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Blondie, 3/14/23

Normally, the purpose of Blondie is to deliver laughs to comics lovers everywhere assure its readers, who are on average shockingly old, that their instinctual distrust and loathing of any novel cultural or technical developments from the past three decades are well founded. Unfortunately, today’s strip misses the mark, as pickleball is a trend that is almost entirely driven by Blondie’s core demographic of semi-active seniors. Ironically, this makes the exchange here, in which a couple of fortysomething guys express bewilderment about it, sort of loop around back to making sense again.

Beetle Bailey, 3/14/23

Big news, everyone! The good folks at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC have become aware of the existence of app-based food delivery services! Based on today’s strip, they definitely think that they’re just restaurants that you can use your phone to order food from, but it’s a start.

Hagar the Horrible, 3/14/23

Ha ha, it’s funny because the physical injuries Lucky Eddie has suffered in combat pale in comparison to his mental and spiritual trauma, yet his supposed best friend Hagar is positively gleeful at the thought of sending him back into battle!

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Hi and Lois, 3/13/23

You know, I’ve often wondered how lovable disheveled loser Thirsty manages to hold down his job at Foofram Industries, but today we learn that by sheer force of not giving a shit he’s not only gainfully employed but has an office with a door and little desk sign that cheerfully proclaims his drinking problem to anyone who wanders in. Mr. Foofram is completely powerless against Thirsty’s utter lack of shame, and frankly a lot of us could take some pointers from him.

Dennis the Menace, 3/13/23

You know, “menacing” is communal process: it requires one party to behave in a potentially menacing fashion and another party to perceive those actions as menacing. So Dennis can trot this stuff out all he wants but if everyone is just going to titter indulgently, it’s not menacing. He’s clearly hoping for a theological escalation that he simply isn’t going to get at this drippy liberal Episcopalian parish his parents drag him to every week.

Gil Thorp, 3/13/23

Every team needs two kinds of assistant coaches: one who yells specific things you need to do, and another one that just yells general compliments. And thanks to their big fundraiser, the Mudlarks can now afford both, who hold down coaching duties on the sideline while Gil goes and takes a 25-minute “smoke break”.

Slylock Fox, 3/13/23

I love that, instead of drawing anything relevant to the logic puzzle he’s giving his class, Sly has just drawn an elaborately lifelike portrait of Count Weirdly on the whiteboard. “Blah blah fingerprints blah blah LOOK AT THIS FACE,” he says. “THIS FACE IS ALWAYS GUITLY. ONCE YOU SEE THE FACE JUST WORK YOUR WAY BACKWARDS TO SOMETHING VAGUELY PLAUSIBLE THEN LOCK HIM UP.”

Mary Worth, 3/13/23

“Your furry friends … [Mary pauses, then has a panicked thought that Wilbur and Dawn might have fursonas she doesn’t know about] … Pierre and Libby?”

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/12/23

Barney Google more or less vanished from his namesake strip in the 1930s as it pivoted to cruel jokes about hillbillies full time, but he started making regular appearances again in the early 2010s. I’ve always been a bit curious about why that decision was made — was it just to mix things up in a strip that had gone stale? Was it to ensure that the valuable Barney and Spark Plug IP didn’t fall into the public domain? But today we learn the awful truth: Barney has returned to Hootin’ Holler because this impoverished, isolated community is at risk of catastrophe due to its limited gene pool, and the women of the town are eager for Barney’s flatlander seed.

Blondie, 3/12/23

This is, frankly, a pretty weak showing in the cluttered genre of Blondie strips that latch onto whatever current event has popped up on the calendar; I’m particularly unimpressed that they didn’t even try to fit into actual Oscar categories, instead making up a bunch of vaguely Oscar-esque ones. Still, my biggest concern arises from the very first panel, in which we learn that Dagwood doesn’t know the difference between Facebook and LinkedIn.

Six Chix, 3/12/23

Ha ha, remember Pizza Rat, the beloved internet sensation from 2015? Well, rats typically live about two years, and even the best treated pet rats five or six, so Pizza Rat is definitely dead now. Don’t let Six Chix fool you into believing that he’s lived a long and happy life in the New York Subway somewhere, he’s 100% dead. RIP Pizza Rat, c. 2014-c. 2016, you will be missed.