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Dick Tracy, 5/24/22

Aww, it looks like this rat dinner is actually just a li’l treat for an adorable li’l owl sidekick to this owlish (?) dude, who I’m pretty sure is the same guy who we saw last week hypnotizing people at ATMs into giving him their money, just like an owl would (????). I’m thinking of completely changing careers and setting up a computer repair shop, but telling everyone that all service has to take place on my front porch because “computer components aren’t owl friendly” and offering no follow-up or further explanation.

Mary Worth, 5/24/22

Aw, crap, it looks like against my advice this summer romance storyline is going to be about Dawn and Jared after all! And instead of “romance” it’s actually going to be about how Jared still doesn’t feel like he isn’t “good enough” to meet Dawn’s standards (?????????) and has to keep puffing himself up in her eyes, with hilarious results. “Dawn, I’m not some idiot clown who’s always screeching and throwing poop, like a baboon! In some circles, I’m actually considered quite intelligent, like a baboon.”

Marvin, 5/24/22

Say what you will about the comic strip Marvin, but it really hammers home what it’s like to be a parent to an infant (what it’s like is that there’s piss and shit everywhere that you have to deal with). It also takes occasional breaks from that material in order to let you know what it’s like dealing with an older gentleman (what it’s like is there’s also a bunch of piss stuff and it takes about 33% more time for them to get to the point about it than it should).

Beetle Bailey, 5/24/22

Sad news, everyone: the closed, secret trial of General Halftrack is about to start! He’s going to be the first person sent to Gitmo for incompetence.

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Mary Worth, 5/23/22

This upcoming storyline can’t possibly be about Dawn and what’s-his-face, the Star Wars nerd whose name the narration box can’t even be bothered to remember so I’m definitely not looking it up, because they’re boring losers. The way Mary’s looking straight at us in the first panel seems like a challenge: which character will have their brain baked by the summer sun until they finally allow themselves the awful experience of knowing another and being known in turn? Will it be Mary? Is Mary going to see if she can make 2022 “hot Mary summer” and finally fall in love? And how will Dr. Jeff fit into the picture? Will she at least have the decency to break up with him first, like the time she had a dalliance with a guy who she cruised at his own mother’s funeral? Or will she just keep him completely in the dark, like that time she went to New York and romanced a Broadway legend? I for one am, predictably, excited to find out.

Beetle Bailey, 5/23/22

Now, a lot of people are going to be very focused on Sarge, strung up and entangled in flypaper as if he himself were some huge, grotesque insect, his tongue having been stuck in this trap as he’s sweated and squirmed for who knows how long. But me? I’m still fixated on Cookie’s line in panel one: “I’m anxious to see how many flies I caught in my traps last night,” he says to nobody, with a huge smile on his face. Definitely the voice he’s using to say this sounds like Renfield from the Bela Lugosi Dracula, right? That’s the only option here?

Dick Tracy, 5/23/22

Old-school nightmaretown Dick Tracy reached its apogee in the very last of the Locher/Brozman strips, in which a gimp-suited murderer was eaten alive by rats. The team over the last decade has not gone down that road very much, but I have to say that eating rats, while not as gross, is definitely a first step in that direction.

Marvin, 5/23/22

Man, he knows his butthole is where the poop exits from! That’s the not the problem! It’s the timing and circumstances of the exiting that are the issue here! You may walk on your hind legs and have rudimentary literacy, but you aren’t as smart a dog as you think!

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Family Circus, 5/22/22

There’s “I increasingly find Pluggers relatable” old and then there’s “I unironically find the Family Circus funny” old, but I have to say, I unironically find today’s Family Circus funny. The punchline is good, of course, but I also enjoy how sad Billy looks. You’ve ruined his day, Big Daddy Keane! I was going to say that it’s OK for me to enjoy this Family Circus because of how mean it is, but maybe that’s why all the old people have always liked it. All those kindly grandmas cutting out the panels and hanging them on their fridge thinking, “That’s right, Billy, you’re an ignorant little shit, just like my daughter’s eldest.”

The Lockhorns, 5/22/22

I have, of course, been on Team Enjoying The Lockhorns Unironically since my youth, and I deeply respect that rather than phoning in Sundays with a single giant panel the creators instead deliver five separate individual weekday-equivalent panels, each with its own gag. This collection, like most Sunday groups, consists mostly of bangers: top right and lower left are the weakest but even these are passable wordplay; top left shows an actual awareness of how a newfangled social media thing works; middle is a moodily drawn glimpse into a sadly disordered mind; and bottom right is a great visual gag. At least there’s some consistency in this crazy, topsy turvy world, and it’s how much Leroy and Loretta hate each other.

Gasoline Alley, 5/22/22

Oh, has that all been too much sweetness and light for you? Fine: I will never say a kind word about Gasoline Alley. Never, do you hear me? Today’s strip features two senile old men talking nonsense to each other and neither of them can remember whether they’ve said it or heard it before, and is thus a perfect metaphor for the experience of reading the comic strip Gasoline Alley.