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Hi and Lois, 8/12/18

In this fallen age where we’re all overworked and underpaid and comic strip revenue is dropping and endless digitized archives are out there for the reuse and remixing, I’m always slightly suspicious that anything I’m looking at as a comic strip could be a rerun with new dialogue and slightly updated art. Take today’s Hi and Lois. Obviously the core joke is very of the moment. And I’m not sure if we’re supposed to understand Chuck Green’s “my” as meaning “I invented this” or “I just downloaded it.” But is there any world where the visual stereotype to go with either of those things is “guy with white pants, spray tan, and shirt unbuttoned to display chest hair”? Anyway, feel free to imagine whatever extremely 1982 hijinks were going on here before the phone got dropped into the panel.

Crankshaft, 8/12/18

Today’s strip, combined with this weird storyline from a few months ago, indicates to me that someone on the Crankshaft creative team has finally noticed that low-margin retail banking is no longer a profit center for financial institutions and that they’re increasingly trying to cut costs through automation. Unfortunately for the financial services sector, they pissed off someone with access to the unparalleled reach of syndicated newspaper comics. Feeling that burn, Big Banks?

Spider-Man, 8/12/18

Shout-out to Peter Parker for taking time out of his busy being-tied-up-and-ineffectual schedule to notice that Suwan has a feisty nature and a great ass. “Oh, yeah! Shake that thang while you argue with your uncle! Daddy like!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/12/18

Thanks for putting quotes around “Elvis,” Rex Morgan, M.D., narration box! Without them, we might’ve briefly wondered if we were looking at the real Elvis Presley, and that would’ve been exciting, or at least interesting!

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Crock, 8/10/18

So, uh, seven years ago Bill Rechin, the creator of Crock, died, and then a year after that his son Kevin, who had taken over, said that continuing the strip made him depressed so he wasn’t going to do it anymore, and, uh, well, it’s 2018 now and Crock still appears on King Features’ website (and presumably in print newspapers, who can say, someone who still subscribes to a print newspaper, I guess) with “©2018” at the bottom, and I just have never really gotten a handle on whether they’re reruns or someone is still churning these out or what. What I’m saying is, it might’ve been just barely possible in 2011 to imagine that there was a living person who believed that “chat rooms” were a kind of online space that was common and that “Dear chat room” was a normal and believable way someone introduced themselves there. Today, though, when we have Facebook groups like “Carrion Eaters Discussion Group (Positive Vibes Only)” and subreddits like /r/eatersofthedead and probably darkweb sites where you can use bitcoin to buy meat at exactly the right level of rottedness for your needs — well, this strip needs to get with the times, is what I’m saying.

Family Circus, 8/10/18

Jeffy is at that developmental stage where he thinks that the ability to record language via writing is “hip” and “with it” but can’t actually read yet. I guess Big Daddy Keane was banking on at least one of the literate kids being with the younger ones at all times, forgetting what he ought to know deep in his bones: nobody wants to hang around with Jeffy.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/10/18

Because I hate myself, I actually dug through my archives to find the last wedding they had at Montoni’s, which was apparently back in 2014, although that was when Wally and Rachel tried to get married outdoors but were driven by a vengeful God into Northeast Ohio’s most depressing pizza parlor. Speaking of hating yourself, though, Cory and Rocky look to be actually contemplating using the family’s grease-stained sadness hole as their Plan A, possibly because it’s the only retail business in town still in business other than Komix Korner and they still have just the tiniest shred of dignity left.

Gasoline Alley, 8/10/18

“I always say — most of our material circumstances are determined by inherited wealth, and meritocracy is a lie!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/10/18

THAT’S MY BOY! THIS IS THE HIGH POINT OF MY LIFE! MY MARRIAGE TO YOUR MOTHER, YOUR FIRST STEPS — ALL BULLSHIT! THIS IS THE BEST GAME OF PINBALL I’VE EVER PLAYED AND I’M GONNA SPEND MY FEW REMAINING YEARS WATCHING IT OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN, SO KEEP FILMING OR SO HELP ME GOD YOU’LL REGRET IT

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Mary Worth, 8/9/18

Oh, man, not only does Tommy think that his remaining on the straight and narrow is entirely a result of a choice not to sin, but he also thinks his ability to keep making that choice is entirely dependent on his relationship with Brandy, a woman for whom substance abuse has painful emotional resonances! Literally nobody has been in a better or more secure position in his recovery than Tommy right now, I’m pretty sure.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/9/18

Do you get that, everyone? A couple days after the wedding, if you get Mindy’s drift … nudge, nudge. Mindy’s drift is that she wants to spend a couple days after her wedding enjoying some vigorous sex with her new husband before she goes to the Pinball Hall of Fame! Unfortunately, her new husband has previously been defeated by stairs and had to be hospitalized after becoming dehydrated from walking around a comic book convention, so I’m afraid some bitter marital disappointments are looming.