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Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/23/21

I think it’s completely legit to say, “Hmm, when this strip’s child character sold a book for a lot of money to a museum somehow and then she and her baby sitter ended up as members of a brutal mob clan as a result, that was kind of weird; I want to do a book story but have it be more realistic.” I really don’t think you should keep drawing attention to the fact that you’re doing it, though? There is, I think, an extremely limited group of people who are thinking “Hmm, this is the second version of a book story they’ve done in this soap opera comic strip and it’s different from the one they did in 2014,” and I’m pretty sure all of them read this blog and are not looking to be told how to feel about it by a character in the strip. (They’re looking to be told how to feel about it by me, Josh Fruhlinger, the tastemaker of the funny pages! They should feel weird about it, in my opinion, in case that hasn’t been clear so far.)

Funky Winkerbean, 11/23/21

Sometimes I don’t remember characters or plotlines from long-running continuity strips, and while this might mean I’m not as good at my job (“job”) as I should be, it probably also makes me a healthier, more normal person who can preserve precious brainspace for other things, or so I keep telling myself. Anyway, I honestly have no real recollection of the Dinkles having a daughter named Halle, but I don’t think Harry does either, since his wife has to tell him what her name is and why she won’t be there for Thanksgiving. Of course, since “settlement school” refers to charitable institutions founded in Appalachia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries before public schools became available there, so I’m not sure what Harry’s wife is talking about with this “Italy” business. Maybe there’s no such thing as Halle! Maybe this is just two sad people with dementia talking to nonsense to each other! It would explain a lot, in Funky Winkerbean!

Mary Worth, 11/23/21

Oh my goodness, what kind of pet is Wilbur, in the depths of his self-pity, going to decide he deserves? A bird? A snake? A rock?

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Hagar the Horrible, 11/22/21

Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas famously begins with its main character, Henry Hill, going on at great length about how much fun it is to be a gangster, but by the end of it he’s a paranoid, coked-up mess, pursued by the cops and convinced his fellow mobsters are going to turn on him. Anyway, lately there have been lots of Hagar the Horribles about how it’s actually pretty chill being a Viking chieftain, because you can just plunder villages and castles alike without suffering any consequences. But now it appears that post-Carolingian Europe has managed to reorganize itself and the new feudal armies led by French and German aristocrats are capable of kicking Viking ass and even hunting them down when they’re not on raids! I’m looking forward to this new, darker Hagar the Horrible chapter, where he eventually turns King’s evidence against his own war-band because being a Viking just stops being worth the effort.

Gil Thorp, 11/22/21

If the moral of this fall’s Gil Thorp storyline turns out to be “psychological science is a harmful sham, only hypnosis can truly aid sports performance,” I will be very amused and somewhat impressed. I won’t even care if it turns out to be sponsored content from the Church of Scientology or some guy’s hypnosis YouTube channel.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/21/21

Snuffy Smith trufans! Do you want to get hot Snuffy Smith visual content like the turkey in today’s installment? Well, write your local newspaper to make sure they pay for the whole strip, including the throwaway panels! Otherwise you’re going to miss out on the drawing and just get several panels of Snuffy describing what it you’d be able to see if your paper’s editor wasn’t so cheap.

Daddy Daze, 11/21/21

Not gonna lie, if I came over to my ex’s house and found our infant child sitting by himself in the middle of the floor, while my ex was lying face down babbling nonsense in the other room, I would probably ask to revisit our custody arrangements.

Beetle Bailey, 11/21/21

Ha ha, it’s funny because Sarge is making Beetle dig his own grave!