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Marvin, 7/19/21

Almost ten years ago, my audiologist told me something that has really stuck with me: studies have shown that when someone gets a hearing aid, it noticeably improves their relationship with their spouse or partner, even if the hearing aid itself is ineffective. It turns out that, when your partner can’t hear you very well and always makes you repeat yourself or just tunes you out, that’s a constant stressor on a relationship, and just the fact that your partner tries to improve the situation often changes how you feel about them for the better. And because hearing loss is often (though not always!) associated with aging, opening a conversation about it can be very fraught! This is mostly to say that nobody in Marvin would ever get a hearing aid out of consideration for their spouse, because they’ve repeatedly shown that they all hate one another.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/19/21

Ha ha, holy crap, Phil Holt faked his death! Gotta admit, just when you think Funky Winkerbean has explored all the depressing ways death can affect us, it comes up with a new one (i.e., sometimes people who you think are dead really aren’t, and often they’re real assholes so it’s kind of a shame). Anyway, since we’ve already seen Phil as a ghost, talking to dead ghost Lisa about how Darrin auctioned off the valuable comic book covers Holt left Darrin in his will for charity, it seems like we’re going to learn some shocking truths about the theology of the Funkyverse afterlife, as well as some legal stuff about whether you can get back the stuff you leave people in your will if you fake your death.

Mary Worth, 7/19/21

We’ve all been thinking that Drew will be easily scammed by Ashlee because he’ll just automatically agree to whatever outrageous request he makes of her. But we weren’t counting on the layer of protection offered by his goldfish-like brain, which has been distracted from his bold promise to Ashlee by whatever shiny object he encountered next. I’m talking about a literal shiny object, possibly his watch. “Oh, hey, my watch is back!” he’ll say, noticing it on his wrist. “I wonder how that happened!”

Blondie, 7/19/21

You ever notice how young people today don’t appreciate proper grooming and instead like it when you look like a slob? It’s disgusting and I personally blame this corruption of the young on [checks notes] 57-year-old actor Brad Pitt.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/18/21

“Wow, so instead of straining to come up with story elements ex nihilo like I’ve been doing, you used aspects of your everyday life for raw material? Brilliant! By the way, you’ve never heard of ‘character rights,’ have you? Great, great.”

Panels from Hagar the Horrible, 7/18/21

Have you ever wanted to see an elderly Viking woman learning the basics of supply and demand curves … the hard way? Well, the throwaway panels from today’s Hagar the Horrible are for you, my friend.

Hi and Lois, 7/18/21

I’m actually kind of surprised that legacy cartoonists, who have some of the most secure jobs on the planet, don’t just straight-up put their erotic fantasies in their strips more often. I’m definitely not surprised that those erotic fantasies involve golf, though.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/17/21

YOU, A SIMPLE CLOD: “Wow, this joke doesn’t work at all. It’s a real stretch for something that’s not even funny.”

ME, A COMICS-ANALYZING INTELLECTUAL: [paralyzed by the choice between posting a map of the pin-pen merger in order to narrow down Hootin’ Holler’s location and writing up a rant about how Silas is the most educated person in Hootin’ Holler and the least likely to misspell a simple word like “tint”]

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/17/21

Hey, remember Kyle’s terrible case of writer’s block, which set this whole plotline in motion? Well, it got solved, off-panel, somehow. Bet that takes a real load off your mind, huh?

Blondie, 7/17/21

“No, my husband just flings food around the kitchen. Look at this shit! You think anything vaguely palatable is going to come out of this process?”