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Gil Thorp, 1/6/23

It saddens me that Marty Moon, Gil’s oldest frenemy, feels like he needs to introduce himself here. Presumably he’s doing it not for Gil’s sake but in the hopes that the local news will broadcast his question and won’t edit out him saying the name of his podcast. Gotta #hustle to build that #brand, Marty! Anyway, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out if Gil is doing some kind of wordplay on “Behind the Playbook” in that last panel, like he’s really saying “under my behind” or something, and have come to the conclusion that he’s actually trying to get this very question into Marty’s head, knowing the Marty’s going to be muttering “did Thorp just call me an ass?” to himself as he edits the podcast and wonders how much longer he can resist the siren song of drink.

Curtis, 1/6/23

Update on this year’s Kwanzaa tale: Joe D. Cawfee, who was born with a head featuring rabbit traits and wished he wasn’t different, had his wish granted by his magic fish, but in an ironic way, whoops! Also, his magic fish dropped dead in the process of granting the wish. Also the Curtis creative team would like to emphasize that you should not interpret this story as implying that the only way to solve conflict is to eliminate differences of all kinds, OK? The Curtis creative team is not going to explain why this guy is named “Joe D. Cawfee” either.

Beetle Bailey, 1/6/23

Remember how in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 the U.S. military and intelligence services went all out to recruit people who could speak Arabic and Persian? Well, we’re a new geopolitcial phase now, and we need everyone who’s ever said that they’re “fluent in sarcasm” in their Twitter bio or Tinder profile to step up and protect our nation from the current threats.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 1/6/23

Ha, get it, because she’s … a carnivorous animal of some kind? Do carnivores date birds, in the Mother Goose and Grimm universe, where most, though not all, of the characters are animals? I was about to apologize for not knowing the world-building rules of the Mother Goose and Grimm universe despite having read the strip for years but you know what? I’m not actually sorry about it! I’m not sorry at all.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/5/23

Oh, man, look at the shift on Jughaid’s face between panels here. His relationship with Mary Beth is generally of the stereotypical “girl has crush on boy but boy is a just a bit too young to have crushes” you see in newspaper comics, so it can’t be her affections that he’s considering. No, he’s truly absorbed the lawless culture of his family at a young age and is positively gleeful to learn that even the other rustics of Hootin’ Holler consider him and his kinfolk animalistic savages, like the vicious … cow? This metaphor needs work, admittedly, but when you’re a bunch’a wild animals like the Smifs, you don’t care much for “metaphors.”

Gil Thorp, 1/5/23

The Milford player getting bumped out of the way in panel one (and doing the STEAL!ing in panel two) is in fact a high school junior, which is I guess the source of the insult the Forest View player lobs at him in panel one. Do teenagers consider straightforward descriptions of what grade they’re in to be insulting? I wouldn’t know, I don’t talk to teenagers and I don’t care to. Honestly it would be funny if “junior” is meant to be insulting just because the Milford player is a teenager generally, since the Forest View player is, by all appearances, in his mid to late 40s.

Family Circus, 1/5/23

Nooo, Billy, that’s the evil tome with the spell that Summoned you and your siblings! The lock was put on because four of you is all our reality can handle, do not unlock it under any circumstances

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Blondie, 1/4/23

There are, I think I don’t have to tell you, a number of subtle ways in which the syndicated comic strip Blondie reinforces the patriarchy. Among them is the fact that Dagwood and the other male characters are allowed a full range of broad, cartoonish facial expressions, while Blondie and her mini-clone Cookie have their pretty girl faces mostly botoxed into place. I will allow, however, that in today’s strip the rigid components of their faces do subtly shift from their usual meaninglessness to allow a glimpse at the true horror both characters feel at the way your one wild and precious life can be consumed by the endless maw of the social media feed. This is, I think, ultimately preferable to Dustin’s thousand-mile social media stare, even though Dustin has correctly identified the website actually beloved by teens, whereas anyone who claims that the average high schooler is addicted to Facebook is either living in a fantasy world or desperately trying to buttress the value of their Meta Platforms, Inc., stock.

Hi and Lois, 1/4/23

I also enjoy the facial expressions on the up-and-coming new associate at Foofram Industries LLC in this strip. He may be new on the job, but he’s been there long enough to know that Thirsty generally doesn’t do anything very quickly, because he’s usually either very hungover or actively drunk.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/4/23

Oh, does the comic strip Rex Morgan, M.D., not have enough “medical” drama for your tastes? Did you decide that a guy pretending to shit his pants on stage so he can move up from opening act to headliner really falls into the category of a moral and ethical dilemma rather than one requiring the attention of a doctor or a nurse? OK, fine, uh, what about [thinks for exactly seven seconds about a scenario that would require medical intervention] a guy falling down in a parking lot. How about that. Are you happy now? Are you?????