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Mary Worth, 7/17/22

Finally, finally, Jared is experiencing some real emotional pain that goes beyond his standard-issue petulant whining and mild self-loathing. I’m not sure if he’s breaking down in tears because he can’t believe how cruel this world can be to a beautiful person like Jess, or if he’s breaking down in tears because he’s living a lie and he doesn’t actually find Jess beautiful at all and he can’t believe how cruel he’s being. There’ll be time to learn more later. The important part is that he’s suffering, and I’m grateful for that.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/17/22

Oh hey, remember how Andrzej thought he was dying, so he snuck off to the hospital, but then it just turned out to be indigestion? Well now Hildy thinks she’s dying, so she’s going to sneak off to the hospital! Ha ha, what’ll these wacky old people get up to next? Well, dying, presumably, at some point.

Dustin, 7/17/22

Dustin is a strip about the eternal war of the young against the old, but today it takes a little detour to comment on the eternal war of man against woman. It doesn’t have a joke about it, or even any vague wordplay, but I guess the change of pace is nice.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/5/22

Say, were you feeling a little on edge rolling into our four-day week? Need your nerves soothed? Well, remember how beloved (?) ancillary Rex Morgan character Andrzej was about to die of a heart attack? Turns out he just had heartburn. False alarm! Ha ha! But it’s a false alarm that Rex can definitely still bill Medicare for, so all’s well that ends well.

Gil Thorp, 7/5/22

A fun aspect of the baseball season Gil Thorp plot is it’s been all about comically blind Gregg Hamm and his media circus and we only hear in passing about how the other pitchers on the team are also doing great. Gregg (and these other, less interesting pitchers) got the team into the playdowns this year but, just in case that’s too much excitement for you: Gregg blew it and they lost in the first round. Whew! One less thing to worry about there!

Gasoline Alley, 7/5/22

I know I’m going against theme here but it may excite you to learn that some characters in Gasoline Alley are going to have some post-fireworks sex tonight. One of them is named “Boog.” Does that excite you? Or disgust you? Is disgust a kind of negative excitement? Much to think about.

Dennis the Menace, 7/5/22

Damn, Dennis, one minute you’re humiliating your dad in front of tough guys by pointing out he’s insufficiently masculine, and the next you’re humiliating him while he’s trying to fit into a masculine milieu by pointing out traditional masculinity’s violent, toxic underpinnings. It’s almost like you don’t care one way another about society’s construction of gender roles and are willing to say whatever will most efficiently ruin your father’s attempts to make friends, which is truly the most nihilistically menacing move of all.

Mary Worth, 7/5/22

Wait, would Jess “like to see more” of Jared as a romantic interest … or as a medical caregiver? Wait, it’s both, you say? That seems extremely healthy all around. Please proceed!

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Marvin, 6/26/22

Look, I get it. Marvin, the strip, wants to “have it all” as a comic strip. That means that it wants to be a strip about an infant, and wants to be a strip where that infant delivers sarcastic one-liners and sasses back to his parents. But that can make it difficult for readers — and, frankly, the strip itself — to get a real firm handle on how old Marvin, the character, is supposed to be, from a developmental standpoint. I mean, here, why would you do whole strip where a mom admonishes her kid about wetting the bed, and yet also makes it clear that said kid is wearing diapers, and thus isn’t potty trained yet? It doesn’t add u– wait, what’s that you say? It’s some sick fetish? A fetish where increasingly elaborate piss scenarios are lovingly described to non-consenting newspaper readers everywhere? And it’s been happening in plain view of everyone, for years. Interesting. Interesting. I’ll keep that one in mind next time I read this strip!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/26/22

Hey, folks, remember June’s beloved Aunt (?) Hildy, who showed up on the family doorstep one day and became a live-in babysitter, and we briefly thought she might be a drunk but then it turned out she just took your occasional unplanned nap, and finally Rex reconnected her with her cheating ex-husband Andrzej, who was also an ex-pro wrestler, and they made up and got back together, sexually, and then she moved out? Anyway, the Street Sweeper plot has finally wrapped up, so I guess the new storyline is going to be to find what Hildy and Andrzej are up to. What they appear to be up to is dying of heart disease, so this should be a quick one.

Rhymes With Orange, 6/26/22

Well, this is it, everyone: consensual nonmonogamy has finally hit the newspaper comics. Sure, it’s a radical comic like Rhymes With Orange today, but can the normal ones like Garfield be far behind?