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Mary Worth, 6/28/22

Has there ever, going all the way back to the ancient Egyptians, been a more perfect match between visual and narrative art as today’s Mary Worth? I’ve studied the subject and feel confident in saying that no, there hasn’t. The image of Dawn loping away from Jared in panel two is absolutely perfect, and the way her legs and arms are positioned lets you know exactly how mismatched her defiant words and her absurd running style must be as Jared watches her flee. Her muted bluish color palette and slip-on shoes somehow just add to her humiliation, for me. But then, how can things get more humiliating for you than having Jared of all people yell “We were friends before … we can be friends again!” at you in a public place where other people can hear it? Well, it’s only Tuesday, so there’s a pretty good chance we’re going to find out.

Sally Forth, 6/28/22

I regret to inform you that Sally and Ted never did get to swing with their hot new neighbor, because it turns out he was just buying the house next door to rent out to people who presumably don’t want anything to do with the Forths either erotically or socially. However, that doesn’t mean Ted won’t get to be sexually humiliated this summer, although finding out that your widowed mother has a new zaddy boyfriend with Celtic tattoos activates a very different kind of kink.

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Mary Worth, 5/18/22

Oh, wow, not only has l’affaire HelenCal ended with Ian and Toby’s past and potential future (respectively) student entanglements safely banished, but it seems the Camerons have learned a valuable lesson: namely, that performing their sexual attraction for the benefit of others is just the thing they need to rekindle that attraction and indeed spark it to new and intensely erotic heights! Look for Charterstone’s #1 intellectual academic couple to engage in increasingly public and risky erotic rendezvous in the coming months.

Sally Forth, 5/18/22

Sally Forth, meanwhile, is approaching much more transgressive territory than mere exhibitionism: no, Ted and Sally are making their first ever neighbor friend and are immediately veering into cuckoldry. Look at how Sally sweats with delicious anxiety as their neighbor moves boldly into her personal space! Ted seems to have vanished entirely after the first panel, but I assume he’s bearing the same intrigued expression you can half see on him there.

Dennis the Menace, 5/18/22

This is a profoundly sad strip. Dennis is begging — begging — his father to stop shit-talking his friends because he knows he’ll blurt all those insults out in front of them, he wants to stop but he can’t stop, not matter how hard he tries. Henry, meanwhile, looks not upset or sympathetic but bored. “Look, kid,” he’s thinking, “You’ve gotta menace these guys. I know it’s no fun, but it’s what the people want. It’s the name of the strip. It pays the bills around here.”

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Arctic Circle, 9/1/21

Arctic Circle started out as a nice little fish-out-of-water joke-a-day strip about three penguins (Ed, Oscar, and Gordo, from left to right) stranded in the Arctic, sort of a cold-water Boner’s Ark. It has evolved into a 24/7/365 environmental catastrophe sermon, with some version or other of “ain’t it awful?” in the final panel. But today’s seems to suggest that we mass-murder insects to reduce pesticide use on soybeans, raising the question: how?

Phantom, 9/1/21

Hey, remember the last time we saw Savarna eight years ago, Old Stripey was lecturing her about their “incompatible methods,” how her “killing days end here,” and taking away her weapon? Yeah, well, looks like that ship has sailed.

And as a long-time Phantom/Savarna ‘shipper, let me add—are those eyes really empty behind that mask, or do I detect the subtle BRAKOOOOM of LOVE?

Sally Forth, 9/1/21

“That thing I do, the one that looks like it stems from reciprocal affection and a shared sense of impending loss? It’s hatred, Hil, and resentment! I’m a sociopath! Welp, great summer, girlfriend, see ya around!”

Luann, 9/1/21 and 3/17/2010 reprint of 3/18/1985

Where, oh where, will Luann be in 30 years? Let’s just look back 36 years and see if we can establish a regression line!

Hmm. Not “regression,” exactly, but hardly progress. Better get to changing those media stereotypes, Bernice, or at least the sheets.

Family Circus, 9/1/21

And if Billy starts avoiding Bibles, speaking dead languages, and smelling of brimstone, it’s ’cause he ate those deviled eggs.

Is “Venmo” a verb? Try it and see!

— Uncle Lumpy