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Pluggers and Shoe, 6/6/23

How are the various human-animal hybrid monstrosities of the Jeff MacNelly Extended Universe grappling with the concept of the “beer belly”? Well, Pluggers would like you to know that they do not guzzle alcoholic beer like some lout; instead they get all the stimulation they could need from a combination of sugars and starches that every doctor on earth would look at and beg, “Please, rethink this.” Shoe, meanwhile, is confident that its core readership of elderly shut-ins has never been a store that sells novelty t-shirts and are unaware that they can find them online, so they’ll never realize that this is a shamelessly ripped off joke.

Slylock Fox, 6/6/23

Ah, here’s a delightful scene from the closing days of the Animal Revolution, in which one of few remaining human holdouts is cornered in a tent deep in the desert, while a grotesquely enhanced scorpion waits eagerly to sting him to death. However, as the snake-vulture interaction at the right of the panel illustrates, the animals are beginning to turn on one another, which explains why they failed to “finish the job” and Slick Smitty and Count Weirdly remain at large.

Gasoline Alley, 6/6/23

Oh, hey, how’s the tale of Rufus’s head injury going? Well, he’s unconscious and unresponsive, and emergency services are unable to reach him, so, not great, really! Not great at all!

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Mary Worth, 6/5/23

Haha, remember how when Saul Wynter was first introduced to this strip, Toby made a big show of not liking him, and when his original, pre-Greta dog died, Toby reported the news with a certain amount of — well, not glee, exactly, but the vibe was less “this is a true tragedy” than “ha ha, an old man is emotionally in turmoil, can’t wait to relay this little morsel of gossip!” So anyway, that’s why Mary has to emphasize to her that “Look, if you see the dog, do not just say to yourself, ‘Oh, that’s Saul’s dumb little dog,’ and then go on with your day, and when Ian sees that you have a little smile and asks you what you’re thinking about you just say ‘Oh, nothing.’ Please tell me, OK?”

Blondie, 6/5/23

Look, I’m not going to say that I would pay $200 a week for lawn maintenance, but I don’t have a huge suburban lawn and an HOA that would threaten to put a lein on my house if the grass was longer than half an inch like the Bumsteads probably do. I also feel like any time Blondie brings up the question of pricing for the sort of services that upper-middle-class people might avail themselves of, the attitude is usually “Oh, you think your labor has value? You think your riding mower is a capital expense for your business that needs to be recouped, rather than the fun toy that I would treat it as if I owned it? Well an exaggerated version of you is about to be cut down to size in a nationally syndicated newspaper comic strip that I inherited, buddy!”

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Dennis the Menace, 6/4/23

Part of my whole shtick on this blog is making fun of comics that just do the same jokes over and over, which itself has become repetitive, so I guess I should cautiously give Dennis the Menace credit for trying something new today, though I’m not sure if having an ill-tempered little spat with a kid on an opposing baseball team really counts as “menacing.” Honestly it’s a lot more menacing that CJ’s dog and father-coach just kind of manifest themselves out of thin air on second base in the middle of play. Also, are we supposed to take from the final panel that Dennis’s team is being coached by Henry? If so, I think it’s a funny choice to not even show him, so we can imagine him looking genuinely hurt and saying “Hey, CJ, hey … that’s not cool, man. Come on.”

Marvin, 6/4/23

Similarly, I’ll give Marvin credit from taking a day from its primary obsession (pooping) and instead dwelling on a secondary obsession (the “family” in Marvin & Family is a complex web of relationships, many of which border on outright hatred).

Dick Tracy, 6/4/23

Sprocket Nitrate was introduced in this strip way back in 2014, and her shoelessness was part of her whole deal as a dirty hippie. That was a long time ago, and now it’s the year 2023, when you can absolutely just put things in the comics pages for people who like foot stuff, so now she’s cleaned up her act a bit and being barefoot is itself her whole deal, as we’ll be shown in multiple panels per strip. Anyway, I’m glad that today’s strip also caters to my particular sicko fetish (clean, efficient intercity passenger rail travel).

Six Chix, 6/4/23

I gotta say, in the category of truly deranged Six Chix strips, this is one that I liked. That lady’s friend succumbed to Birkenstocks! She succumbed to Birkenstocks and she fuckin’ died, it’s very funny to me.