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Blondie, 5/26/19

Longtime joshreads dot com trufans know that one of my obsessions about the comic strip Blondie is that Dagwood and Blondie and their teenage children live in a house that, as near we can tell, doesn’t have a shower. We see the inside of their bathroom repeatedly (some might say too often for comfort), and we’ve never seen a shower head or shower curtain. We know that Dagwood prefers baths himself, but it seems bizarre for him to impose his lifestyle choices on his family, especially considering that adding a shower head wouldn’t prevent him from bathing in his preferred manner.

Anyway, today we learn that there is a second bathroom somewhere in the Bumstead residence! Is this where non-Dagwood family members shower, like normal people? And where is this other bathroom? We know that the tub-bathroom where today’s action takes place is on the second floor. Is the tub-bathroom a master bath? Is the more typical bathroom usually the one the kids used, but Blondie has had enough and finally just wants to take a shower today, god damn it? I’ll return to this topic once I finish my elaborate digital 3D model of the Bumstead house, which will rival the diagrams of the Overlook Hotel that the Kubrick obsessives of Room 237 came up with.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/26/19

Good news, everyone! Any sense of dramatic tension that might’ve been created by this robbery has been dissipated in just four days, which has to be some kind of record. And the big resolution also reveals that nobody was ever in the slightest danger this whole time! What a relief!

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The Lockhorns, 5/22/19

I gotta give The Lockhorns credit here: this panel contains a classic “male character is aroused by a sexy nurse character” scenario, but acknowledges that no actual medical professional has worn the stereotypical white “sexy nurse” uniform in decades. However, the direction they did end up going with it, where the nurse is wearing typically pastel scrubs but, like, form-fitting, short-skirted, sexy scrubs, is perhaps even more insane and unlikely, so I suppose I gotta give them credit for that too!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/22/19

Oh, huh, I guessed I called it correctly: it’s an armed robbery! I’m very intrigued to see exactly how Rex Morgan, M.D., will make an armed robbery boring.

Family Circus, 5/22/19

Dolly joined a cult because she thought it would finally make people pay attention to her! It isn’t working very well.

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Dustin, 5/20/19

OK, I guess today I’m going to formalize what’s becoming a regular feature on this blog; this is another installment of Josh, A Gen-Xer And Thus A Neutral Party, Assesses The Accuracy Of Dustin, A Strip About The Clash Between Millennials And Baby Boomers That Blatantly Favors The Latter.

What today’s Dustin gets right: Millennials do seem to love astrology! Like, love it a little too much! It’s like a whole thing!

What today’s Dustin gets wrong: Millennials don’t get their horoscopes from a physical newspaper, and also don’t look at job ads in a physical newspaper, and also job ads in a physical newspaper are no longer a particularly useful way to find jobs.

Ha ha, but, horoscopes and the kids today though! Am I right folks?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/20/19

Kelly and Niki have become insanely square compared to their origin stories as a sass-talking goth and petty thief, respectively, but they and their pal Barfy McChokerson are the closest this strip still has to interesting characters, so I guess I’m glad to see them. What do you suppose is the deal with those guys over at the next table, the ones vibrating like tuning forks? Are they shaking in anxiety as they work on the nerve to rob the joint? Are they addicts who are starting to twitch uncontrollably as they go into withdrawal? Are they just chilly? Is the air conditioning up too high, and they were right on the edge of being cold and then made the mistake of ordering iced coffees? Should they have worn more layers?

Funky Winkerbean, 5/20/19

Say, it’s been a while since we checked in on the Les-Cayla marriage. How’s it going? Today’s strip really gives us a sense of the sweep of that whole relationship, from the early days when Cayla was still capable of being disappointed by Les, to today, when she’s just completely numb to his bullshit.