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Marvin, 3/19/21

I assume Marvin creator Tom Armstrong has been drunk with power ever since he successfully fought off a lawsuit filed by a Mercedes dealership who was cruelly lampooned on comics pages across the nation for alleged bad service, but let me say this: the Flintstones, along with all other intellectual property developed by Hanna-Barbera, are currently owned by Warner Bros. Animation, a subsidiary of AT&T, which is a company with substantially deeper pockets and a much stronger urge to dominate than some hapless car dealer.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/19/21

The idea that divorces in Hootin’ Holler are settled via some legal process with attorneys involved, rather than by violent multigenerational clan feuds, has frankly shaken me to my very core.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/19/21

Wait, so Buck is supposed to be … comedy relief? He’s intended to be funny, you say? Huh. Huh.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/17/21

“Butch Belluso” is of course, Rene Belluso, who once upon a time was Sarah’s art teacher, hired by the mob queenpin who had taken Sarah under her wing and also employed Rene for a little light art forgery. Since he parted company from his erstwhile employers, he’s engaged in a number of scams, like comics fraud and new age flim-flammery and even a little light COVID grifting, so he’s definitely a guy not into “the law” or whatever, but he’s never exactly struck me as the type who’d kidnap anyone, or go out in a blaze of glory in a shootout with the cops, no matter what literary genre he’s situated in. Then again, this is Sarah’s fantasy, so maybe despite her amnesia her subconscious remembers that he once got to order her around, and now she wants him dead from multiple gunshots to the face.

Hi and Lois, 3/17/21

As a fan of Thirsty sticking to his canonical role as this strip’s alcoholic, I’m not troubled by his declaration that he’s “on the wagon” today: his rumpled appearance and his immediate substitution of another chemical fix for his troubles (the raw uncut sugar in Lucky Charms marshmallows) tells me that this isn’t a serious stab at recovery, but rather just another move in his roller-coaster life of hilarious drunkery.

Mary Worth, 3/17/21

Guys, there are few bigger fans of dogs and the work they do than me, but … this is a lot, right? I’m beginning to think that a dog, or maybe a top-flight content marketing agency hired by all dogs everywhere, wrote this.

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Funky Winkerbean, 3/13/21

Well, the best we can say about this comical misunderstanding plot is that it at least wrapped up quickly! On the minus side, though, the misunderstanding was that Mopey Pete used “seeing someone” a shorthand for going to an eye doctor and getting glasses, which is … not English as it is generally spoken! I had guessed that the “someone” in question was going to be a psychotherapist, but this is frankly much dumber. They didn’t even commit to the bit and make it wordplay around “seeing”! Also, the upshot of all this is that glasses make Jess horny and she and Darrin are gonna bone, right there in the office, in the middle of teh workday. So I think we can agree that the overall rating of this Funky Winkerbean plotline is negative, just like all the other ones.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/13/21

Conflict? In a Rex Morgan storyline? Maybe Sarah’s imagination is more powerful than I thought.