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Mary Worth, 4/3/22

It’s fascinating to me that in the year 2022, the rhythms of soap opera strips are still predicated on the fact that some newspaper subscribers don’t get the Sunday paper, while others only get the Sunday paper, so Sunday has to be treated in a special way for continuity storytelling — whether that means you take the Phantom route and doing entirely different Sunday and weekday storylines, or the Mary Worth route where you just recap everything for the week on Sunday and don’t introduce any new information. Today’s strip achieves this cleverly by showing us that Toby isn’t just crying in her car, she’s also playing the moments that brought her to this pathetic state over and over in her mind, including a fantastic vision of Helen transforming herself into a literal demon as she threatens to narc Toby out for a little light flirting. That panel should frankly be used in advertisements to get people to sign up for the Sunday paper. Do you really want to miss this, in vivid color?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/3/22

On the other hand, sometimes a strip just takes a Sunday to reintroduce you to all their characters, just in case in the year 2022 some Sunday subscriber is thinking to themselves, “Rex Morgan, M.D., what’s that thing’s whole deal” but isn’t feeling so curious as to walk over to the computer. Anyway, I’m cackling about the fact that Buck didn’t make the cut for the ancillary character panel. Not sure if they’re finally admitting that they’re never going to make Buck happen or if they feel like they need to get readers hooked and emotionally involved before learning how much of this strip revolves around Buck’s off-putting antics.

Marvin, 4/3/22

I know nobody likes Marvin, and and that it’s very understandable why Marvin’s dad doesn’t like him, but you have to admit it’s pretty wild that “I, Marvin’s dad, do not enjoy the company of my son, Marvin” is the entire punchline to this strip!

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Mary Worth, 4/2/22

I love that Mary Worth seems to be edging towards “what if we did a story about cancel culture and #metoo overreach … but we gender reversed it” but then they didn’t fully gender reverse it, instead leaving Cal a vacuous and vaguely horny cipher and making some random middle-aged lady the villain. Obvious a man can’t ruin someone’s life with hysterical accusations! Men can’t be hysterical! It’s right there in the name!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/2/22

So we see where Rex Morgan stands when it comes to sensitive content: totally OK with catering to the increasingly baroque desires of foot fetishists, but prudish about showing a guy getting beaten to death with a lead pipe in the backseat of some car by a guy who looks like Thomas Dewey. And honestly? I’m fine with that.

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Blondie, 3/28/22

I honestly kind of respect how Blondie is just absolutely committed to doing jokes about whatever big pan-cultural event is on the calendar, and in a way that doesn’t engage with the specifics of said event at all, instead just acknowledging that it exists at an extremely surface level, so that the jokes could theoretically be reused for years to come (though amazingly I’m pretty sure they never are). The cultural net is pretty wide, too, and I’m not sure if that’s meant to make sure that there’s a little something for all the Blondie-heads — “the folks who weren’t into our generic March Madness gags last week will surely appreciate the generic Oscar gags this week” — or if the Blondie creative team truly believes that almost everyone has a certain amount of interest in a core set of cultural touchstones. If it’s the latter, they’re probably the last real idealists left in America.

Anyway, I do wonder about the creative process that led from “how can we cash in on America’s Oscar fever” to the punchline “he just gave it … 3 flames up!” It seems clear that this is a reference to the thumbs up/thumbs down movie-rating metrics made famous by Siskel & Ebert 30 years ago, which is an acceptable cultural horizon for Blondie readers, no argument there. And flames instead of thumbs, sure, because of the comical exaggerated flames coming out of Dagwood’s mouth. But why three? Because if two is good, then three is better? Have they forgotten that the origin of the system was two movie critics who either agreed or disagreed, and now they’re simply treating it like a simple star rating scale? I have to say I’m pretty disappointed in this one.

Dennis the Menace, 3/28/22

Dennis, you’re … you’re looking at the TV right now! You know what he’s watching! Are you precisely attuned to Mr. Wilson’s emotional state and know what in his media diet triggers him, but can’t tell the difference between sports being played and the news being reported? Because that’s profoundly menacing, and not in a good way.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/28/22

Oh no, Rene’s got to go on the lam again before Raymond (?) hears the news! And just when he finally figured out a way to make money legitimately (selling high-quality oil paintings to foot fetishists).

Crankshaft, 3/28/22

I’m very excited for Crankshaft to become a hard-core anti-pharma “natural living” influencer guy, mostly because I assume he’ll be dead by the end of the week due to his various untreated ailments.