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Dustin, 5/31/24

Look, I get — believe me, I get — that it’s hard to mine jokes every single day out of a single premise, and sometimes when you’re doing a daily newspaper strip, you need a mechanism by which you can say “OK, this admittedly bad joke I thought up/heard/read in an email forward is my punchline today, idgaf, it’ll be funny if I have a stupid person say it.” But if you have to have two of these mechanisms, like “Dustin’s stupid friend” and “the stupid people who call into Dustin’s mom’s radio show,” that says something about where you’re at and it isn’t great.

Hagar the Horrible, 5/31/24

You know I like to spend time figuring out the whole historico-political situation of Hagar the Horrible, so I want to point out the guy in the kilt in the foreground, which tells me this takes place in a time when the Norse were the elite of a multi-ethnic world along the edges of the North Atlantic and Baltic, and stretching from Iceland to the Black Sea, and inhabited by Celts and Slavs as well as Vikings. Also apparently their culture had a prominent place for the ritual of the “fuck tunnel,” but I don’t really know anything about that. Not an expert admittedly but I have no reason to doubt the cartoon.

Dennis the Menace, 5/31/24

These are both good-looking shirts! I imagine that one of the joys of doing a newspaper comic strip is that you can always decide “I’m gonna draw some nice shirts today” and it will brighten up someone’s day. Specifically mine! Consider my day brightened, Dennis the Menace creative team.

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Six Chix, 5/30/24

I “read the comics so you don’t have to,” and I’m not too proud to acknowledge that sometimes that role requires that I alert you to when Six Chix does a strip that’s insane but also good? Today’s is wonderful: it hovers at the edge of comprehensibility, offering up a series of claims that seem reasonable on their face (the existence of foodies surely implies the existence of their equal and opposite numbers, yes? and a golden circle is the logical antithesis to the universal “no” sign?) that dissolve into obvious madness when you spend a moment thinking about them. Plus you get to see this weird little dude eating a hamburger! Perfection, don’t change a thing, no idea what the hell is going on here.

Gearhead Gertie, 5/30/24

Look, I admit that, beyond one night years ago where I took this weird apparatus home that measured my breathing and heartbeat and told me that my (reportedly) vigorous snoring did not rise to the level of sleep apnea, I haven’t had much contact with sleep clinics. But I feel reasonably sure that what goes on there does not consist of doctors (?) gaslighting you into thinking that you shouldn’t be scared of your nightmares. Honestly that experience sounds like the real nightmare! Certainly scarier than watching race cars drive around at safe and reasonable speeds for once. Oh, no, now I’m doing it too!

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Hagar the Horrible, 5/29/24

One of the great dilemmas of transport is that the more mass you need to move, the more energy you need to move it, which means you need more fuel, but fuel itself adds mass. At sea, or in space, when you have to take all your fuel with you when you depart on your journey, the mass of that fuel can be a real limiting factor in terms of how you far you can go — but on the other hand, you have to figure into your calculations that in most scenarios, you burn off fuel as you use it, so the mass of your vessel actually goes down over time. Anyway, one of the human beings who serve as fuel for Hagar’s boat, which is burdened by the extra mass of the extra rowers being towed behind it, can’t row anymore, due to his injury. It would make things easier for the uninjured rowers if the overall mass they were propelling were lower. You see where I’m going with this.

Mary Worth, 5/29/24

Sorry if this is rude to say, but Wilbur doesn’t look that bad here, certainly not bad enough to inspire Mary’s look of wild-eyed panic. Oh, he’s got some stubble and he’s in his robe? Maybe looks a little sad? I 100% guarantee that the Chartertsone condo board has received angry emails about worse, much worse, when Wilbur takes one of his spontaneous constitutionals around the grounds or simply forgets to close his curtains.

Dennis the Menace, 5/29/24

This strip is just brutally real. Mr. Wilson has a loving wife, a generous U.S. Postal Service pension, and a bucolic home in the suburbs. This really is his best life! And he fucking hates it! Because of Dennis! Grim stuff.