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Mary Worth, 7/19/22

You know, you hear a lot these days about “reboots” this and “dark and edgy” that, while media properties like Mary Worth that have just kind of soldiered along in a straight line for decades mostly get written off as old and stale. But I ask you: can you imagine anything darker and edgier than a story where a woman gets beaten up in a random attack and falls for her physician’s assistant but is convinced he’s not sexually attracted to her because she’s still bruised from her beating, and also the physician’s assistant in question is a monumentally unpleasant Star Wars dork/”nice guy” manipulator? This strip should be rated X for the X-treme emotional distress it’s inspiring in me.

Zits, 7/19/22

Look, everyone, I get it: you want your comic strip to reflect (vaguely) current trends, but you don’t feel like watching all of Bridgerton, Netflix’s hottest (?) show. Still, you feel like you’ve heard enough about it to, you know, get the gist. It’s like Jane Austen-ish, right? But racially inclusive, somehow? Probably people are doing themed weddings? Chicks like it? Including moms? Anyway, I too have not watched this show, but if you are going to do jokes about it in setting up a plot about a Bridgerton-themed wedding, I would urge you to at least read the Wikipedia article to learn how much of it is about jizz.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/19/22

Say, kids, what’s more exciting than an old man telling a long rambling story about that time he tried and failed to get a job writing Prince Valiant? Well, turns out it’s an old man telling a long rambling story about that time he tried and failed to get a job writing Prince Valiant and realizing partway through that he’s forgotten quite a bit of it.

Shoe, 7/19/22

“That’s mostly because I break into other people’s houses to watch. I save a lot on streaming services, and it’s a lot more exciting!”

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Mary Worth, 6/30/22

Look, I’m not what you’d call particularly “hip” (SAYS THE GUY WHO’S BEEN WRITING A BLOG ABOUT NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS FOR 15+ YEARS, ENTIRELY UNNECESSARILY), but there were some things I was onto “before they were cool,” and one of them was straight-up hating Jared. When did it become cool to hate Jared? Not sure, but it doesn’t matter, because I was in before that, as I hated him on sight, with the main reason being that his whole personal brand is that he’s just a klutzy, nerdy, nice guy, but he’s actually emotionally manipulative and also was very clearly interested in Dawn romantically from the very beginning, so leaving anguished voicemails demanding that she “remain” friends with him is frankly pretty rich. Anyway, Dawn is not great but Jared is terrible, so on this occasion I am rooting for a member of the Weston family to “win” this breakup, as much as that goes against all my values.

Shoe, 6/30/22

I admit, I probably go to the “the syndicated newspaper comic strip Shoe’s character are all bird-people, but the jokes they wrote for it make it seem like they forgot about that” well too often, and now I kind of feel like I’m the Boy Who Cried Unrealized Bird-Man Joke saying this, but: a strip about a man who got laid off from a job at the mirror factory with some vaguely mirror-related wordplay isn’t very funny, but a strip about a bird-man who got fired from his job at the mirror factory on his first day because he saw his own reflection and went crazy and attacked it would, I hope we can all agree, have been very funny indeed.

Sally Forth, 6/30/22

God damn I did not have “Ted Forth gets Oedipally cucked and also regular cucked by the same hot old dude” on my list of summer predictions, but you know what? I’m here for it. Here for it.

Hi and Lois, 6/30/22

“I mean, I’m drunk right now. I don’t want to be here at all!”

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Mary Worth, 6/24/22

Wow. Wow. You’re telling me that Jared has a friend? A non-Dawn friend named TJ? And TJ also likes to party down at “ROCK IT,” Santa Royale’s hottest club? I feel like Mary Worth is just teasing us here with all the narrative beats that we’ve been denied: Jared and his friend TJ hanging out and being almost certainly very annoying; the big reveal of what one of Jared’s friends would wear to the club; TJ spotting Dawn from across the crowded dance floor and recognition flashing in his eyes; and TJ telling Jared what he saw and Jared suddenly realizing that he could retrofit this into motivation for what he already wanted to do so he can keep his “nice guy” self-image intact. I can’t believe I’m begging for more details of a Jared storyline, but I need more details from this Jared storyline!

Funky Winkerbean, 6/24/22

What’s weirder here: That Funky Winkerbean will freely say “Amazon” in a strip but thinks that “Target” is as forbidden as “McDonald’s”? Or that Funky Winkerbean thinks that Target and Amazon are maybe the same thing?

Shoe, 6/24/22

The fact that the owner of Treetops’ only casual dining establishment feels comfortable admitting rampant health code violations to a reporter at Treetops’ only newspaper tells you everything you need to know about journalism in this town. (The fact that Treetops’ only casual dining establishment openly sells egg-based foods to its bird customers is another grim matter entirely.)