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Dustin, 5/1/23

A truly incredible thing to keep in mind about Dustin is that it’s a comic that debuted in January 2010, when, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, unemployment was higher than it had been at any time since the Great Depression, and its whole deal was that college grads who had to move home because they couldn’t find jobs were just lazy, entitled brats whose problems were entirely a product of their bad character. It’s really only today, with joblessness at historic lows, that the times have caught up with the strip’s premise, although now the economic big brains are loudly proclaiming that we need more unemployment in order to fight inflation, so maybe Dustin needs to start arguing that actually, by being unemployable, he’s helping in macroeconomic terms.

Hi and Lois, 5/1/23

In other generational warfare news, Hi is a white-collar suburban dad in a legacy comic strip so he feels like he should be a Boomer, but based on the age of his kids he’s probably in his mid-to-late 40s, and, you know what, usually us Gen Xers are just glad to be noticed, but I’m sorry, I will not sit here and be lectured to by Chip fucking Flagston of all people.

The Lockhorns, 5/1/23

You ever have an older relative that you remember always “taking a nap on the couch” during family functions when you were a kid, and you only realized later probably hated big gatherings in their house and self-medicated by getting drunk? Well, in unrelated news, Leroy has “run out of gas” during Loretta’s attempt to share a pleasant afternoon with him.

Dick Tracy, 5/1/23

This sounds like a great way for the Red Cross to destroy its role as a neutral aid organization and ensure that no government ever gave them access to POWs ever again! On the other hand, do we know for sure they didn’t do this for Axis POWs too? Maybe they were just opposed to the idea of holding prisoners of war in general.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/1/23

“This is Rex Morgan, M.D., for pete’s sake! Do you realize that something interesting briefly happened? Unacceptable!”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/25/23

I love how exasperated Hank Jr. looks by this turn of events in panel two. “No, it’s not that big a deal, he just tried to kill me so I wouldn’t expose him, now I gotta save his life, so hold my shoes and tell the captain to turn this absolutely enormous cruise ship around, hopefully I’ll survive the next few hours in the icy water while he thrashes around and perhaps actively tries to kill us both. What a pain in the butt!”

Gil Thorp, 4/25/23

“Are you saying wanted as in — WAP? A [whispers] wanted-ass player?”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/23/23

Like all industries, the newspaper soap opera strip game is inevitably prone to jealousies and copycat moves when one strip has a true breakout moment — like, say, when a character falls to his death off a cruise ship, except it turns out that he didn’t really die, actually. Still, it’s hard to top the original, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I feel like Wilbur earned his not-death, in that we had quite a bit of lead-up involving him getting drunk, feuding with Estelle, doing the “King of the World” thing, etc. Whereas this storyline seemed to be hinting instead at some battle of wits between Rene and Hank Jr. that might eventually escalate to a battle of fists, but instead we just get Rene going from 0 to murder in a single panel, and Hank foiling said murder attempt two panels later by simply stepping out of the way, an act that can never be spun as “exciting” even if the narration box describes it with an exclamation point. Anyway, I’m not sure if Rene is actually dead or just Wilbur dead, but I do hope that either way a few hours in the bosom of the sea dissolves a lot of that spirit gum so that, when they fish him/his corpse out, his dumb chinbeard is only halfway attached.

Mary Worth, 4/23/23

Speaking of people who died, but then didn’t die, but then died a much more crushing death, which is to say a romantic and emotional death, here’s Wilbur, sob-singing his way through 1976 banger “Don’t Cry Out Loud” in front of a karaoke crowd that I assume is cringing so hard they’re sustaining internal organ damage, and then we smash cut to Dr. Ed and Estelle publicly canoodling and declaring their love for one another. It’s perfect, and now that you’ve read it, you can go do some lawn work or spring cleaning or just lie down and have a nice little Sunday nap, because all is right with the world.