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Gearhead Gertie, 1/23/25

Today’s Gearhead Gertie is actually a pretty great commentary about how modern fandoms of all stripes have slowly transformed from genuine expressions of enthusiasm into parasocial relationships between fans and the corporations that churn out the content they crave. You’d think that a NASCAR superfan would need a drone in order to get views of the race from angles that you simply can’t see on TV or even sitting in the stands. But no, Gertie would simply never dream of violating the sacred media rights agreements NASCAR has signed with their distribution partners FOX Sports, NBC Sports, Amazon’s Prime Video, and TNT Sports. Instead, she’s using the drone to harass the unfortunate workers tasked with delivering the overpriced licensed trinkets that tide her over between officially sanctioned broadcasts of racing action.

Marvin, 1/23/25

I must offer further grudging respect to Marvin for reaching new levels of villainy this week. Sure, “I should get to piss and shit myself as long as I want and that’s my parents’ problem” is grotesque, but it honestly pales in comparison to “Your parents are doing something for you because it makes you happy, which is a psyop. Do not fall for it and express any pleasure whatsoever!”

Mary Worth, 1/23/25

Wait, Jared, are you counting Jess, who you dumped Dawn for, and who I’m pretty sure has never interacted with her before today, as Dawn’s friend? Because I don’t think that really counts! I don’t think you really count, to be perfectly honest.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/22/25

So with Kelly out of the house, Summer has been whining about being bored and lonely to everyone she knows, and by “everyone she knows” I mean her daughter and her two coworkers and that’s it, which is very clearly part of the problem. The way the whining went is that she would say “What if I got back into the dating scene! Ha ha! Wouldn’t that be crazy” and other people were like “Uh you know there are lots of other things you could do outside the house, right” and Summer was like “What I’m hearing is that you think I should find a man, for sex.” Anyway, I’m loving the footnote in panel two, assuring us that Summer’s first pass at finding a sex partner isn’t really ending with the guy having a stroke right there at the table and Summer just sighing heavily rather than attempting to find medical help for him. He’s just boring!

Slylock Fox, 1/22/25

Both these panels take place as part of the awful Event that saw animals abruptly become sapient and our human world violently transformed into the animal-dominated realm of Slylock and his Forest Kingdom apparatus of oppression. In the first panel, the wolf, still puzzled by his newfound knowledge of the world, is merely aping the predatory stories he’s discovered in human fairy tales about animals; in the second, the wolf is angry at the humiliation heaped upon the animal characters in those books and has decided to elaborately act out one of those stories but change the ending in an act of bloody revenge. It’s a subtle change but I trust you are discerning enough to pick up on the different vibes. In both panels, that’s a real human femur leaning up against the bed, licked clean, as evidence of the carnage that’s already occurred and an indication of more to come.

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Marvin, 1/21/25

I really have to respect Marvin for playing the long game and getting me to publicly praise it for turning away from shit and piss jokes and then unleash what may be one of the vilest strips in the all years I’ve read it, one in which Marvin suggests that, if he had his druthers, he would continue crawling around on the floor and soiling himself well into his tween years, simply because he feels making the effort not to and alleviating his parents of the burdens of catering to his basest needs would be an affront to his dignity.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/21/25

Lotta people see the revolving door of the Hootin’ Holler jail and think Snuffy never truly pays the price for his various crimes. But today we learn that in fact his constant brushes with the law have turned his own mind into a prison that’s ultimately of his own making, and I think that’s neat.

Pluggers, 1/21/25

“Pluggers are stuck in the bathtub and probably they’re going to die there” is frankly a little too grim for me this morning! Please go back to being smug about your exurban folkways, Pluggers, I much prefer that to seeing the chicken-lady’s last bubbly moments!