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Dustin, 3/18/23

A fun fact is that Dustin premiered in January 2010, at the low point of the Great Recession, when unemployment was at nearly 10% and entry-level jobs that paid a living wage were extremely hard to find, which makes its central proposition — that young people who move back in with their parents because are lazy pieces of shit — all the crueler in retrospect. With unemployment now at about a third of that, things are a little different, but you can’t blame Dustin for keeping track of how the world changes around his eternal 24-and-underemployed situation to see what the vibes might be like to an outside observer.

Blondie, 3/18/23

On top of everything else, that’s clearly just a crossword puzzle. Dagwood has finally lost it, I regret to inform you all.

Family Circus, 3/18/23

You might think that the “best part” would be the opportunity to spend time with a beloved grandparent! You’d only think that if you hadn’t met her, though.

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This week’s top comment won’t drive all the snakes out of your peaceful island, but it will make you laugh:

“I’m so glad that Slylock does the dopey, overly earnest ‘sitting on a chair backwards to be cool and relatable’ thing as he ‘raps’ with the kids about ‘the degenerate facial features of the lower, criminal types.’” –Dunkelcopter

These runners up will also do the trick!

“So Herb and Dag play ping pong Matrix-style, jumping off walls and defying the laws of physics to win a best of five. Has this never come up before? Seems more interesting than that office bullshit.” –pugfuggly

“I choose to believe the women are just trying to coax the two guys out of the poorly designed horse costume. Their jobs suck, but they are definitely marriage material.” –made of wince

“I thought Dagwood was saying that he had single-handedly turned Facebook around, and you know what? That would be a much better film than the real Social Network. ‘A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what is cool? Do you? Please tell me, I haven’t kept up with popular culture since the 1920s.’” –Schroduck

“Count Weirdly’s are the only human fingerprints on the can. The others belong to an aardvark and a banana slug. And when it comes to crime, who’s guilty? That’s right, the humans. You think I’m going to accuse Mayor Barbara Banana-Slug’s son of stealing? Come on now, this was why we fought the war in the first place.” –The Ghost of Jarrod

“The effort, the brainpower, the tens of seconds that went into the name of that restaurant: (salad) chef’s kiss. I say this with complete sincerity: This is my favorite thing on the comics page in years. Everything about it is perfect. The name ‘Salad Town.’ The salads themselves, indistinguishable from the flowers on the table. The fact that the name — again, SALAD TOWN — was clearly both conceived and written on the window while the proprietor was drunk. Salad. Town. I’ll never get over it.” –els

“Someone was listening! Someone was actually listening to my sermon! Maybe being a priest is for me after all!” –RogerBW

“You can really tell Dagwood and Lou are up on current trends by how they are reading a newspaper.” –Drew Funk

“The good news is that the time travel experiment was a success, and I brought back this miraculous piece of medical technology. The bad news is that I’m not actually putting the stethoscope in my ears, so it’s not actually doing anything. The worse news is that a stethoscope, even if used correctly, isn’t going to help with your missing hands. The even worse news is that I have a pair of iron gauntlets I’m going to weld on to your stumps. The worst news is that we have no anesthesia. But the best news is that you’ll be known as Eddie Ironfists in the new Edda!” –Voshkod

“I prefer to think that Dagwood and Sandwich Guy (I don’t remember his name and I frankly don’t care to) are just sports illiterate and don’t understand any sort of physical activity besides eating. ‘Baseball? I don’t know what that is but y’know what I do understand? Stuffing my fucking face.’” –ectojazzmage

“No, of course it doesn’t make any sense for Hootin’ Holler to have a golf course, but just as the Magicians’ Union requires every professional magic act to include at least one card trick, the cartoonists’ union requires every comic strip to have at least one golf panel a year. You wouldn’t want John Rose to be accused of scabbing, would you?” –Rube

“Mommy, it used to be a cookie! At least when it went in the mouth end anyway.” –2+2=7

“Oh… you didn’t mean your actual heart … you want something to deaden the emotional pain. Why that’s easy, Barney, I got all kinds of cure alls for that. Most of them contain opium, so if you see the Feds pokin’ around, shoot first, and say, ‘Am I being detained?’ second.” –Old Man Shadow

“So this is what a plugger’s hook-up dating site profile looks like? At least it’s direct.” –jroggs

“Randy Parker has turned into … Legal Chameleon, Cavelton’s newest superhero! No capes, no masks needed. His disguise is his background, with his ethics, opinions, and complexion all changing to match his surroundings!” –Charterstoned

“Pluggers don’t need your hoity-toity French philosophers to know continuity of self is an illusion! The rapid decay of their body teaches it much more efficiently, and they didn’t even have to read Althusser.” –Lark L

“Mentioning a specific moment in time near Ida Noe will activate her curse, transporting everyone in the room to see Waldo Wallet lose a game of ‘Give me five, up high’ to the legendarily gangly Abraham Lincoln before pitching forward into the horse-turd-filled muck of 19th century Gasoline Alley.” –Mantipath

“It’s wild what goes through their digestive tracts, judging by the way they’re standing.” –nescio

“‘A giant leprechaun…’ So Dagwood gets confused by average sized Irish people?” –Tabby Lavalamp

“I didn’t initially see the clock over Leroy’s head, and just assumed that he was extremely unhappy that people were glad to see him. Now that I see the clock, I stand by that interpretation.” –Vice President John Adams

“Memo from corporate: the good news is, we’re getting that high-rise Manhattan office with a window that looks out over the city. The bad news? Rent is so much that we can only afford one desk for all six of you, plus a digital clock from Five Below.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

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Marvin, 3/17/23

Most people would tell you that Marvin’s main innovation is that it’s a newspaper comic strip that’s mostly about peeing and pooping, but let’s not forget that it’s also about a whole family — three generations of people, plus pets — who simply do not like one another and would abandon one another for a better offer at the drop of a hat.

The Lockhorns, 3/17/23

I think we can all agree that Leroy is a fairly unpleasant person generally, and so I’ve always assumed that his coworkers spend as little time interacting with him as possible, which probably goes a long way towards explaining his perennial lack of professional success. This is probably the most attention any of them have ever paid to him, which no doubt makes the whole experience sting all the more.

Blondie, 3/17/23

I like that this guy just takes it as a given that, even in his own internal mindscape, Dagwood would not be smart or resourceful enough to escape from a leprechaun on his own initiative.