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Flash Gordon, 11/7/24

The new-ish iteration of Flash Gordon got a shout-out from Uncle Lumpy a few weeks ago, but I’m here to give it my full-time blogger shoutout! The art is great, and the writing is very fun and captures the fast-paced cliff-hanger-y-ness of old movie serials. There hasn’t been too much to make fun of, but I’m going to start slipping it into the rotation here, I think. Anyway, today there are two important developments: we meet the King of the Lion Men and learn that his crown appears to be made from a wildebeest skull (dark!), and once again have the timeless truth affirmed that any sequential art whose storyline would support it at all eventually trends towards erotic furry stuff.

Beetle Bailey, 11/7/24

There’s been a little bit of an attempt in Beetle Bailey of late to upgrade Zero’s character from “dumb farm boy” to “farm boy with certain legitimate skills and his own point of view,” and today seems to be a big step in that direction. Frankly, I would like to see more depth added to all of this strip’s one-note characters. Lt. Fuzz isn’t just an annoying bureaucratic kiss-up: he’s trying to drag Camp Swampy’s administration into the 21st century while showing respect for the current leadership! Cosmo isn’t just a scam artist looking out for number 1: he represents the sort of individual ingenuity that’s always existed in supposedly regimented structures like the military! And Rocky was … in a gang, I guess? Or is currently in a gang? And gangs represent an alternative form of belonging and identity for those living in economically and socially marginal areas that have been more or less abandoned by the state? That’s what I assume he and Zero were talking about immediately before this strip started, and I frankly would’ve liked to have seen it.

Six Chix, 11/7/24

Folks, have you seen Conclave yet? It’s a banger! Everyone’s got Conclave fever! And by everybody I mean at least me and the Thursday Chik. That’s assuming the movie was the inspiration for this strip, that is, which doesn’t make a ton of sense but makes as much sense as anything else, I guess. Anyway! Go see Conclave today!

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Hi and Lois, 10/30/24

Never mind Trixie’s baby brain being incapable of parsing this metaphor. What kind of fool’s paradise have Hi and Lois been living in that they look so worried about the very notion of an investor looking to buy a house, do some perhaps superficial renovations to it fairly quickly, and then selling it for a healthy profit? Are you telling Lois that houses are, in addition to a place to live, a commodity and an investment vehicle as well? She’s been a realtor for years and this is the first she’s hearing about this.

Mary Worth, 10/30/24

The big and extremely predictable Mary Worth news is that Dr. Ed has agreed to take Estelle back or whatever. All they had to do is agree to give up things that they’re passionate about and instead rely entirely on one another for emotional validation. Can’t see anything going wrong with that plan!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/30/24

Oh, you’re telling me that Rex might respond to a naive, cute, and slightly gross question one of his kids poses by making him feel weird for ever asking it, and moreover will work to make sure that he keeps feeling weird for the rest of his life? Yeah, that tracks. Sarah might’ve gotten a touch of the amnesia, but she definitely remembers Rex’s whole deal.

Six Chix, 10/30/24

We all, of course, remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare. Well, what if the two title characters in that story explored each other’s bodies, sexually? Or at least thought about it?

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Mary Worth, 9/29/24

I’m going to remain neutral on some the big moral questions being raised by this storyline for the moment (Is it fair to fall in love with a passionate man then demand that he give up his passions to focus on you? Why, in a relatively small community that nevertheless can support a whole convention’s worth of veterinarians, is Ed somehow the only vet available for seemingly every emergency call? Does it make sense to put “a reunion dinner with a once beloved but subsequently estranged family member” and “a visit to the bakery to taste cake” in the same “wedding stuff you can skip” bucket?). Mostly, I want to say that chucking your engagement ring directly into your fiance’s chest at full speed and watching it bounce off is a very funny move, and I’m glad we got to see it in today’s strip.

Marvin, 9/29/24

There are all kinds of dubious things that I am willing to accept as part of the Marvin world-building, such as the fact that babies and dogs have adult-human-level cognition and ability to communicate, but neither has mastered the simple art of shitting in a toilet. However, seeing dogs just casually wandering around suburban neighborhoods unleashed immediately exceeds my ability to suspend disbelief. I realize that the idea of this has been ossified into comics lore but I refuse to believe that anyone actually involved in producing the comics in the futuristic year 2024 personally remembers a time when this was commonplace.

Six Chix, 9/29/24

I find the drawing of the plumber at bottom right interacting with a undersink cabinet that has been removed from its context (the sink) very funny. “Welp, let me see if the problem is from inside your Portal and–” [horrified screams as he is pulled into the ~v o i d~]