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Judge Parker, 11/20/21

So, see, the mayor has been launching a vendetta against Abbey, falsely accusing her of burning down her own B&B in both the court of public opinion and also the actual court system. But his deputy mayor has evidence (which the mayor doesn’t know about) that Abbey actually burned down her own B&B, and he’s going to blackmail Sam over it. Got it? Make sense to you? Me neither, but I’m willing to just move along to the “Sam physically assaults and yells at people” stage of proceedings.

Mary Worth, 11/20/21

Hey, remember how Mary was Libby’s original owner, but she had to pawn her off on Estelle because it turned out Dr. Jeff was allergic to cats? I feel like the fact that Estelle is a person who’s acquired a collection of other people’s unwanted pets is a pretty good fit that with the fact that she’s on the verge of becoming a person who, on multiple occasions, has taken Wilbur back as a romantic partner after he’s made an ass of himself in public. The only thing that can save her from this fate now is Mary smugly informing her that only one pet per apartment is allowed under Charterstone rules, leading to her being evicted and blessedly forced to leave town.

Hi and Lois, 11/20/21

Hey, Hi, you ever consider not being a huge fucking downer all the time? Just a thought!

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[Setup for comment of the week goes here]

“I’m actually mad at how inaccurate the darndest thing in Family Circus is. Little kids think all grownups are impossibly old! Dolly should be looking at some purple-haired waif with thirty piercings and telling Thel that she’ll finally have someone her own age to play with!” –matt w

[Slightly less effusive setup for runners up goes here]

“Dennis is helping clean the table! The only thing less menacing is if he had expressed interest in playing pinochle!” –Ettorre

“What’s wrong with the cook? Why didn’t he simply wish himself into a better universe, or simply out of existence? Or unwrite Crock entirely? Is he newspaper comics’ greatest monster, or does that honor belong to whoever named Boner’s Ark?” –Victor Von

“Leroy and Loretta are no younger in that picture than they are now. Are they (relative) newlyweds? It takes normal couples a good twenty years to work up to that state of mutual bile. Guess they’re over-achievers, in that respect. Congratulations?” –Pozzo

“Loretta made sure to put their wedding photo up near a framed image of the state where it took place, so Leroy will always be reminded of local alimony laws.” –BigTed

“You know what, I think the Dad has a point. If I went to a vinyl-bench diner with old timey apron wearing waitresses I would also expect a full plate to compensate for the food being the cheapest ingredients prepared by the least talented cooks. I mean, that’s kind of the deal, right?” –Jerp+Jump

“Wilbur’s idea of an apology: ‘No, shut up! I’m talking now! You listen!’” –Inspector Gotcha

“To ‘zero in on’ something means to aim at it, so this new character development sort of makes sense if you assume the Beetle Bailey writers know nothing about the character other than the name, which … seems pretty plausible, actually?” –Jack Brounstein

“Pluggers check every day to see if they can still read dates on coins. ‘Yep … 1955. Or maybe 1956. Whatever … if I can still see something, it means I’m not dead. Yet.’” –Pozzo

“That blonde woman is absolutely threatening to murder Lillian in the last panel and I’m here for it. If characters are going to die in Crankshaft then at least have them bludgeoned to death with a lighting tripod.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“You’ve heard of cringe comedy, but now it’s time for cringe tragedy — OH, WILBUR. — starting this January only on HOBOMax.” –ArtOfWargames, on Twitter

“The couple across the street are hipsters, not hippies. No one else would insist on using a fifty-year-old antique baby carriage.” –Tom T.

“The stoned ‘Dude?’ at the end of Blondie completely kills the timing of the punchline, but it suggests that the only place stocking Thanksgiving jelly beans is a weed dispensary which, you know, makes sense.” –Schroduck

“See if you can find all the choking hazard toys scattered on the floor, and then realize why PJ is ‘sleeping.’” –Rusty

“That’s ‘duderino’ to you, young man! I’ll brook no insolence from petty clerks, even at a store that apparently has an HTML formatting error for a name.” –Peanut Gallery

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Blondie, 11/19/21

I know I spend far too much time going on and on about comic book time here, but it really is an interesting lens for analyzing long-running strips like Blondie where all the characters stay more or less the same age. Like, for instance, to me as a reader, Ditzwell in the back seat there has been carpooling with Dagwood literally as long as I can remember, but the two of them haven’t gotten any older over that stretch, so who’s to say how long it’s been for them? Maybe they’re still getting acquainted with one another! Nevertheless, unless this is literally the first time Ditzwell has ever been in the car with Dagwood, he ought to know exactly who would buy these jelly beans. And let’s not even talk about say Herb, Dagwood’s ostensible best friend, who claims to be similarly mystified! It’s wild that a man of such obvious and simple pleasures can still somehow be an enigma to those closest to him.

Family Circus, 11/19/21

“Remember? He’s a robot! We’re all robots! Mommy and Daddy had real kids once, but no human could say the dardnest things efficiently enough for their needs.”