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Folks, we need to start off on a sad note: Dennis Lien, who for many years posted in the comments here as Shrug, passed away last week under hospice care. He was a great force for good vibes on this site and he will really be missed!

Blondie, 4/17/23

Dagwood can tell Alexander is “getting serious” romantically because he’s wearing “clothes that fit,” like a monocolored t-shirt that he carefully tucks into his belted khakis. The extent to which this comic doesn’t understand teenagers manages to go even beyond the extent to which it doesn’t understand adults, which is really saying something.

Gil Thorp, 4/17/23

MILFORD GEOGRAPHY ALERT: today we establish definitively that Milford is in the “pop” zone, and while this encompasses a broad swath of the United States, from the Great Lakes to the Great Plains to Rockies to the Pacific Northwest, it seems to definitively cut out other commonly cited location possibilities, like Connecticut. Sadly, Hoo Dad’s Root Beer does not appear to be a real regional product that we could use to narrow things down further, but I will provide more data on this as it comes in.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/17/23

If you’re curious about what educational and intellectual life in Hootin’ Holler is like, I’d like to point out that Jughaid is thumbing through what appears to be an unbound six-page leaflet about volcanos, which I assume has been written by hand.

Crock, 4/17/23

Oh look, today’s Crock rerun is a joke about, uh, children getting married to adults? Here’s hopin that this is what it finally takes to get Crock cancelled (I will accept either the modern “cancel culture” sense of the word or the more traditional “they stop running it newspapers” sense, whatever it takes).

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Blondie, 4/16/23

My impression of Blondie and Bumstead’s personal history goes something like this: they has a brief and dissolute young adulthood during the Great Depression during which they met and married one another, after which time they settled into suburban domesticity for the next 90 years of unending middle age, their past vanishing away into mist. Now, does this make any internal sense? No, obviously not, but it still feels right to me and frankly strips like this, which imply that either of them had a life before they met that they can remember, are extremely off-putting. Unless the guy who used to wear this stupid hat was Dagwood himself at some point in their eternal marriage, and Blondie remembers and he can’t! If Blondie can retain memories while Dagwood exists in an undending present, that would explain a lot, although honestly you’d think she’d be a lot angrier.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/16/23

Sorry, I cannot simultaneously believe that Rene is such a master of beardcraft that he can create near-impenetrable disguises for spying on his enemies, and yet he still worries that his Dr. Mirakle get up wasn’t good enough for Hank Jr., or was good enough at first but he’ll remember who he was hours later. It doesn’t add up! Unless the goal is for Hank to spot his new disguise to dispel suspicions. “That Mirakle guy reminds me of somebody — can’t put my finger on it — oh, I guess it’s that guy over there with the weird chinbeard and the hat! Must’ve seen him around. Mystery solved!”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/15/23

Aw, shucks, it looks like Dr. Mirakle really is Rene Belluso after all, cleverly disguised via fake eyebrows, though the question of whether Mud Mountain is a coconspirator or a mark is still up for grabs. Sadly, Rene used to know Hank Sr., so the “kid” Hank Jr. (who is clearly 15 years older than Rene at minimum) might recognize him at some point in the future, despite having had a not particularly brief conversation with him at close range earlier and seeming to not notice anything amiss. The point is that we’re gonna get a boat murder, or at least a boat attempted murder, and I think that’s neat.

Dick Tracy, 4/15/23

Speaking of crimes, Neo-Chicago’s Major Crimes Unit has called in an classic games expert for The Case Of The Guy Who Loves Classic Games Too Much, and check out how Sam is just absolutely embarrassing himself here. “Somebody’s playing cops and robbers and won’t share the dice.” C’mon Sam. Cops and robbers is an open-ended game of make-believe that children play, it isn’t like some structured thing with dice and board pieces and whatever. And what would “sharing” dice even mean in this metaphor? That’s not how dice work! Steve thinks you’re a big idiot! Why can’t you just be normal?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/15/23

Hmm, and how did Loweezy find out about this information, exactly? Sure, everyone knows Snuffy is a notorious layabout and criminal, but usually criminals can be relied upon to keep their mouths shut to protect their associates. But it seems not all the gossip in Hootin’ Holler is exchanged at the gossip fence.