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Family Circus, 1/27/23

One thing that’s always pleasant in reading a longstanding feature like the Family Circus is a sense of real surprise! Normally, for instance, you’d expect Grandma Keane to be scandalized by how poorly the local public school is teaching her grandchildren to love the American flag, and, by extension, the republic for which it stands, but here she seems positively delighted that Dolly can’t tell the difference between a patriotic oath and a jingle created by a megacorporation to promote processed beef purchases. “That’s right dear,” she says, “American ideology is a hollow shell! Finally, you’re starting to recognize it!”

Dennis the Menace, 1/27/23

Oh, sorry, I guess I called this post “One-panel Friday” even though Dennis the Menace is trying to wedge multiple panels into its traditional one-panel structure, which I frankly don’t care for. They’re even jamming a word balloon in there, jeez! What do you think you are, Blondie? Anyway, it’s kind of funny — and frankly telling — that Mrs. Wilson was planning on casually going out and dropping three to four figures on a major piece of living room furniture without even asking her husband what he thinks. But I guess the second (sigh) panel proves that he cares about one thing and one thing only: his eternal war against Dennis Mitchell. Her facial expression shows that she’s not looking forward to the awkward and embarrassing conversation with a furniture salesman about a seven-year-old that she’s going to have to listen to.

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Mary Worth, 1/26/23

“They get along with each other and with everyone! Well, I guess Libby doesn’t get along with Wilbur, because she deliberately pissed on his side of the couch. And Pierre doesn’t get along with Wilbur, like he’s only my dog because he literally refused to live with Wilbur any longer. We’re not counting Wilbur as part of ‘everyone’ for this conversation, right? That’s reasonable enough? I mean, you’ve met him.”

Crock, 1/26/23

A joke? In the syndicated newspaper comic strip Crock? I find this highly unlikely.

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Blondie, 1/25/22

OK, a cat wedding isn’t that wacky — like maybe it’s in the top 20 percent of wacky things that might conceivably happen to a caterer — but this strip did make me realize that frankly nothing particularly wacky ever happens to Dagwood. Like, he goes to work, annoys his carpool, gets yelled at by his boss, eats fast food, etc., etc. Oh, did you go to a bird store and the bird store guy said something weird about the bird, Dagwood? BORING. What I’m trying to say is that he should know better than now to try to one-up his wife on this point.

Dick Tracy, 1/25/22

It must be kind of fun to be Kriptonite — no, wait, I mean Kyptonite — sorry, that’s just Kryptonite, I guess. Anyway, it must be fun to be him because you don’t have to keep track of the various inscrutable feuds within the Tracyverse underworld. Someone calls you up, pays you some money, and then you go and murder someone else with a speargun! Is the guy you’re supposed to murder today the same guy who paid you to murder someone else like two weeks ago? Who knows! You don’t keep written records of all this stuff! It’s murder! Why would you?

Mary Worth, 1/25/22

ME, ON A DATE, REALIZING THAT THE DEAD DOG TALK ISN’T GOING SO WELL: I’m really enjoying working with my nephew! The job stresses him out, though. Probably because of all the dogs we keep killing [no damn it shut up shut up shut up]