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Blondie, 9/21/23

Way back in 2006 — which, I take no pleasure in reporting, was a full 17 years ago — there was a weird rash of syndicated newspaper comic strips doing jokes about how crazy it was that people would actually pay extra for distressed jeans. This was not exactly fresh material even then, but that didn’t stop They’ll Do It Every Time (RIP) and Six Chix and Pluggers and Curtis from making hay out of it. Normally I’d cruelly mock Blondie for being close to two decades late on this trend, but I do have to grudgingly respect the fact that instead of just laughing at this hot youth trend, Dagwood and Blondie are instead figuring out how to profit from it, like the innovators they are.

Marvin, 9/21/23

I genuinely kind of love that Jenny has the same bright smile in both the first and third panels of this comic. They even didn’t have a fight or anything! Instead she had the extremely freeing experience of hearing her spouse’s opinion and realizing she just didn’t care about it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/21/23

Look, Rex Morgan, M.D., has one (1) recurring bad guy, so I’m going to need more evidence before I believe that he’s been brought to a state of blubbering catharsis by having his own pop-psychology scam repeated back to him by a roots country star. It seems more likely to me that, despite his understandable desire to get the money he’s owed, he’s been overcome by a similarly understandable desire to not hang around with these two drips anymore and sees a sudden change of heart/personality as a good opportunity to leave this scene behind him.

Mary Worth, 9/21/23

What do you guys think is in the bag, huh? A human head? It’s a human head, right? [everyone starts pounding rhythmically on the table] HU! MAN! HEAD! HU! MAN! HEAD!

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/16/23

Shoutout to Rex Morgan, which, when its armed kidnapping plot rapidly devolved into discussions about the easiest way to transfer money, decided to keep digging and get into a whole thing about ordering room service. “I’m armed, remember?” says Rene, in a desperate attempt to drag the excitement level back up, but nobody’s listening, nobody cares.

Gil Thorp, 9/16/23

Shoutout to Gil Thorp for just having Gil deliver pure unadulterated gnomic bullshit directly to the cameras. “We just need to refocus … I have a feeling this is going to be a long season,” he intones, transfixing readers at home with an eerie Kubrick stare. You don’t need to go so hard, Gil, it’s only week one of the season!

Pluggers, 9/16/23

Wait, is Pluggers implying that a thing that we had in the past and no longer have might’ve been less than perfect? UNACCEPTABLE, BURN THE HERETIC

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Dustin, 9/14/23

Apologies (?) for not showing you yesterday’s Dustin, which consisted of Dustin asking his dad to guess the global gross domestic product, and Dustin’s dad guessing $100 trillion when the actual answer was $102 trillion (according to the strip, anyway, but if you think I’m doing any research whatsoever to fact-check a gag in Dustin you are sorely mistaken), and there was some bemused discussion of how his guess was quite close in relative terms despite being off by $2 trillion, a very large sum when considered on its own. Anyway, this was annoying but not that annoying — certainly not that annoying by Dustin’s usual standards — so I didn’t bother talking about it here. But repeating the exact same “joke” today, with nothing new added other than a shuffle in the lineup of characters saying it? Well, that’s annoying enough to bring to your attention. If they try to get a whole week out of this concept, I’m going to be very annoyed indeed.

The Lockhorns, 9/14/23

See, if you’re going to do a themed week, you really need to follow the lead of The Lockhorns and do it with a real purity of purpose and tight focus. This week is apparently “Lockhorns anniversary week,” the theme of which is that Leroy and Loretta use the occasion to attack and belittle one another in anniversary-specific ways, as opposed to the more general ways in which they do it over the rest of the year.

Gil Thorp, 9/14/23

Wow, it looks like Toby and Rod really used their time in prison to sharpen their football skills, huh? This is going to send an important message to student-athletes everywhere: that the best way to get a leg up is to go to juvie where they’ll be forced to play football for the entertainment of a sadistic warden, so they need to do some crimes, but not crimes so serious that they get sent to adult prison, where the sadistic warden can only be entertained by no-holds-barred steel cage matches.

Blondie, 9/14/23

Love the way Elmo is solemnly making direct eye contact with the reader in the final panel here. This truly is an important lesson about school picture day that America’s children need to learn, which is why it’s so tragic that no children read Blondie.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/14/23

RENE THEY ARE ONLY TRYING TO PAY YOU THE MONEY YOU ARE OWED AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE, WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE CRIME AND THREATS WITH YOU