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Mary Worth, 2/20/20

So it’s been established that Dawn and Jared haven’t actually seen each other for two years in in-universe time, but Jared’s clearly ready to just jump right back into their relationship as it was, which is to say that he’ll hint very broadly and transparently that he wants to sleep with her and she’ll refuse to acknowledge it. Normally trying to interpret the tone of voice the random bolding in Mary Worth represents is a fruitless task, but I sincerely hope that Dawn here is responding to Jared telling her she’s “looking great” by shouting “I’m missing my BOYFRIEND in FRANCE” as loudly as she possibly can.

Blondie, 2/20/20

It bothers me so much that Dagwood’s interlocutor drops his son’s name in panel one and it never becomes relevant to the joke at all. If you’re trying to do just a general slam on Kids Today with their Phones And Such, you should at least spell it “Jaxon.” Instead, I’m forced to assume this strip is meant as a dig against a specific Jackson in the joke writer’s real life, proving once again that syndicated newspaper comics may have lost their cultural relevance, but they’re still great as a venue where you can air out your petty beefs.

Six Chix, 2/20/20

I’m pretty sure most people would refer to getting up in the middle of the night to have a light meal as a “midnight snack.” “Night eating” sounds clinically detached and honestly horrifying, like something an alien anthropologist would include in its report back to its homeworld on the strange behavior of planet “Earth”‘s dominant species. What I’m trying to say is that if Six Chix was trying to come up with a phrase that made “nunch” sound appealing in comparison, then congrats, they pulled it off.

Mark Trail, 2/20/20

“Or maybe, because we’re apparently about to leave with all camping gear, climbing equipment, sherpa guides, and medical supplies, leaving Harvey, a diabetic amputee, alone on a Himalayan mountainside, he’ll die of exposure in fairly short order. Who’s to say? Life is a mystery!”

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Slylock Fox, 2/10/20

You ever think how lucky Slylock and the Glorious Animal Regime are that their rogues gallery never uses its resources to their full potential? Think of the havoc that you could wreak with the ability to create an android so lifelike that a policeduck could extensively interact with it and still not be able to tell that it’s artificial! Weirdly could be building an army of android warriors, as intelligent as any human (or animal) but indestructible and willing to destroy his enemies and make him a god-king, but instead he’s just deploying them as decoys while he goes on the lam. Anyway, the real reason you can tell that’s not a bio-Weirdly is that if it were a bio-Weirdly, that cave would be full of Weirdly poop.

Mark Trail, 2/10/20

“Look, Mark, I just want to make this absolutely clear: yes, I indulged and even helped promote Harvey’s bizarre, delusional story that his amputation, which had an entirely normal and reasonably explanation, was the result of a yeti attack, but we weren’t fucking, OK? Do you think I’m a weirdo or something?”

Six Chix, 2/10/20

Ahhh, it’s time to celebrate Valentine’s Day, Six Chix-style: Getting wine-drunk and vomiting up an entire box of chocolates so violently that you completely jam up your toilet! LOVE IS IN THE AIR, people.

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Arctic Circle, 1/31/20

Another one of the new strips I’m reading, in addition to weird tales of stir-crazy dads, is Arctic Circle, and before you smugly say “Hey, what are these penguins doing in the Arctic,” know that their migration there is part of the bit. Anyway, the strip mostly seems to be the penguins looking on his horror as ecological collapse leads to narwhals savagely impaling each other, so it should be a hoot to follow!

Pros and Cons, 1/31/20

Pros and Cons, meanwhile, promises to extend the Law and Order model by including not just cops and prosecutors but defense attorneys and psychiatrists in its examination of the criminal justice system. Or so the King Features site would have you believe; this week features people who without that intro would read as generic white collar professionals making extremely broad social commentary in various eating and drinking establishments. Still, you can see the strip’s highbrow aspirations here: where else on the comics page will those fat cat modern architects, who greedily demand payment for the professional services they provide, get what’s coming to them? In Blondie? In Hi and Lois? I think not.

Dennis the Menace, 1/31/20

Damn, this strip is having a particularly non-menacing week. “America’s lovable late night clown prince, Jimmy Fallon, is keeping me from getting the rest I need to excel at school” isn’t quite as non-menacing as “These onions are bullying my eyes!”, but it’s pretty close.

Six Chix, 1/31/20

As a certified public transit enthusiast, I’m very glad the influential comic strip industry is weighing on one of my pet peeves. While many people who don’t routinely take transit focus on point-to-point speed, they fail to take waiting time into consideration, and often don’t see the point of funding frequent service. [low muttering] But headways low enough to allow passengers to “show up and and go” at the time of their choice [muttering grows louder, shouts of “get him off” become audible] are often more important [I am physically dragged off stage, but break free] than express service when it comes to [a net falls over me, leaving me unable to flee] the passenger exper[a single tranquilizer dart hits home and I lose consciousness]