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Josh gets dark

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Mary Worth, 11/11/22

“Nah, babe. Even the prospect of our tragic death can only shake us out of the boring ruts of our usual routine for a day or so. That’s why we’ve got to plan our upcoming wedding … it’s just out of the ordinary enough to make us feel like everything isn’t undifferentiated sameness with no beginning or end. And after the wedding? Well, we’ll just have to come up with something else, hopefully not suicide.”

Dennis the Menace, 11/11/22

I dunno man, I feel like it’s a bad sign that Mr. Wilson hasn’t even bothered to tape over that window or anything. Just left a big jagged hole! Like he’s given up on everything! I hope the UPS man isn’t delivering something he’s going to use to harm his neighbors, or himself.

Pardon My Planet, 11/11/22

A new addition to the list of Things You Can Just Put In A Newspaper Comic Now Where God And Everyone Can See It: a blowup sex doll. Congrats, Pardon My Planet!

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Forbidden municipal romance

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Gasoline Alley, 11/10/22

Gasoline Alley is, I admit, one of those strips I read out of a sense of professional obligation rather than a true inborn enthusiasm. Yet one can derive a real satisfaction from achievements that are wholly professional in nature! For instance, I’ve managed to keep the “Rufus is fucking the mayor” plot thread close enough to the top of my mind that when I read the final panel of today’s strip I nodded sagely and thought to myself, “Ah, Walt’s going to get to ride on the back of a garbage truck, just like his hero Denzel Washington, because Rufus is fucking the mayor,” whereas I assume the typical comic reader simply shook their head in confusion and disgust before moving on to Garfield.

Judge Parker, 11/10/22

Oh, hey, remember how Abbey was running for mayor? Well, she lost, and she’s mainly mad that her ex, who for once in his life is doing something interesting, didn’t text her about it. Abbey is by my count the third character in this strip to unsuccessfully run for mayor, and frankly I can’t get enough of it. Keep losing, losers!

Dustin, 11/10/22

Look, I don’t care if Dustin dies first or his dad does. But one of them has got to go. At least one. They can’t keep taunting me like this.

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I’m talkin’ involuntary poopin’, if that’s not clear

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/9/22

Oh, sorry folks, I haven’t been keeping you up to date on the antics of “Mud Mountain Murphy!” Well, after doing some mild flirting at the diner, Mud Mountain Murphy ate a truly superhuman amount of food — and, like, I mean that, it was cartoonish, no real person would or could eat that much — with seemingly no ill effects. I say seemingly because that hesitation and those beads of sweat say that we might, in fact, be in store for some ill effects! It would be easy and juvenile to make a joke about a “mud mountain” in Mud Mountain’s pants, but honestly that’s a best case scenario for him, especially given that Rex Morgan, M.D., occasionally remembers the M.D. in its name and we might be about to see a massive on-stage coronary event.

Beetle Bailey, 11/9/22

Sure, Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries appears to be one of the few newspaper-adjacent entities still comfortably in the black, but I think it shows some hubris to do a whole newspaper comic strip where the joke is “Newspapers are literally garbage, good only for wiping up spills, and everyone but doddering old men know it!”

Gil Thorp, 11/9/22

In an earlier time, when only a few major media outlets dominated small markets like Milford, it was easy for Gil to cement his dominance and protect his career: he simply had his allies in the press publish stories proclaiming his victory in games he had lost! You begin to see why Marty Moon acts like he’s such a crusader for truth: you may not like his methods, but at least he’s offering an alternative voice out there.