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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.

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Daddy Daze, 9/27/22

The lure of doing a comic strip about a baby is eternal, but of course each generation will do their own particular version reflecting their ethos, worldview, and material conditions; and the fact that a syndicated comic strip is essentially a lifelong sinecure lets us contrast the varying generational attitudes directly against one another. Take Marvin, for instance: launched in 1982, as the Baby Boom generation was coming into its own and America was shaking off its post-Vietnam malaise, its title character represents the bold and unapologetic national attitude of the era: yes, Marvin shits and pisses himself constantly, and no he won’t apologize for it or learn how to stop. It’s someone else’s problem and the thought of them dealing with it makes him smile!

The Daddy Daze baby, on the other hand, is a creature of our current neurotic age. Like Marvin, he is unable to prevent himself from befouling his diaper several times a day, but his usual gleeful mania is actually just a pose, masking a deep, gnawing anxiety about all the pooping and the peeing. He knows he’s disgusting and he desperately wants to learn to use a toilet, but also knows that, as a baby in a syndicated comic strip, he’s never going to reach that promised land and well just be stewing in his own waste for all eternity.

Gasoline Alley, 9/27/22

Say what you will about Gasoline Alley, and lord knows I’ve said a lot, but it remains a piece of true outsider art that’s somehow pumped into the reading lists of surviving loyal newspaper readers across the English-speaking world. Can you imagine tricking major publishers into printing the sentence “Blimey, my red sock has entangled itself betwixt the keys and rendered me immobile for the moment” in thousands of newspapers as some sort of avant-garde action, or maybe as a prank? Of course not, and yet everyone involved in the process that produced this strip thinks it’s normal, wholesome fun. No, I am absolutely not going to explain what’s happening here, by the way, you don’t need to know and don’t particularly want to, trust me.

Gil Thorp, 9/27/22

No! No! We cannot lose Coach Kaz! I don’t care if the Time Corps has recruited him as an agent in our nation’s shadowy war against those who would alter the space-time continuum — we need his antics in Milford!

Funky Winkerbean, 9/27/22

My immediate reaction to the first panel of this strip is that Jessica wanted Darrin to somehow make the gun that Plantman used to murder her father into a plaything for their son. But then, based on everyone’s facial expressions, by the end of the strip I decided she actually wanted it made into some sort of sex toy. I’m not well, but in my defense, neither is Funky Winkerbean.

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Mary Worth, 9/26/22

A lot of you seemed to think that Mary and Jeff’s dinner date was just a little palate cleanser before we moved on to the next, actual storyline. A lot of you apparently thought wrong! This strip will be delivering Mary Worth in: Ambulatory digestion until you beg for Wilbur seeming to be dead but then not actually being dead or whatever.

Judge Parker, 9/26/22

I dunno, Steve, Sam’s fallen on some hard times since Abbey kicked him off of her vast landholdings, and I hear the meth gangs play pretty well. He already has extensive contacts in the illicit drug trade, so maybe this isn’t the best of all possible plans?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/26/22

I guess the joke here is supposed to be “Ha ha, Li’l Sparky is an influencer, like on Instagram and such!”, but that assumes the target readership of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith is familiar with that meaning of the word “follower,” and that is not a bet I personally would’ve made.

Dennis the Menace, 9/26/22

Oh, snap, looks like Dennis just got reaaaall menacing towards the property tax exemption for religious organizations!

Pluggers, 9/26/22

CLOCK’S TICKING, PLUGGERS

CLOCK’S

TICKING