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Mary Worth, 10/6/23

Oh, root beer? You guys both love root beer? You’d describe it as your “favorite”? Well, I think we can forget DNA tests or the “necessary Q&A” about who failed to pull out of who when: paternity has now pretty much been confirmed! Congrats to all!

Beetle Bailey, 10/6/23

Ha ha, wouldn’t it be funny if a guy was in the army but — get this — he had a cell phone, like you and me, and he accidentally dropped it in the sink? Such a thing would be impossible, of course, but it’s truly whimsical to imagine. An army guy! With a cell phone! Oh, mercy.

Curtis, 10/6/23

Look, I’m not saying I want Curtis to wrap up and stop publishing — far from it! Please, grace us with crazy stories for many Kwanzaas to come! But I am saying that a very cool way for Curtis to end its run in the funny pages would be for one of Greg’s old enemies to escape from prison, forcing the Wilkins family to flee for their lives.

Judge Parker, 10/6/23

Oh, hey, a guy got tased in Judge Parker! Don’t really have much to add to that, just thought you’d want to know. He got tased right in the neck!

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Between Friends, 10/5/23

Many years ago, when I first started this blog, it was called “I Read The Comics So You Don’t Have To,” and sometimes I feel I’ve lost sight of that missions, so, here you go: Between Friends has been doing an on-again-off-again plot for it seems like weeks where Susan here is on Zoom with a coworker who has young kids and is very excited about getting away from them for a few days on a work trip. This is, I do not deny, hashtag relatable, but there’s just been so much of it, and if you’re just seeing this strip in isolation, you’re probably like, “I don’t see why it’s worth complaining about,” but trust me: I have read the comics so you don’t have to, and I’m here to tell you that it’s gotten real old and shows no sign of not getting older. I feel like today’s strip, which is just a bunch of dialogue coming out of a computer screen while a person makes various facial expressions in response, is particularly egregious. There’s a lot to say about the post-lockdown persistence of white collar work-from-home jobs, and as a longtime home office worker I’m generally in favor of the trend, but it’s a real problem for comic strips that rely on people interacting at work for visual interest.

Hi and Lois, 10/5/23

Man, I wish I could get as excited about anything as this child is hearing an old man talk about the last 30 years of technological progress! Or, well, given the medium and its current readership, I guess I should say I wish I could get as excited about anything as this child is in this fantasy deliberately engineered to make old people feel like children might be interested in what they have to say.

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Blondie, 10/4/23

Look, I’m not going to say that this guy is a spitting image rendition of Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men, but his hair is weird in a way that’s kind of adjacent to the way Bardem’s hair was weird in that movie, and Chigurh’s whole gimmick was that he would make people flip a coin and if they lost he would kill them? Which seems like a strange thing to reference in the syndicated newspaper comic strip Blondie but, you know, they gotta make hundreds of these a year, eventually they’re gonna get strange with it. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, RIP Blondie Bumstead (1930-2023), you taught me that it was OK to be a flapper who marries above your class.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/4/23

“You’re on my list! My list of people I’m going to convince to turn themselves in to the cops and sign over valuable intellectual property to me. I’m back and I’m badder than ever! Plus I have mind powers now!”