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Sam and Silo, 1/28/25

You know what would be awkward? If you were a corrupt city official taking kickbacks from a local sporting goods supplier, and one of the things they produced was “rebounders” for soccer practice, sometimes referred to as “kickbacks,” and you pitched them an idea for a small version. That’s pretty much the only circumstance where you’d ever say “Where’s that little kickback we discussed? No, I am not talking about football” to someone on the phone, which would also require you to be using “football” in the non-American sense even though you’re an American. It’s a vanishingly rare scenario, which is why it’s kind of amazing to see it captured in today’s Sam and Silo.

Blondie, 1/28/25

As I long ago noted on here, as a child I read Peanuts anthologies obsessively, and I knew what the context of a sigh was because the characters were always sighing, but I didn’t realize what physical noise was being described so I would just say “sigh” aloud at times when one might sigh, and no adult corrected me for years, presumably because they found it very funny. In my defense sometimes Peanuts would just drop the word in word balloons, so I’m not sure what I was supposed to think. Anyway, in today’s Blondie, I guess Mr. Dithers is supposed to be smacking his lips as he enjoys a delicious donut, but I’d prefer to think he’s saying “Smack!” with the implication being that this delicious donut is taking him to the same state of euphoria that a junkie experiences after injecting heroin into their veins.

Hi and Lois, 1/28/25

A thing I feel very certain saying about Hi Flagston is that he has exactly one friend, and it’s Thirsty Thurston, which means that either (a) they’re on a two-man bowling team and Hi showed up tonight and Thirsty, probably drunk and belligerent, demanded to be captain of the team, and Hi sheepishly backed down, or (b) he’s on a team with a few acquaintances or maybe just people that the bowling league arbitrarily assigned together, and the rest of them decided Hi was a drip and a loser and pulled off some sort of coup, much to his humiliation. I think either of these scenarios would’ve frankly been a more interesting comic strip than this little “oh no, Lois briefly thought the family’s finances were in crisis” switcheroo.

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Slylock Fox, 1/27/25

Now, on the surface, this one is a puzzle. I’m not talking about the actual puzzle in the strip, but the bigger picture: why would this ursine rustic be nattering on to the press here in an abstruse but technically correct way about the relative altitude at which he found this treasure chest? What does he possibly have to gain from it? I think the answer has to do with Slylock’s presence, actually: there’s something shady about that treasure (tax fraud? let’s say tax fraud) and he needs to distract Sly into aiming his big brain at just about anything else. Dropping an unusually precise trivia fact like “282 feet below sea level” is like throwing rice in front of a vampire: it’s such an obvious target for ratiocination that he simply won’t be able to not waste his time on it.

Pardon My Planet, 1/27/25

Hmm, so what I’m getting from this comic is that … the prosecuting attorney has called the defense attorney to the witness stand? And also the two of them are married to each other? Ha ha, this is an unusual court case indeed!

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Pluggers, 1/26/25

It’s interesting that the caption tells us that “pluggers know when they are ready for an upgrade” when the older dog-man very clearly does not know that it’s time for him to update his hearing aids. The implication casts him outside the bounds of the plugger community, which is chilling: is the age of the Boomer pluggers ending, and the era of Gen X pluggerdom, its hour come round at last, slouching towards the Pluggers HQ P.O. Box to be born? This new generation is represented by the younger dog man here, and yeah, I know these characters all have names, but I’ve been blogging about this damn strip for 18 years and I haven’t learned them yet and I’m simply not going to. I mean, let’s be real, that plugger dog-man is in his 50s, he’s got hearing aids, he’s annoyed by his elders, he’s me. That’s me there, the younger plugger dog-man. I don’t need to know his name. Anyway, I guess they’re out here in the snow because he’s going to put the older dog-man on an ice floe and then walk away.

Dennis the Menace, 1/26/25

I actually find today’s Dennis the Menace kind of charming — not, I feel I need to be clear after writing that last paragraph, because I find it relatable, I have no “plugger”-style problem in that department, thanks. I just like two specific panels: the one where Mr. Wilson emits one of his trademark beads of sweat as he announces the lack of bran cereal, as he is all too aware of the stakes here; and the one where Mrs. Wilson leans down to whisper “it keeps him moving” to Dennis, as if he has any idea what that’s supposed to mean. He’s five years old and not very bright, Martha! You gotta actually say the word “poop” if you expect him to follow what’s going on here!

Mary Worth, 1/26/25

Look, obviously Dirk is an asshole and a creep. But what about Jared, who took up his girlfriend’s idea about doing a photoshoot and immediately turned it into an opportunity for Star Wars cosplay? Isn’t that just as bad? No, obviously not. But it’s not good.