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Mary Worth, 5/8/25

Say what you will about Mary, but she is the master of manners, and one of the keys to having good manners is that if you can’t say something nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all. When taken to its extreme, this can create a sort of negative semantic space that becomes obvious enough to be insulting in its own right. Like, what is Belle to Wilbur, exactly? Are they friends? Hard to say. Boyfriend and girlfriend? Mary isn’t privy but seems unlikely. Lovers? A lady never enquires about bedroom matters. So Mary’s settled on “guest,” which is inarguably true. Belle certainly is someone who is staying in Wilbur’s apartment with his consent, that’s for sure! Whatever else you say about her, and there’s a long list of things that you could say about her but Mary won’t, she definitely fits the dictionary definition of a “guest,” so that’s what she’s going with. Anyway, Dawn, I think dinner is going to be plenty long, because I don’t think you’ll be able to chew your way through that gray slab of vegan lasagna particularly quickly.

Wizard of Id, 5/8/25

The sociologist Max Weber talks about “disenchantment” (entzauberung, in German) as the process by which a medieval society founded on religion and magical thinking gave way to enlightened, rational modernity. That’s why it’s disappointing to see the Wizard of Id, who lives in a literally magical faux-medieval past, treat his body as a mere mechanical contrivance that could be repaired by a skilled tradesman, rather than a vessel of luminous spirit.

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Hi and Lois, 4/24/25

I love that Hi has absolute faith that Ditto, despite not having shown any great baseball prowess in this strip to date, will eventually become an elite athlete capable of competing at the highest level of his chosen sport, but he’s still deeply worried that he’ll be one of those big leaguers who drinks most of their salary and loses the rest of it in ill-advised investments promoted by their buddies and has to do the county fair autograph circuit well into their old age to survive.

Six Chix, 4/24/25

Big news, everyone: It’s the year 2025, and Six Chix finally did a comic about getting high! I mean, I guess a lot of Six Chix strips are subtextually about getting high. Like remember the series of strips about the gal who had sex with a giant sandwich, then got got cucked by the sandwich, then went to a pizza orgy? In retrospect, that sequence was almost certainly getting-high-adjacent, at the very least. But I feel like this is the first one where they come right out and say it.

Wizard of Id, 4/24/25

Hey, kids, are you familiar with the King in the Wizard of Id, whose main defining character design feature is that he has a comically large nose? Well, apparently his nose is (was?) big because he’s … old? Which makes your nose big? You learn something new every day, I guess.

Mary Worth, 4/24/25

“I guess if she doesn’t come around, it means you weren’t so terrific after all, ha ha! Anyway, let’s meet up this weekend for some absurdly large salads, if your dad’s girlfriend hasn’t killed you yet.”

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Dick Tracy, 4/10/25

So the guy in the suit is lead detective in the case of the almost-stolen corpse, and I guess he figured out who the corpse used to be and was looking at his social media accounts and … bingo! Our favorite idiot nephews! I suppose the detective is using clipped, manly noir talk when he just says “nephews” instead of “his nephews,” but, you know, maybe not. Maybe he’s just saying they have the vibe of nephews about them. They seem real nephewy. They’re somebody’s sibling’s sons, if you follow me.

Wizard of Id, 4/10/25

The main thrust of this strip, which is about the Wizard of Id’s wife having a horny hallucination, is fine, even though I’m not sure why she heard the frog talk before she touched its hallucinogenic skin to her mouth …. maybe it’s magical but also induces hallucinations in a normal, scientific way? Whatever. My favorite part is actually the fact that the Wizard is casually enjoying a martini in his armchair. The guy has a tough job, his wife is horny for a frog, he deserves to unwind! And he’s doing it in a sophisticated way.