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Blondie, 8/8/22

The non-Dagwood, non-Herb members of Dagwood’s carpool are named “Dwitzell” and “Claudia,” and any and all attempts to give them inner or indeed outer lives have failed to stick with me, but I do like that Claudia is on the record as not liking the phrase “hot enough for you.” Yes, it’s hot, but that doesn’t mean you have to resort to such vile cliches! To me, she has now become by far the most sympathetic character in the comic strip Blondie, which was actually pretty easy because I honestly couldn’t tell you which if any of the other characters I found particularly sympathetic.

Dennis the Menace, 8/8/22

Dennis is trying a real baller menace move here: to destroy Mr. Wilson emotionally by offering up himself — his neighbor’s most hated nemesis — as a substitute for the grandchildren the Wilsons never had. It’s a swing and a miss, though. George Wilson has never felt affection for another human being and never will! You’re the one who’s shown weakness here today, Dennis, and you will live to regret it!

Beetle Bailey, 8/8/22

OH MY GOD EVEN DOGS ARE STEALING VALOR NOW, WHAT HAS THIS COUNTRY COME TO

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Beetle Bailey, 8/7/22

Say what you will about Beetle Bailey — and lord knows I’ve said a lot over the years — but it can be extremely comforting in its on-the-noseness. What does a nerd look like? Well, he looks like Plato, with glasses. And what does a girl nerd look like? She looks like Plato as well, with glasses, but also slightly longer hair and crudely drawn boobs. What to they do on a date? They talk about Kierkegaard, obviously. That guy was smart! That’s why the nerds respect him, because he was a nerd like they are! Do the nerds have sex, on this date? Absolutely not. How dare you suggest such a thing. How dare you. You’ll rile up our readers with such talk!

Mary Worth, 8/7/22

I think all of us have wondered at one time or another: what is our purpose in life? Well, it looks like Wilbur’s finally about to figure out why he’s been put on this Earth: to serve as a cautionary example for others. Or maybe he won’t figure it out, I dunno, he’s not very smart or self-reflective. Anyway, kudos to Dawn for realizing she’s a bad person, but I honestly could’ve done with at least four or five more panels of Wilbur rattling off cruel adjectives others have used to describe him before she had her epiphany.

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Shoe, 8/6/22

The original iteration of Shoe was created by Jeff McNelly, a political cartoonist who presumably actually worked in a newsroom, some of the time, and so it makes sense that the characters are supposed to be engaged in journalistic banter on the regular. But at this point I assume everyone on the creative team is many steps removed from the editorial process, and so the closest you get to our bird-heroes doing real journalism is when they ask each other for headline ideas as a way to set up a terrible pun. Even still, usually the proposed stories that are the germ of these pun setups are things that might plausibly run in a newspaper? Until today. Today is the day when one of the last two employees at the last newspaper in this terrible bird-town thinks, “Enh, nobody reads this, what if I just wrote an article about my golf game? Write what you know, that’s what they say, right?”

In other non-realistic journalism news, it’s been a while since I’ve been in a newsroom myself, but I’m reasonably sure that it’s not common to just have ankle-deep piles of loose paper everywhere? But these are birds, I dunno. Maybe it’s for them to shit on.

Blondie, 8/6/22

If you’ve ever wondered if the Bumsteads are still horny for each other and how they “keep it fresh,” today’s strip has your answer: yes, and they go snorkling and ogle each other’s hot bods, underwater. A little weird, but honestly I think we all assumed it would be something much more off-putting involving food, so I’ll allow it.