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Mary Worth, 10/2/23

Do you think Mary aggressively pesters new Charterstone residents to accept her casserole-based hospitality because she wants them to feel welcome? Oh, you sweet summer child. No, her main goal is to get inside their apartment and engage them in seemingly casual chit-chat to see if either reveals a potential entry point for hard-core meddling. A lot of times it doesn’t work out, but do you sees Mary’s eyes here?

Normally that’s the kind of expression you’d expect when seeing an addict in the throes of a high after taking a big hit of their favorite drug, and in a way you’re correct. Mary is straight-up mainlining a surprise dose of Complicated Family Situation That May Benefit From Advice From An Outside Party, and I hope her heart can handle it.

Blondie, 10/2/23

Sorry, Blondie, you came so close to convincing me that you’re created by “real Americans” who enjoy NFL football, but then you got to “unemployment team” and your metaphor completely foundered. If one of your players sucks, you can just cut them from the team! You don’t have to trade them to anybody! If they’re as incompetent as Dagwood, probably no other team would want them!

The Lockhorns, 10/2/23

Leroy and Loretta live in a quintessential suburban neighborhood, but given Leroy’s Jets fandom and rail commute, I always assumed they were in Long Island, probably an older tract in Nassau County or maybe even outer Queens. Does this track with him apparently being a Nets fan? I was going to say that the Nets are kind of johnny-come-latelies to New York, but they moved from New Jersey 11 years ago, and since I firmly believe that the Lockhorns are millennials, that’s probably plenty long enough for Leroy to have committed himself to them. I’ll leave the final call here to New York-area readers, but I do want to add that in order for this joke to really land, we need to understand those shorts as being the big baggy kind that extend well past the knee, something difficult to depict on a gnomish creature like Leroy Lockhorn.

Pluggers, 10/2/23

They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but I think headlines like “Dozens of simple, down-home working-class Americans die after incorrectly parsing Pluggers panel” will not do this feature any favors.

Six Chix, 10/2/23

I dunno, given that these two functionally identical panels have a number of differences in detail showing that the second panel was mostly redrawn, I’m going to say that artist brought far more of herself to the job today than she really needed to.

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Blondie, 9/9/23

Are you guys still playing Wordle? I am, and sorry if that isn’t cool anymore, I guess I just like having fun, but the reason I’m aware that it isn’t cool anymore (to the extent that it ever was) is because I know the game went viral in late 2021, which was more than a year and a half ago, which make it definitely not “new,” but I’m just an ordinary human man and not an ageless eternal character in a comic strip that’s been running since 1930, so the way I experience time is much, much different, I suppose. Anyway, do you think either of these guys, or any member of the Blondie brain trust, knows that there’s only one Wordle game per day, or that it’s available on more than one person’s phone?

Gil Thorp, 9/9/23

Look, I’ve generally been supportive of Henry Barajas’s moves to update this strip, but I draw the line at adding a mutant X-Man who’s impervious to heat to the Valley Tech roster.

Six Chix, 9/9/23

Did you know that Little Free Library®, a thing that I assumed had been born from an ethos of radical sharing and openness, is actually a registered trademark? I myself did not! Also, did you know that your local Little Free Library® is a good place to go pick up women? I’m really learning a lot today.

Dennis the Menace, 9/9/23

“You know what would really help with that? A car seat! But my parents don’t care about the law, or whether we live or die.”

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Six Chix, 9/6/23

One of the sad paradoxes of aging is that pets can be a great source of comfort and happiness for older people, but many rightfully worry about what will happen if their beloved animals outlive them. But what if your soul in the next world could reach out to the living to ensure that your pets were cared for? “FEED. THE. CAT.” your dead voice would echo, coming from everywhere and nowhere, burning in the brains of your family or just anyone who happened to be within a few miles of your home. They plug their ears but can still hear the command thrumming, having crossed unfathomable space and time to arrive on earth. “FEED. HIM. FEED. HIM. FEED HIM.” The cat himself daintily licks his paws, seemingly unaware of the commotion but also extremely confident that he’ll be fed on time.

Mary Worth, 9/6/23

“Whoa there, Drunky McNewlywed, my taupe globules pair best with room temperature tap water, capisce? You can start getting lit when you’re already on your way out the door and I won’t have to deal with your drunken antics. I’ve been burned before!”

Blondie, 9/6/23

Elmo, a good alibi is when you establish that you couldn’t have committed a crime because you were somewhere else at the time. This is just you saying “Oh, I didn’t do that thing I was supposed to do, because I was doing something else.” Honestly, I’d go so far as to say that this not only isn’t a good alibi, but it isn’t an alibi at all.