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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?????

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FOLKS, I neglected in yesterday’s return post to promote the big event of Comics Award Season: The Fifteenth (!) Annual Worthy Awards, in which faithful reader Wanders nominates the best of Mary Worth’s 2022 shenanigans and you, the readers, pick the winners. You’ll be choosing the Panel of the Year, Quote of the Year, outstanding performances from regular and guest characters, and, of course, the most coveted award of all, Outstanding Floating Head. Vote early and often!

Dennis the Menace, 1/3/23

Man, look, I don’t know if the menace here is supposed to be “Ha ha, Dennis thinks his childhood likes and dislikes reflect the overall business climate” or “Ha ha, vegetarians, amiright, even a child knows they’re gross,” but what really bothers me here are the … things … inside the shuttered restaurant. Are they potted plants — like a lot of potted plants, like way too many potted plants for a small space? Are they bowls containing the aforementioned organic vegetarian cuisine, as drawn by someone whose restaurant habits are Applebee’s-centric and this is what they think vegetarians eat? Are they leftover bowls of vegetarian meals that, abandoned by their creators, have sprouted into aggressive, powerful plants that will have their revenge on us? Each option is more unsettling than the last.

Gasoline Alley, 1/3/23

Couldn’t really tell you how Gasoline Alley got to this point but I am amusing myself by trying to figure out what terrible emergency at the North Pole would get Santa to abruptly abandon his tropical vacation. Like, probably a violent elf labor revolt that his trained Pinkertons have been unable to suppress, right? Or maybe word has gotten back that Mrs. Claus is having a dalliance with Jack Frost or something? Honestly, the funniest answer is that Rudolf is trained to summon him on a fake “emergency” if a child insists on talking to him for more than ten minutes during his vacation, and they’re just going to circle back to the beach as soon as the kids leave.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 1/3/23

Meanwhile, diabolical scientists in Mother Goose and Grimm have created a perfume so alluring that it will stir up murderous violence in anyone who so much as sniffs it! Or it’s just deadly poisonous, honestly kind of hard to tell what they’re getting at.