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Funky Winkerbean, 2/3/22

Look, whatever, I’m perfectly fine with the idea of beleaguered band parents getting bombed while at their kids extracurricular events, and I’ll even allow that this concept + [TOPICAL PHRASE] makes for a perfectly adequate mid-week daily comics punchline. My problem is that all these people have at their table is a bunch of pamphlets. What, are they just selling instructions on how to make Jello shots? Where’s the vodka? Where are the huge bottles of vodka? Parents may or may not get drunk at the parades and sporting events they have to go to in order to support their children, I wouldn’t know, but they definitely get drunk at conventions like this one, so these people are leaving money on the table.

Mary Worth, 2/3/22

Have Dawn and Estelle ever interacted with one another, socially? Has Wilbur ever even bothered to introduce them? Or did they just awkwardly run into each other outside the bathroom of the Weston condo one morning and each of them had to explain to the other who they were?

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Mary Worth, 2/2/22

No. No! No! You’re backsliding, Mary! I’m not sure what sort of brain parasite Wilbur slipped into your tea back in 2014 or so, but for a brief, shining moment your rage cleared away the mental fog and you saw him as he truly was. But now, suddenly, while Wilbur’s own daughter and a woman who has willingly had sex with him still seethe with anger, you’re nattering on about “the highs and lows of life with Wilbur!” Don’t you see, Mary? This is how it started with Barney Google! If five years from now this is strip is called Mary Worth Presents: Life With Wilbur and you haven’t made an on-panel appearance since 2024, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Hi and Lois, 2/2/22

Beetle Bailey was originally a college-based strip that pivoted to the military for a change of pace, and we can all agree that that didn’t work out so great in terms of realism. But when Hi and Lois was launched as its sister strip, with a mission to capture the crushing, soulless ennui of middle-class American suburban life? Well, they really nailed it.

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Gasoline Alley, 2/1/22

Folks, for a long time I’ve been trying to ignore the fact that there’s a movie coming out called Gasoline Alley. As near as I can tell, it has literally zero connection to the comic strip, as its Wikipedia entry informs me its tagline is “Justice Gets Dirty” and it stars Bruce Willis as “Freeman,” Luke Wilson “Vargas,” and “Devon Sawa” as “Jimmy Jayne,” none of that tracking to our beloved comic strip, which is about [thinks long and hard about what you might describe Gasoline Alley, the comic strip, as being “about”] scrapbooking. Anyhoo, I don’t have the energy to do any research on copyright law, but since Gasoline Alley is 103 years old, I’m going to guess that the title, at least, is now in the public domain, and so all the strip can do in revenge for a movie with the lesser-known Wilson brother and “Devon Sawa” in it stealing its name is put out a long, rambling shaggy dog plot involving these two Hollywood producers that will ultimately go absolutely nowhere.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 2/1/22

I honestly couldn’t tell you what Mother Goose and Grimm is “about” either, but up until today I would’ve been very sure that what it wasn’t about was the seething, unrequited lust its elderly bird-person characters had for one another. You learn something new every day, in the funny pages!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/1/22

One of the great mysteries of Snuffy Smith: how old is Snuffy Smith, exactly? On the one hand, he and Loweezy are young enough to have an infant son; on the other, as we learned today, Snuffy is entirely toothless. I guess it’s possible that, at some point when Snuffy was in his late 20s or early 30s, Doc Pritchart found a rotten tooth or two and decided just to pull them all to “get ahead of the game.”

Dennis the Menace, 2/1/22

“We live in a degraded, fallen world, Mr. Wilson! Don’t bother getting dressed up for it, they’re just going to put you on TikTok and then do a cancel culture on ya.”