Post Content

Blondie, 11/19/15

OK, here’s one of the difficulties in making jokes about aging in an extremely long-running and iconic legacy comic strip. Typically you’d assume that a mother of two teenagers would be somewhere around the 35-50 age range, born in the ’60s at the earliest, and so you can get away with jokes about how ha ha kids today think their parents are so ancient and the parents resent them for it. This extremely doesn’t work in Blondie, though, given that the strip began in 1930 with its title character already a young adult, right around the time the first experimental televisions were being demonstrated. So, like, does Blondie remember when the first TV was invented? “What did you study in French today?” she asks, desperately trying to deflect attention away from her terrifying unaging nature.

The Lockhorns, 11/19/15

As Apartment 3-G lurches towards its demise so blandly that I can’t even bring myself to cover it here, I gotta give kudos to the Lockhorns for shutting down with a shocking, unexpected twist. Loretta kicked Leroy out and will have his mail forwarded to his new address and now the strip is over! Fans everywhere can take heart that this long-suffering couple can finally move on with their lives, emotionally.

Momma, 11/19/15

Momma, too, has unexpectedly decided to end its decades-long run today. This conclusion is a little derivative of the final episode of St. Elsewhere; but still, the revelation that Momma’s “children” are just tiny figurines that she manipulates at her whim explains a lot about the tone of the strip. Anyway, kudos for Momma and the Lockhorns for going out on top! Looking forward to whatever will be taking their place in newspapers nationwide tomorrow, probably a tire ad or something.

Post Content

Gasoline Alley, 11/18/15

One of the things I really respect about 115-year-old Gasoline Alley patriarch Walt Wallet is that he has no more interest in remembering anything about the minor characters in this strip’s sprawling cast than I do. Also, as corny as the dialogue on-stage that we’re getting a glimpse of is, at least it’s more like the sort of thing a child would find funny than, say, rambling shaggy dog stories about ancient statues and alien weapons depots.

Mary Worth, 11/18/15

Thank goodness Mary is taking Olive out to have snacks at various New York tourist attractions! At last, her parents can have a little alone time. In panel two, her dad has already put on his Flesh Glasses to prepare for whatever unspeakable acts they have planned.

Post Content

Mary Worth, 11/17/15

At last, the crossover distraction is over with and we can get down to the hot Mary Worth action we’ve all waited for: Mary’s weird and off-putting relationship with a psychic child she flew all the way across the country to hang out with. Olive’s parents, always polite, want Mary to come with them to the many after-hours nightspots in the neighborhood of their tastefully appointed apartment. All the hottest clubs are just up the street! Perfect for when you’re rolling on molly and don’t want to drive and are afraid you’ll start freaking out on the subway!

Apartment 3-G, 11/17/15

The countdown to the death of Apartment 3-G is ticking away and … we’re still talking about Diane the fake psychic, I guess? Haha, isn’t it funny when a person claiming to be psychic can’t actually predict the future? This is definitely a clever joke that people haven’t heard before.

Hi and Lois, 11/17/15

I was going to make some joke about “the newspaper, are you kidding me,” but this is exactly the sort of lesson an out-of-touch high school civics or history teacher would give, taking the students’ moans of dissent as just more evidence that kids today are terrible, rather than evidence that kids today literally all have mobile computing devices that they can use to get the latest news at any time. Anyway, I think the way Chip is carrying that paper — with just his fingertips, away from his body, as if it were something mildly disgusting — is a pretty accurate depiction of the relationship between teens and legacy media.

Herb and Jamaal, 11/17/15

Most people giving thanks to God for the day usually frame it in terms of nothing bad happening to them, rather than the other way around. Herb, though, is particularly aware of the indelible stain of sin that marks all of humankind, and marks him in particular. Someday, he knows, he’s going to do something awful. Today is not that day, or at least not yet.