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Gil Thorp, 7/12/24

The beloved Gil Thorp bonfire tradition has been cancelled forever due to a nationwide wood shortage, which means we must console ourselves with a somewhat more recent and less beloved tradition, the Coach of the Year awards banquet (or “COTY,” as insiders call it). Two years ago Gil won it, and last year he won it again. This year the “most improved” award has gone to Gil’s former nemesis/current assistant, so all signs point to our hero taking the COTY home for a third year in a row. I think it’s nice that they’re letting him give it to himself this year.

Gasoline Alley, 7/12/24

I forgot to mention, there’s a new cute cat in Gasoline Alley that Gertie found and brought to Walt! You can see he’s already getting adjusted to his role in this strip (coquetteishly mugging to the reader as the human characters make extremely uninteristing wordplay at one another).

Marvin, 7/12/24

Sorry my intrusive thoughts about toilets yesterday got me distracted from the important thing here, which is that Marvin is doing a very depressing series of strips where dogs talk about all the things they’ve done wrong in their lives and can’t stop thinking about.

Shoe, 7/12/24

Do birds eat cicadas? Well, according to a post called “Circada Bird Feast Protocol” on the friendtocicadas dot org blog, which seems like an extremely reputable source, yes! So, sadly, this conversation is actually about how this boring little town will soon be beset by famine.

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Folks, I want you to cast your minds back to the long-forgotten year 2004. A young man not yet 30 had decided to try out this “blogging” thing that seemed to be getting so much attention those days, focusing on his favorite under-appreciated art form, the newspaper comic strips. He started on July 11th of that year with a post about Non Sequitur, a strip that he would soon bore of. The next day, however? The next day … was pure gold.

Mary Worth, 7/12/2004

That’s right: I, your faithful comics curmudgeon, have been talking about Wilbur Weston’s sex life since 2004. As is only meet and proper, for this momentous occasion, I have decided to bring back my beloved CafePress store and urge you to purchase a t-shirt or other item that shares this fact and this message with the whole world!

Anyway! Twenty years is a long time to be doing anything — so long that it kind of snuck up on me and I didn’t put together an elaborate series of anniversaposts like I did in 2014 — but I still love the comics, still love doing the blog, and still love all of you. Big thanks to Uncle Lumpy for being a great fill-in, and to you all for being faithful and funny readers and commenters, whether you started reading yesterday or in 2004! Your reward: You get to read this blog again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, and (assuming the comics and the internet still exist and the sun has not expanded to a red giant to swallow the earth) so forth, indefinitely.

And finally, since I must always be closing: if you think that 20 years of looking at ads on this website is enough and want an elegant, ad-free experience, perhaps I can interest you in a subscription, either to a no-ads version of the site or an ad-free email version of each post delivered to your inbox each morning? Just a thought! No worries if not, no paywall will ever descend to block access to this important cultural artifact. Normal comics jokes resume tomorrow! But until then, feel free to sound off in the comments about how this blog has changed your life.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/11/24

As a guy who was once a kid who was picked on as kind of a weirdo myself, I am, of course, pulling for Parker. They seem smart and have a oddball sense of humor that will serve them much better as an adult than a tween. But I don’t think Buck is the guy who should be delivering this message. Buck is perhaps the most eminently bullyable character in Rex Morgan, M.D., and I don’t think holding him up as the future Parker has to look forward to is reassuring at all. I guess he’s supposed to be living proof that it does in fact get better, because if this guy is out there every day representing roots country stars and retired horror comics artists and isn’t getting his head shoved into a toilet on the regular, adulthood really must be free of bullies once and for all, you know?

Marvin, 7/11/24

Look, it’s not my fault that this piss-obsessed strip leans on the “Ha ha, a fire hydrant is like a toilet, to a dog” bit! Because now they’ve included a fire hydrant in this non-piss-related strip and all I can think of is that the equivalent with people would be two people standing next to a toilet with no explanation. Are they about to piss? Did they just finish pissing? Did they, or are they about to, piss at the same time? This strip has poisoned my mind, I tell you! Poisoned it!

Pluggers, 7/11/24

Pluggers don’t know where they are or what time of day it is or what’s happening to or around them and, real talk: God, I wish that was me. They seem pretty chill about it!