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Blondie, 4/15/25

When I read today’s Blondie, I had one immediate and overwhelming thought: isn’t Dagwood’s beloved living room chair blue, rather than the sort of grey-white we’re seeing here? Now, if this were a blog that, against all trends in online content production, had only been started a few weeks ago, I would’ve been stuck with that nagging Mandela effect feeling forever, as recent strips all had the grey chair. Fortunately, however, I have posted a statistically significant sample of Blondie strips every year for the past two decades, so I was able to do an in-depth study of this chair situation, and am happy to report that he had a blue chair in that spot since at least December of 2004, and was still sitting in it as late as April of 2024, which is a pretty good run for a chair, really. The grey one made its appearance sometime in the subsequent month. Too bad it’s the last thing he’s ever going to sit in, as the Council of Gynarchy has clearly decreed his execution, if I’m reading his facial expression in panel three correctly.

Mary Worth, 3/15/25

I was originally going to start this post with “I know Wilbur is hard up,” but you know what? Wilbur is not hard up. Between Iris, Fabiana, and Estelle, he’s had a more varied sexual history than just about any other recurring character in this strip. That’s why I’m saying something that I can’t believe I’m saying: Wilbur, you can do better than someone who tries to initiate sex by letting loose an evil chuckle. You really can! Dawn, meanwhile, once thought that the most brutal life could get was being dumped by some dude named Dave, but she never imagined that someday she’d be listening through Charterstone’s thin, thin walls to her dad fooling around with a lady who’s trying to kill her.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/15/25

Update to my previous Rex Morgan, M.D., update: this guy isn’t the widower of the late (?) former stalking victim Debra, but rather her father; and he didn’t shoot this guy with a magical booze and pills gun, but rather just strangled him to death with his bare hands. Don’t leave your windows rolled down when you pass out drunk and/or high in your car if you’ve made a lot of enemies, is the lesson I’m learning from this.

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Gil Thorp, 4/14/24

Look, my mission is as always to read the comics so you don’t have to, but sometimes with the continuity strips you really do need to read them daily, because the seemingly insignificant ones are there to set up the highlights. For instance, today’s strip, in which Marty is doing Step 9 of the twelve AA steps at the lady who took over his job and his beloved wooden crate press box, is much funnier if you had read Saturday’s strip, which establishes that he’s doing this in the middle of a game, probably in the hopes that some of his apology goes out on-air and people feel sorry for him and proud of the hard work he’s doing and give him his job back.

Heathcliff, 4/14/25

I’ve always assumed that Team Heathcliff resents Garfield at some level because, even though Heathcliff was the first orange cat comic on the block by several years, it never became the multimillion dollar marketing and merchandising juggernaut that Garfield evolved into. But then I see strips like today’s and realize that Heathcliff clings fiercely to its punk rock ethos. “You hate Mondays because you’re pandering to some sub-Dilbert level workaday everyman relatable feeling,” you can imagine Heathcliff saying here. “I love Mondays because I get to make other people hate them by ripping their face off and stealing their milk. We are not the same.”

Slylock Fox, 4/14/25

Wow, the post animalpocalypse society really is becoming more and more like ours every day, as Slylock (who I assume works for the Forestville Bureau of Investigations) becomes increasingly focused in getting one up in the bureaucratic war against the FSA (“they rely too much on high-tech gadgets and refuse to do the real legwork of law enforcement!”) and kind of forgets to do anything about Weirdly and the current giant robot situation.

Pardon My Planet, 4/14/25

Hey, man, uh, what do you think is in the milk you buy in the store. Like, for real. Because I don’t think milk works the way you think it works, like, at all?

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/13/25

Oh, a thing I forgot to tell you about that happened in Rex Morgan, M.D., is that Summer managed to track down other people her stalker had stalked, and messaged one of them on Facebook while Augie was checking the perimeter. Apparently that lady, “Debra,” is dead (from … stalking?) or at least no longer in charge of her phone, and her … widower? … has it, and he got the message, which led him across town to confront the stalker … with a gun. A gun that shoots booze and pills straight into your bloodstream, I guess!

Mary Worth, 4/13/25

Hey, remember that time that Wilbur was having a fantasy about being a superhero, but actually he was having a series of wacky, clumsy misadventures while lost in his fantasy, but actually he saved a guy from getting killed, so maybe the superhero thing wasn’t a fantasy, after all? Well, I guess we’re seeing something similar here, with Wilbur saving Dawn from that poisoned tea in the process of reaching across the table for no readily apparently reason. Unless … he knows that the tea is poisoned, and just hasn’t said anything because he’s hoping to get laid a couple times before he calls the cops on his murderous paramour? I think we may have found a way for Wilbur to go Too Far, and I dread the consequences.

Dick Tracy, 4/13/25

Sorry, I misspoke Thursday, that guy with the flattop isn’t a cop; he has a much higher calling, as an insurance investigator, and he and the dentist are going to crack this case wide open. Imagine thinking you could disguise a corpse by simulating someone else’s dental work in a superficial way, without taking into account the natural wear and tear that occurs over time! It makes this good doctor furious, and he’s showing his anger by baring his teeth — his beautiful, beautiful teeth — as is custom among his people.

The Phantom, 4/13/25

Speaking of customs among the people, it seems our Wambesi city kid has gone straight from never looking down on the old ways to hopping straight over Chesterton’s fence into the Forbidden Zone. Sure, it’s not permitted for you to go in that direction, rube, but Nia has a metal detector and a shirt from the Gap. She’s going to be fine! Stop complaining!