Post Content

Family Circus, 7/8/16

One of my favorite things about the way the Family Circus constantly reuses art that’s decades old is that somewhere along the line some editor realized, “Oh, crap, everyone is supposed to wear seat belts now! The Family Circus, as an incredibly influential part of today’s media, can’t afford to send the dangerous message that not wearing your seatbelt is ‘cool!’ Looks like we’re going to have to add seat belts into all the old art, when we inevitably reuse it!” This has produced laughable results like today’s panel, in which, if I know my classic American station wagons, Dolly is supposed to be sitting in the “back back” or “way back,” i.e., the storage area where there’s no seat of any kind, where all of us kids born before 1980 or so were free to just roll around without any restraints or safety equipment and died in droves. Anyway, please join me in enjoying that seat belt, coming out of nowhere, hooking over Dolly’s back, and connecting to nothing. It almost makes me sad that once we got to the era when all children under the age of 10 had to be in car seats everyone involved in the production of this strip was just like “Enh, screw it.”

Mark Trail, 7/8/16

Hey, remember when Mark’s face accidentally fell on Carina’s face, back in the cave, and she tried to get him to do sex things with her, and the first thing he thought of to make her stop trying was to say “Yes, Carina, I am happily married”? Well, that definitely counts as being “made” to decide take some time off and invest in his relationship with his wife. Presumably they’ll voyage to the mysterious South Pacific, to frolic on a beach where they’ll discover these lovebirds’ mouldering corpses.

The Phantom, 7/8/16

I’ve sort of assumed that Kit Jr. was going to Tibet but I think they’ve only been saying “the Himalayas” so I guess it’s possible he’s headed for a Buddhist monastery in the northern fringes of India, or Bhutan or Nepal, which would qualify, barely, as “the subcontinent.” Still, has he considered that the monastery probably doesn’t have Internet? Also, you know where there’s Internet? The Skull Cave! He could learn a lot about the subcontinent back at the Skull Cave, is what I’m saying.

Post Content

Marvin, 7/7/16

So it turns out Marvin’s dad didn’t go to jail, and is now planning on taking his wife and child on vacation to the extremely cheap destination of “Swindletopia.” Today, his father-in-law gloms onto the trip using transparent emotional manipulation! The brief forays this strip takes into the lives of its adult characters makes you long for its usual witty and subtle baby poop jokes.

Gasoline Alley, 7/7/16

I’m trying, I’m really trying to not get worked up over the various historical horrors going on with this coin. I won’t goggle at the fact that the strip managed to accurately learn that Nero’s full name began with “Nero Claudius” but get everything else wrong: that he was never referred to as such on coins, only as “Nero Caesar”; that the picture looks almost nothing like Nero’s real coin portraits; that the “A.D.” dating system wasn’t developed until the 6th century A.D. and the pagan Romans wouldn’t have used it as a dating formula in 64 even it was around. I am, however, going to get mad about the fact that this terrible coin changes size radically between panels, appearing to be about the size of a quarter in panels one and three and about the size of a smallish plate in panel two.

Gil Thorp, 7/7/16

Oh, man, looks like Boo’s death is setting up a wacky summer Gil Thorp plot in which the kids discover nihilism! Watch them veer wildly between sullen inaction and wild self-destructive behavior, all while muttering “What’s the point of the playdowns? What’s the point of the annual bonfire? What’s the point of anything?”

Post Content

Pluggers, 7/6/16

A lot of people have asked me, in so many words, “Josh, man, what’s your deal with Pluggers? Do you hate Real America?” Not at all! What I do have a problem with, though, is an attitude that I think that Pluggers has slowly over the years shifted into showcasing, which is that many people who consider themselves residents of Real America (which is, it goes without saying, a cultural and psychological attitude rather than a geographical location) are just better at everything than other people. I say this because the strip less often depicts cultural folkways or life’s little foibles and more just basic life skills. Like today’s panel! Pluggers: they sure now how to manage their urinary processes! Speaking as a big-city liberal and resident of godless Hollyweird, let me assure you: we too know how to go pee-pee in a toilet. So do terrorists! I’m willing to guess that at some point in a terrorist’s training program, they get advice on always making sure to go to the bathroom before embarking on a mission that ends in an act of horrific violence, so they don’t get distracted. What I’m trying to say, pluggers, is that you should either focus on what really sets you apart, or maybe just acknowledge that non-pluggers are in fact humans like you, who breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide and, yes, go to bathroom in advance.

Mary Worth, 7/6/16

Thank goodness for health care market innovations like urgent care clinics, which have created grades of service that can work around anybody’s irrational phobias! “No hospital!” “His father died in the hospital. Most people die in hospitals, because most people die after getting sick or being injured, and hospitals are where people go when they’re sick or injured. Tommy’s scared of them.” “Tommy, would you like to go to a health care facility for sick or injured people that has a different name?” “Sure, sounds great!”