a week ago we were told this fire was called the Point Dume fire, presumably because it had started around Point Dume in Malibu, and today we’re told it’s reached the “Hills of West Hollywood,” by which I guess they mean the hills just north of West Hollywood, there are no actual hilly neighborhoods in the city of West Hollywood proper but never mind that. Anyway, there’s really only one problem with this, which is that if a fire had spread from Malibu to West Hollywood, probably no newscaster would be standing just feet away from it because it would be a thirty-mile wall of flame that managed to jump two freeways, destroy the Getty Center and several extremely wealthy neighborhoods, and just generally be an insane catastrophe that would send literally millions of people fleeing pell-mell from the destruction!

Anyway, this post is mostly for my mom, who’s very convinced every time there’s a fire in LA that our house is on the verge of burning down. Our house isn’t gonna burn down, mom! We’re way too far from any natural vegetation for that to happen. The way LA’s gonna kill us is from the car exhaust from the massive freeway interchange half a mile away, which is not as dramatic.

Curtis, 8/9/20

You know what filled me with absolute, unalloyed delight in today’s comics? Bugsy, the fly who understands what you say! This is insane and kind of out of character for this strip and I love all of it — the big cute eyes on Bugsy, the way he he gestures with all six of his limbs, the overwrought reactions from all his victims! I’d actually argue that he doesn’t just understand when you’re talking about killing him: he also knows what you value most, which is honestly much creepier.

Gasoline Alley, 8/9/20

As far as strips in today’s comics where the characters watch a deranged commercial go, Gasoline Alley is sadly a distant second to Curtis. What exactly is the implication of the exchange in the final panel? Is Rufus planning on shitting in the cans? Is that it?

Panels from Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/9/20

Oh, finally, America’s #1 medical soap opera comic is going to actually grapple with the biggest medical crisis in the last century! Unfortunately, based on the “Lockdown Stories” title, I suspect we’ll be seeing less of Rex telling nurses from across the room to turn patients over onto their stomach and being given 10,000 doses of remdesivir without asking for or really needing them, and more Buck working from home trying to sell music and art from guys who were famous 30 years ago over the internet while his wife takes care of his newborn son and very quickly comes to loathe him.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/7/20

Well, we finally got through the boring parts of this storyline — like the part where Rex did the same dumb normal doctor stuff he does now, but in the past, or the part where he fell over, or the part where he got a free medical practice — but now, at last, we’re getting to the emotional meat of the story, where Rex and June get to know one another and explore their feelings and — oh, what’s that? We’re not getting that at all? Rex hired June, and then proposed three months later, with nothing of interest happening in between those two events? Huh. And then she said yes? Huh. Anyhoo, I guess we’re wrapping this up and moving onto our next storyline, which is probably about … Buck’s favorite rockabilly performer! Bet he’s down on his luck!

Dennis the Menace, 8/7/20

Is a hot dog a sandwich? Is cereal a soup? Is a pop-tart a calzone? Sounds like Dennis has been getting involved in pointless social media/messageboard discussions from two or three years ago, which honestly is at least medium menacing.