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Gil Thorp, 9/15/21

[clears throat] [extremely Beavis from Beavis and Butt-Head voice] FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! [takes a long, deep breath, representing the years 2016, 2017, and 2018, when the annual Milford bonfire was mysteriously absent] FIRE! FIRE!

Whew, it’s bonfire time again, everybody, guaranteeing a robust grain harvest and fewer barren wombs among the townsfolk! Every year we learn a little something new about the bonfire, and today’s panel one shows us that, assuming the student body doesn’t shlep all those logs by hand to some open field somewhere, it takes place a lot closer to the school itself than I would’ve guessed. Legend has it that Milford will only win a state championship if the flame is allowed to burn the building to the ground!

Funky Winkerbean, 9/15/21

One of the running jokes in the early days of this strip, when it was mostly fun gags about a bunch of goofy teens, was that Les Moore wielded a machine gun as part of his hall monitor duties. I keep waiting in the post-Turn-to-Grim Funkyverse for this to get retconned into the result of some awful school shooting, and that hasn’t happened yet, but until then I’ll console myself with “Majorette Holly’s flesh was a mass of scar tissues due to ever-more-dangerous baton tricks her deranged mother forced her to perform.” I guess today’s colorist glanced at the text and thought, “Oh, these pictures are all supposed to be close-ups of burn wounds, huh,” which is a nice touch.

Daddy Daze, 9/15/21

Look, man, I spent several hours with a couple babies this past weekend and they didn’t seem happy at all! They cried multiple times just because they had to go to the bathroom or were hungry or whatever. I mean, I had to go to the bathroom and was hungry too, but I managed to hold it together, for once!

Mary Worth, 9/15/21

WILBUR WHEN A CAT PISSES IN HIS SPOT ON HIS GIRLFRIEND’S COUCH: Animals are bad! They interfere with me having sex!

WILBUR WHEN HE HEARS A GNOMISH OLD MAN MET A NICE WOMAN JUST BECAUSE HE OWNS A DOG: Animals can help you get sex? Go on, Mary, I’m very interested.

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Dennis the Menace, 9/14/21

I am absolutely in love with the idea of Mr. Wilson’s identity as a jazz hepcat suddenly becoming another weak point that Dennis can use to send him into paroxysms of rage. I’m not sure which interpretation of today’s strip would be funnier: that Dennis was letting loose with some wild, atonal acid jazz when Mr. Wilson just wants to jam out to Dave Brubeck, or that Dennis was playing square, Lite FM Kenny G bullshit that Mr. Wilson thinks sullies the good name of jazz.

Gasoline Alley, 9/14/21

I do not care about the current Gasoline Alley storyline and refuse to explain even the basics to you, but I do love the final panel here, which in a more interesting world would be the capper of a storyline in which in adorable, aw-shucks talking bear finally answers for his crimes against humanity at the Hague.

Shoe, 9/14/21

“Ha ha, get it? But seriously, they keep running a bunch of tests but can’t figure out what’s wrong with me. They’re pretty sure I’m dying, though.”

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Six Chix, 9/13/21

I know I often slag on Six Chix for doing strips that are opaque, baffling nonsense, so here’s a change of pace: today’s strip is opaque, baffling nonsense and I love it! Ha ha, she’s like a dog walker … but for wigs! I think what really makes it for me is that the wigs are on fake wig heads (not sure what the correct term for this is and not looking it up), which are in turn on wheels, because that’s the only way this absurd scenario would even vaguely work. Anyway, A+ work, Six Chix, please keep up to good kind of opaque, baffling nonsense, as opposed to the bad kind, which I will definitely let you know about if you slip up and do it again.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/13/21

I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that the sort of person who has a comics blog is also the sort of person who would get thrown into a tizzy by the revelation that Rex Morgan’s sons are going to kindergarten, but I definitely was thrown into said tizzy, because Rex and June’s sons are babies, right? But that said, the Morgans stole June’s dying best friend’s son in late 2017, when he and their non-stolen biological son were about a year old, so that would make them about kindergarten age now, assuming the Morgans age in real time, which they absolutely 100% do not. The last thing we want is this thing turning in For Better Or For Worse or something. And if Sarah was like five or six when the boys came on the scene, that would make her about 10 now, which is trembling on the precipice of very bad things. Do we want Sarah as a tween? Sarah hitting puberty? This strip needs to step back from the brink now, before somebody gets hurt.

Family Circus, 9/13/21

Not sure whose facial expressions I like better here: Ma Keane’s (“Ha ha, we do not have any jelly without peanut butter in it and that’s very gross, ha ha ha!!!”) or Billy and Jeffy’s (“What, does this dipshit think he’s the King of England or something?”).