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Dustin, 10/21/23

Dustin is, of course, a comic explicitly created to explore the irreconciliable differences between young people and old people and the resulting struggle between the generations. But it’s also a comic the irreconciliable differences between men and women. For instance, did you know that men love to swear, but women are deathly offended by it? It’s true! Look at that guy across the street in the third panel. Look at how happy he looks! “Finally,” he’s thinking, “some swearing around here!” His wife, on the other hand, is concerned that this public profanity is going to lower her property values.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/21/23

Look, I like to think I’m an open minded guy. I don’t want to “yuck” anybody else’s “yum.” I understand — nay, even celebrate — the fact that there are honest, upstanding citizens out there who can only get off sexually by looking at weird misshapen cartoon hillbillies reenacting the Pietà, with some kind of infantilizing thing involving one of the parties giving the other medicine thrown in for good measure. I just think that’s the sort of thing you should have to pay for with cryptocurrency on the dark web, rather than seeing it in newspapers everywhere. If that makes me “sex negative,” then so be it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/21/23

I was going to make fun of the idea that a minor local (?) grifter quietly and peacefully turning himself into the police would make the local news, when the local news could be covering literally anything else, but then I remembered that Mud is obliquely related to this story, and this is a universe where anything even vaguely related to roots country music sends people into utter hysterics. This is gonna be the top story at 6 and 11! They’ll be playing “Muddy Boots” and “Glenwood Motel” leading into every commercial break! This is huge news!

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Gasoline Alley, 10/20/23

If you were thinking that nothing could make this seemingly interminable talking bear story even more pointless and irritating, you were wrong, because I regret to inform you that Rufus and Joel, Gasoline Alley’s two most pointless and irritating characters (which is really saying something), are now involved. I do have to admit that Joel’s comment about the snake really makes you think. Say, kids [turns chair around and sits astride it, adopting the open and cheerful affect of a youth pastor], do you know what the original interminable, pointless, and irritating story that had some random talking animals in it was? That’s right: the Holy Bible. Hey, where are you going? Don’t you kids like comics?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/20/23

Speaking of pastors, we all know that Parson Tuttle is a fraud who likes to yuck it up with local criminal Snuffy Smith about his sins, but I still find it surprising that the two men are watching some R-rated show or movie full of swear words in front of his wife. I guess she’s probably happy that he’s finally spending time with her?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/20/23

Ha ha, this seems like a fun way to find out that June has been complicit with Rene’s various crimes! Will he have a chance to turn state’s evidence on her, or will her agents arrange for him to die in brawl in the jail cafeteria before he ever goes to trial?

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Shoe, 10/19/23

I’ve complained about this before, but Shoe has a long-established setting where the various bird characters get drunk and hit on one another, and it’s the fern bar, so seeing them drinking and smoking and flirting at Roz’s Diner in the middle of the day seems off to me. Since the primary audience for this strip, like all newspaper comic strips, is vaguely disgruntled baby boomers, it’s possible that this is supposed to be a commentary on the fact that everyone is “working” form home now and you can’t even enjoy a nice plate of meatloaf for lunch at your local greasy spoon without having to watch a bunch of kids who make “apps” for a living get drunk and try to have sex with each other, which is probably why they’re charging so much for the meatloaf these days. It’s also possible that the Shoe brain trust simply lost the image files for the fern bar background and they don’t feel like drawing it again.

Mary Worth, 10/19/23

I wonder if Keith is finding his ex using the same public data that led his secret daughter right to his apartment, or if he still has access to police databases that he’s wildly misusing? Either way, I’m not complaining, because it’s very funny seeing this guy with cartoonishly beefy forearms daintily typing away on a little Macbook.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/19/23

Welp, it seems our Mud/Rene kidnapping plot really did just kind of end in the middle of the week, which means we have a few days to spend on the Morgans’ incredibly boring family life, I guess? These kids sound like a real handful; they’re probably too young for the Mirakle Method, but if you stick a screen playing “Li’l Fergus” videos in front of them, they’ll be lulled into ignorable silence at least.

Beetle Bailey, 10/19/23

I think Beetle’s response here is kind of funny, as it’s fairly obvious that he’s sticking a pin in that doll and I assume Killer wants to know what he’s doing in a much bigger-picture sense. Anyway, I was going to do a whole riff about how it’s surprising that someone as lazy as Beetle was willing to put in the work to learn the cultural and spiritual practices of the voudou religion, but it turns out that so-called “voodoo dolls” aren’t used by practitioners of voudou in either Haiti or Louisiana, so I guess his laziness is still in full effect. I’m impressed that he somehow got a really accurate Sarge doll, though.