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Judge Parker, 7/11/23

Josh, the world cries out with one voice, how’s Sam and Abbey’s sex vacation going? Well, they just had just gotten out of cell phone coverage range when someone intentionally (?) rammed their car and ran off, leaving an unconscious toddler behind, who Sam and Abbey decided to carry with them on the miles-long walk to their cabin, where a landline awaited them. So, uh, the sex vacation was not going great, in other words! But good news: the little tyke woke up and, understandably, immediately started screaming and fleeing into the woods away from the total strangers who were taking her who knows where. So … sex vacation is back on? More on this story as it develops.

Gil Thorp, 7/11/23

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy (with Gil’s entire family no-shows at his big awards ceremony), the second time as farce (Gil’s kids there to cheer him on but Mimi off somewhere else, presumably banging her golf coach).

Mary Worth, 7/11/23

Now, you might think the implication here is that Mary was only one of many people who reported ambiguous but suspicious dog park adjacent behavior to the police, but let’s look at the facts. Mary is a careful and methodical person and she doesn’t pop a bunch of popcorn in order to gloatingly eat it in front of the 6 o’clock news on the off chance that one phone call did the trick. No, I think that just off panel, there are pile of burner phones and an electronic voice-altering gadget that helped her make sure that justice was done.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/11/23

Sorry to have misspoken last week: Rex and June’s loutish neighbor lost an eye to his post-July 4th fireworks, not a hand, and the whole family was too drunk to drive themselves to the hospital so Rex volunteered to do it. Anyway, Travis is “turning that frown upside down” by thinking about how understaffed emergency rooms are and all the delicious pills they probably just leave out unattended!

Dustin, 7/11/23

Man, this sort of dead-eyed literalism is more menacing than anything Dennis ever came up with. I guess it’s what you’d expect from a child who’s decided to make exactly one friend, and that friend is an adult, and that adult is Dustin.

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Gasoline Alley, 7/10/23

Obviously the art in Gasoline Alley is not what you call realistic — see for instance, Rufus’s whole [gestures vaguely at his grotesque face] deal. So while it’s common in real life for a loose-fitting hospital gown to slip down the shoulder of a supine patient still groggy from a head injury, in this context it’s a deliberate choice — a choice to make Rufus look sexy. I don’t care for it. Don’t care for it one bit!

Hagar the Horrible, 7/10/23

Oh, man, for all those years of Lucky Eddie dating a mermaid, he’s been saying “Oh, it’s not that weird, she still has a human top half, ha ha,” when all this time she’s just been a gateway romance leading to much more extreme sea life-fucking.

Gil Thorp, 7/10/23

Just a year ago, the Barajas Era of Gil Thorp began with Gil receiving the Jack Berrill Coach of the Year award. Now Year 2 B.E. is underway and Gil is … receiving the Jack Berrill Coach of the Year Award. What, you thought someone else was going to get an award named after the guy who created the strip? Get real.

Mary Worth, 7/10/23

Hey, everyone! Please add “carrying a leash while stepping into or out of a van” to the list of activities that could get you shot in the back while “resisting arrest.”

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Curtis, 7/9/23

As part of my mission to say nice things about comics when I enjoy them, I really enjoyed this Curtis! Basically I spent the whole strip thinking “Is he visualizing an eye roll or is he just thinking the words ‘eye roll’?” only to get the payoff in the next to last panel. A fun little game played with the conventions of comics and the nature of cognition itself (can we even say for sure if thinking involves words rather than concepts?). Kudos for Curtis!

Mary Worth, 7/9/23

You know who doesn’t get any kudos is me, because while I showed you vigilante Mary yesterday, I failed to show you Friday’s strip, which made it clear that she’s enjoying on one of her own blueberry muffins during her stakeout. Thank goodness for the Sunday strips, which recapitulate such important information for occasional readers! Anyway, what do you think happened to that half-eaten muffin between panels 5 and 7? Did Mary carefully place it on the napkin she had previously unfolded on the passenger seat, or, in her haste to grab her binoculars, did she let it tumble to the floor at her feet? (The floor mats in her car are of course immaculate, so even in the latter case she’ll be free to pick it up and continue her noshing at her leisure.)