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Shoe, 1/5/18

Say what you will about Shoe, but you have to admit that the strip really nails what it would look like if an anthropomorphic bird-man were suffering from crushing depression and just slouched down in a chair for hours too close to a TV showing awful programs that said bird-man despised but didn’t have the energy or self-respect to stop watching. The fact that this position makes it extra obvious that he’s wearing a suit jacket, shirt, shoes, and socks (leg warmers?) but no pants is an added bonus!

Blondie, 1/5/18

Call me a prude, but I don’t think Blondie and Dagwood should be doing weird sex stuff in front of their kids.

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Mark Trail, 1/4/18

Wow, everybody, Mark isn’t just taking Rusty on a trip for once; he’s taking him and Cherry on a trip to Mexico! They haven’t mentioned fishing yet but snorkeling counts, right? I think it’s cute that they’re trying to spin a trip to Mexico as exposing Rusty to a “totally different culture,” as if he’s had any meaningful contact with American culture beyond the AM radio broadcasts that are occasionally permitted within the log walls of the compound.

The casual mention of Mark’s “old archaeologist friend” is obviously setting up the main plot, so I think the questions we need to ask ourselves are: which cursèd artifact will Rusty be touching, how soon will he be touching it, and to which ancient Olmec god of blood will it be necessary to sacrifice him to prevent the destruction of the world?

Mary Worth, 1/4/18

As Wilbur spirals down into full-on anhedonia, I was trying to remember the last time I saw him experience happiness that isn’t retroactively tainted by Fabiana’s perfidy. I’m thinking it might be when he deliriously proclaimed to his editor that “I shouldn’t be alive … but I am”? What I’m trying to say is, if Wilbur wants to feel joy again, he might want to rent himself out to a rich sadist with a private island for a “Most Dangerous Game” situation.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/4/18

Hey, were you wondering how Funky’s AA meeting is going? Welp, he’s basically given a long, rambling diatribe about how everything’s going to shit that’s both extremely intense and weirdly lacking in proper nouns while everyone else stares at him in horrified silence. It’s going great, in other words.

Pluggers, 1/4/18

ONLY PLUGGERS CAN RECONSTRUCT INCIDENTS FROM THEIR MEMORY INTO A COHERENT NARRATIVE AND UNDERSTAND THE PASSAGE OF TIME

WE URBAN ELITISTS LIVE IN A JUMBLED FOG OF PAST AND PRESENT INCIDENTS, UNABLE TO REMINISCE OR LEARN OR PERCEIVE CAUSE AND EFFECT

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Spider-Man, 1/3/18

Oh, hey, I didn’t really discuss what happened in Newspaper Spider-Man while I was gone, did I? Well, it turns out that Dr. Connors lost a lot of blood due to that gator bite, and also that the whole reason Bruce Banner was in town the swamp in the first place was because he and Dr. Connors have the same rare blood type and Bruce was looking to do some kind of blood exchange thing to de-Hulk himself, but now maybe the transfusion is going to go the other way, which would be bad news for a guy who already has a problem with turning into a large, violent green thing? Also, Peter Parker revealed his secret identity to Bruce Banner, which was a shocking development to everyone who had taken for granted that he didn’t already know about this in the Newspaper Spider-Man continuity, which is to say nobody. Anyway, none of this is as important as panel two here, in which Spider-Man uses his famous and beloved jumping power (the relative jumping of a spider) to leap from boat to dock. I expect to see several more days of him hopping through the marina area, until he finally gets to an area with tall buildings where he can web-sling through, at which point he’ll raise up a hand to shoot a web and accidentally drop Dr. Connors’ head onto the pavement.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/3/18

Look, I get that this is a side-splittingly hilarious visual gag. But was it worth the terrible disruption to nearly a century of accumulated Barney Google and Snuffy Smith lore? Are we just supposed to [sarcastic nerd chuckle] believe that Elviney has had this [increasingly angry sarcastic nerd chuckle] [finger quotes] “twin sister” all along? Obviously if she lived in the tiny community of Hootin’ Holler we’d have met her by now, but just as obviously if she were visiting from another holler Elviney would have said as much, ugh, I’m starting a petition to get this strip stricken from the canon

Gil Thorp, 1/3/18

Notice how all the panes seem to vanish from Gil’s surprisingly large office window at some point between panels one and three? That’s because right around the middle of panel two is where Gil allows himself to indulge his usual middle-of-a-Marty-Moon-interview fantasy: that he could just lean back in his chair and tumble out into the welcoming arms of the forest below.