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Hi and Lois, 6/17/16

Comics where the punchline relies on visual information absent in the first panel are a venerable tradition! They must be awful confusing for the poor souls who have to set up the jokes though, like this hapless teen talking to Chip here. “Wait, have we … been in this yard the whole time? Why did I think he was a lifeguard at a pool? Who am I? Will I ever appear again? Or will I fade back into the nothingness from which I came?”

Six Chix, 6/17/16

I simultaneously think this cartoon is terrible and also love it immensely. I have lots of questions about the world-building here — like, are the toilets in the men’s room full of liquor specifically for the benefit of dog patrons? Or did the dog come here because of their liquor-toilet gimmick? Does the dog belongs to one of those women? Or do they just know his name because he’s a regular at this weird, empty bar? But I think the best part is that the dog is walking on two legs. Two legs! Is this because he’s drunk, and walking upright is something drunk dogs do? Or is it because only bipedal dogs are advanced enough to go to bars and get drunk, even though they have to drink out of the toilet while they’re there? It’s a delight, I tell you, a damn awful delight.

Pluggers, 6/17/16

Check out the sly smile on the plugger-lawyer. “I’m gettin’ paid $150 an hour for this shit! Can you believe it?”

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Marvin, 6/16/16

Marvin is obviously the most loathsome character in the comic strip Marvin by a long ways. But let’s not forget that his smug terrible father is no prize either! Jeff appears to be the primary breadwinner for his household of four adults and an infant; Marvin’s mother apparently used to be a romance novelist but now is incapable of feeling anything but a sort of dull numbness, and now has to resort to churning out short-form humor content for cash, which, believe me, isn’t all that lucrative. Plus I think Marvin’s grandfather is a Wal-Mart greeter or something? At any rate, Jeff’s generic white-collar office job presumably provides the bulk of the family’s income plus its health insurance coverage, which is why he maybe should’ve thought twice before embezzling from the company! I was about to express glee about the Miller family’s downward spiral into poverty and shame, but then I realized that this will give the strip opportunities for jokes about desperately trying to save money by somehow washing Marvin’s foul diapers, so never mind.

Judge Parker, 6/16/16

Remember, whether it’s Sophie spying on Neddy making out with some boy who I don’t remember and cheerfully asking about “that tongue thing,” or Sam and Abbey watching from the shadows with mounting excitement as Neddy says a lingering goodnight to some boy who I don’t remember, or Sam and Abbey trying to analyze Neddy’s degree of sexual satisfaction as she comes home after sunup from a night with a boy who I someday won’t remember, one thing is clear: living vicariously through Neddy’s erotic life is one of the Spencer-Driver family’s top pastimes, just behind being given money for no reason.

Dennis the Menace, 6/16/16

Say what you will about Dennis, but this is a pretty darn menacing way to let a woman know that her husband of many years just died in front of the TV.

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Blondie, 6/15/16

I actually spent some time (OK, fine, like a minute and a half, but still) trying to figure out if there were some real cloud storage service that used a pig as a mascot. Because when a technical annoyance happens to a character in a legacy comic strip, I generally assume that that precise annoyance has also happened to someone involved in the creation of that legacy comic strip. I still sincerely believe that someone encountered the phrase “upgrade to pro” and thought “You know who needs to be upgraded to pro? Dagwood Bumstead, a character I write jokes about, that’s who! Hey-oooh.”

Pluggers, 6/15/16

“Sure,” pluggers thought. “Your kids? They’re disappointments. Always wanting money. Never applying themselves at school. Never calling just say hi. But grandkids — grandkids are where the fun are.” This is the moment when the scales fall from their eyes. This is the moment when pluggers see — really see — exactly what it’s all about.

Shoe, 6/15/16

In yet another example of why the bird-people of Shoe should not participate in jokes that at all involve bird metaphors, the Perfesser has ordered some infants of his kind through the mail (which is something that you totally can do) and plans to raise one in order to marry her.

Family Circus, 6/15/16

“Maybe one day we’ll run off together,” Mommy whispers to PJ inside. “Maybe just the two of us. Maybe we’ll do it tonight.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/15/16

You do have a fairy godmother, Sarah! A narrative fairy godmother. Just accept it! THERE’S NO ESCAPE