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Crankshaft, 6/9/21

Congratulations to Crankshaft for delivering a strip whose meaning isn’t immediately obvious, but in a way that makes it feel like maybe there’s going to be some character development in the next few days rather than just “oh no, the wordplay is too opaque, we need to ratchet it back by two or three notches.” Anyway, who wants to guess what exactly the ‘Shaft is going on about here? Did he watch the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic and how it caused so many younger people to put their dreams for the future on hold, and it made him realize that he had done that for himself long ago, without even realizing it? Or did he just get bored one night and watched a bad basic cable documentary about REM sleep or something and thought “Huh, I never remember my dreams. Does that mean my brain doesn’t work right? Is that COVID-related? Can I sue someone over this?”

Dustin and Mother Goose and Grimm, 6/9/21

Because human beings are capable of abstract thought, we’ve managed to turn the genetic impulse to look for mates who are physically strong and instead map that onto more abstract signifiers, like the ability to use physical strength for useful purposes, or the acquisition of stored labor value in the form of money. That’s what you’d think based on these strips, anyway, though keep in mind that the message is coming from comics artists, who generally don’t have any of the above qualities to recommend them.

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Mary Worth, 6/8/21

An important aspect of the Ashlee plot is that Ashlee didn’t just grow up with bad parents; she’s also currently poor and living in squalor. Her reaction today is an interesting twist, because it shows she literally just thinks Drew, as a rich doctor, has an infinite amount of money so it doesn’t matter if she steals stuff from him or not. Anyway, she’s about to learn the hard way that objects don’t just have monetary value: they also have emotional value, especially if they’re associated with your loving parents. Of course, Ashlee isn’t going to be able to relate to the concept of “loving parents” either, so maybe she’s just “Oh, no”-ing because she now realizes that Drew’s mom was also rich, but she died too soon for Ashlee to steal her stuff.

Daddy Daze, 6/8/21

Psst. Hey. Hey kid. They’re dancing around the question here but the answer is that they had sex with each other, and now it’s like a year and a half later and they’re broken up so it was probably wasn’t great!

Beetle Bailey, 6/8/21

The sad thing is that you can see how this could’ve very easily become a joke about NFTs, if anyone involved in Beetle Bailey knew what NFTs were. Instead, it’s taking on the hot concept of “copyrights,” which were the NFTs of the 18th century.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/8/21

One of my favorite villains from Doctor Who are the Silence, a creepy alien race who nobody can remember exists unless they’re actually looking at them. Anyway, even thought I gripe about Buck a lot on this blog, I promise he’s the equivalent of that, for me: unlike, say, every minor Mary Worth or Gil Thorp character, Buck occupies exactly zero of my brain cells when I’m not actively reading or writing about Rex Morgan, M.D. That’s not the case for the other Rex Morgan, M.D., characters, though. They apparently think about Buck all the time! He’s a constant, looming presence in their lives. Sounds real depressing, honestly. Welp, time to finish this sentence and then have exactly zero thoughts or opinions about Buck until tomorrow!

Curtis, 6/8/21

GOD DAMN IT CURTIS, STOP STEALING MY BIT

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Mark Trail, 6/7/21

Mark is off battling influencers, and Cherry is about to do battle with an HOA over native plants, so where does that leave Rusty? Well, Rusty is about to have a sleepover pizza party with Oscar winner Robert Shaw! What do you think they’re going to talk about? Jaws or The Sting would be the obvious choice, but you never know: Rusty might want to hear stories about his time in the ’50s doing Shakespeare at the Old Vic. He’s not a baby, after all!

Mary Worth, 6/7/21

Oh, dear, it looks like we’re getting to that time in a great Mary Worth storyline where I just post every strip! Anyway, today Ashlee asks Drew if he’s bummed about killing someone on the operating table but it turns out he’s just sad about his fancy watch, which she stole, and I challenge anyone working in comedy today to come up with something funnier than this. You can’t, it’s the peak of humor and we’ll be talking about this day for years to come. (Drew did kill someone on the operating table, of course, but he stopped feeling anything about that sort of thing years ago.)

Marvin, 6/7/21

Speaking of people feeling things, Marvin’s grandfather’s stunned facial expression in the final panel here is wholly appropriate. “Gee,” he’s thinking, “I thought we were best friends, but I never guessed how bleak and loveless his marriage was! I suppose you truly never can know another person.”

Crankshaft, 6/7/21

Wow, pretty rude of Crankshaft and his girlfriend to be going on and on about how great drive-in theaters are just days after his own grandson’s movie theater closed due to lack of customers. On the other hand, maybe it was a sign of respect that Crankshaft never went and had sex and/or made terrible puns in Max’s place of business.