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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/30/22

“So, guys, it’s been a couple years and we’ve crunched the numbers and the new ‘Sparkplug’s Grandson Li’l Sparky’ character hasn’t really captured the youth market like we’d hoped. We need to come up with some ways to make him appealing to Millen– er, Zoomers, I guess. C’mon, guys, no bad ideas. [long pause] How about pumpkin spice lattes? The kids today love pumpkin spice lattes, right?”

Beetle Bailey, 9/30/22

“And what’s the phone number for HUAC, so I can report her for Communism”

Mary Worth, 9/30/22

[Mary and Jeff spend the next six weeks quietly reading an anthology of the beloved comic strip For Better Or For Worse]

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Judge Parker, 9/29/22

Now that Sam Driver is extremely divorced, he can really get back to his roots as a character, by which I mean solving mysteries and doing other feats of derring-do while Judge Parker spends his time doing boring judge stuff, which is why Sam was introduced into the strip in the 1960s in the first place. Meeting one of your police contacts at some out-of-the-way bar is a classic mystery-solving move, of course, though traditionally I think you’re supposed to be at a grimy dive bar where nobody you know would think to look for you, not some well-appointed hipster place that charges $18 for [squints] ketchup.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/29/22

Oh, yeah, I can’t remember if I’ve actually mentioned it, but Hank Jr.’s big plane trip is to see his long distance girlfriend, who is the daughter of his dad’s high school sweetheart, who owned the diner they’re in now, until she died, and Hank Jr. picked up his new girlfriend at said high school sweetheart’s funeral. I could’ve worded that all less confusingly, but trust me, you don’t really need to know the details, because as you can tell from this strip Hank Jr.’s gonna be dead of a massive coronary by next week at the latest.

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Blondie, 9/28/22

Look, I don’t want to dwell on the technical details here, which seem to be based on the misconception that “well you look at Instagram on your phone so your account must be on your phone somewhere.” I instead want to engage with this strip on a narrative level. What exactly is the dangerous stalker planning to do with Elmo’s account? Post declarations of love from him to her? Send poison pen DMs to his friends and her potential romantic rivals? This is a significant escalation from snarky emojis and honestly he should be telling his parents about it, not some random unrelated neighbor-adult who sees the story primarily as being about the Kids Today, Who Are Not As Good As We Were When We Were Kids.

Daddy Daze, 9/28/22

Wait, did we know that the Daddy Daze daddy’s goth friend’s son was a teen? This is really opening up a lot of fun possibilities, honestly. I can’t decide if this kid is himself a goth, like a mini-me version of his dad, or instead has gone full on jock or preppie, as an act of defiance. Anyway, check out panel four here, where the dude has decided that blinding himself with scalding hot coffee is the logical next step in his story.

Hi and Lois, 9/28/22

Absolutely love that Hi has decided to rebel against the total overload we’re facing in the age of Too Much Streaming Content by engaging with the world as he assumes our primitive ancestors did: by reading a print magazine about golf. It’s clear from his facial expression that it didn’t work, but I’m proud of him for making the attempt.