Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/22/22

So Rex Morgan is trying to do a thing where they’re aging up the kids a bit, and … look, as a non-kid-haver, I’m just going to admit that I often have a hard time guessing the age of kids I encounter in real life, let alone really weird-looking ones from the comics, so I definitely feel free saying I’m not comfortable putting a number on how old any of these young people were or are, but just based on relative sizes I’m going to go ahead and say that Johnny and Michael should absolutely not require the Santa 101 Sarah is laying down here. But if it’s not for them, who is this exposition for? Us? Does Rex Morgan, M.D., think we need a primer on how Santa works? Just because I’m not clear on the distinction between roots country and the adjacent genres doesn’t mean I’m an idiot, guys.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/22/22

It’s bad enough that Snuffy is calling his parents and in-laws things, but I’m pretty sure that there are only four of them? Wait, is the fifth “thing” the moonshine jug? Do antique moonshine jugs have status equal to that of elderly people in Hootin’ Holler? Because that tracks, honestly.

Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft, 12/22/22

So Funky Winkerbean is spending its final days proving that the time discontinuity has now been resolved by having its cast and the Crankshaft cast meet up at a chuch concert in a snowstorm. I certainly hope that they’re trapped there for days and this turns into an Alive situation, with half the people eaten and the survivors left to malaprop about their cannibalism in Crankshaft in 2023.

Slylock Fox, 12/22/22

So Max, who usually wears shorts and no shirt, sleeps in a shirt with no shorts? This is honestly extremely disturbing.

Gil Thorp, 12/22/22

“I’m gonna go home and get divorced! I’m on a roll!”

Post Content

Between Friends, 12/21/22

So Monday and Tuesday’s Between Friends were about one of the families in the Between Friends gang watching the Twilight saga, which, for those young people who aren’t aware, was a popular series of films about sexy teen vampires and werewolves that came out in the late ’00s and early ’10s, primarily remembered now for delivering so much cash to its stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattison that they can now afford to spend time doing weirdo art-house films directed by David Cronenberg and various French people. Monday featured the mother and daughter of the [note to self: look up the names of these people, or maybe don’t if you’re too busy or it seems hard] family lusting after Pattison, and Tuesday was about the father getting excited that he recognized Pattison from the new Batman movie, but now it’s day three and we’ve got to reckon with the question of why on earth a syndicated comic strip would spend time making Twilight jokes in the Year of our Lord 2022. Turns out that it’s because some of us were too busy raising a family ten years ago to get horned up over teen vampires acting out some really regressive sexual and gender roles, OK? Thank god for streaming services that allow us to catch up now! Ultimately the upshot of all this is that it got me to look up where you can stream the Twilight movies, and it turns out the only place is on something called “Fubo,” so if Fubo paid for this subtle sponcon in Between Friends, then congrats, I guess, it worked.

Gil Thorp, 12/21/22

Oh, whoops, it looks like Gil lost the big game to his arch-rival and … wait, we have a last minute-reversal of that call, it looks like Gil is the real winner because he coaches for the love of the game and competition, not because he’s obsessed with winning. Who could have seen this one coming, Gil triumphing over all by being the bigger man, and I mean that quite literally, as panel one makes very clear. “Is someone talking?” Gil asks in panel three, as he gazes over Coach Martinez’s head. “I think I hear something, but I don’t see anyone.”

Curtis, 12/21/22

Hmm, Greg is a stickler for rules and a civil servant to boot, so I’m kind of surprised he isn’t aware that mail carriers aren’t supposed to accept cash tips. Maybe he’s never looked into the regs because, as a DMV employee, this hasn’t really ever come up for him personally.

Family Circus, 12/21/22

Look, I don’t want to say that the Family Circus is just a bunch of clip art mashed over decades-old panels, but … what is going on with this closet door. Why does it look like this? Did the Keane Kompound get featured on some second-tier HGTV show that just shiplapped everything?

Mary Worth, 12/21/22

We’ve all wondered why Wilbur hasn’t yet been formally ostracized by the Charterstone condo board and forcibly exiled to the Outer Wastes. Well, it looks like Mary has learned from Dawn how useful he is as a foil and is now using him to really cut down on the work that goes into her meddling. Instead of needing to come up with bespoke advice for everyone’s specific problems, she can just ask everyone WWWD: What Wouldn’t Wilbur Do?

Post Content

Blondie, 12/20/22

I’m reasonably sure that we’ve never seen Dagwood and his “fishing buddy” Herb ever actually go fishing? Maybe there was talk of fishing gear borrowed and never returned, or some bit set up by a powerboat (not a rowboat) parked in Herb’s driveway? This makes me suspect that today’s strip was built backwards from a punchline about “what if a Christmas fruitcake was an anchor???? because it’s so hard and dense, get it????”, which itself is a common misunderstanding of fruitcake’s whole deal (fruitcakes are, if done right, actually very moist) that has arisen since nobody eats fruitcakes anymore and we only know about them from old jokes about bad ones. Anyway, mostly what I’m interested in here is that the salesman at this store, which I assume is a chain that caters to suburbanites like Dagwood who very occasionally go fishing, has been forced to put on a ridiculous get-up and even grow a chinbeard just to provide a “full nautical experience” for customers. Probably he had to sit through a whole training from corporate about how if you don’t say “Ahoy matey!” to everyone who walks in the door, with enthusiasm, you’ll get written up by your shift supervisor.

Hagar the Horrible, 12/20/22

Based on everyone’s sour expressions here, I guess the joke here is that Hagar is obviously guilty, but that his lawyer has discovered some technical loophole to free him that the judge and jury are bound to obey, even though they clearly don’t like it. This being medieval Norway, the loophole is probably that, despite a recent move towards a written legal system where courts attempt to ascertain the facts of a case and hand down judgements based on an objective moral code, it’s still technically legal to resolve disputes via trial by combat, and Hagar’s accuser is currently lying in a bloody, dismembered heap on the floor.