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The Phantom, 7/28/21

Given how completely superhero franchises have come to dominate pop culture, it’s kind of amazing to think about how relatively recent they are as a concept! For instance, the Phantom, who was created in 1936 — recently enough that he’s not even in the public domain! — is considered the transitional figure between superheroes and the pulp heroes of the previous generation; he was the first such heroic figure to wear the now-standard skintight costume, and the first wear a mask that somehow renders his pupils invisible. My point is that he’s important historically, and is both of our time and of the past, and it may sound old-fashioned when he starts quips with “To whom it may concern,” but that’s just how a generation much more accustomed to writing formal letters talked, okay?

Beetle Bailey, 7/28/21

Folks, it’s come to our attention that certain newspaper comic strips are getting unpleasantly horny. Well, at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC, we’re working hard to combat that trend, by establishing that all of our characters are terrified of sexual arousal, and also are possibly under 13 years year old. You’re welcome, America!

Mary Worth, 7/28/21

Speaking of removing any temptations to horniness, it looks like Ashlee’s big epiphany wasn’t that Drew is a kindhearted person who she could treat as a real partner, not just a mark, but that Drew is a kindhearted person who a strumpet like her doesn’t deserve. So she’s just going to slink off into the sunset, leaving Drew to find the sort of nice upper-class girl that he should be paired with Shauna, I guess?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/28/21

“That would be charming and funny in comic strip form, wouldn’t it? Those are definitely qualities you wouldn’t see here, so I’m just going to stare out at the readers all slack-jawed.”

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Dick Tracy, 7/27/21

Look, I have no insider knowledge and I’m not saying that the Dick Tracy creative team is in the midst of a contract dispute with their syndicate, but I am saying that if they were, claiming that “I don’t need the comics pages, I could get into the lucrative game design business” wouldn’t be the worst negotiate tactic! It would work a lot better if they actually owned the rights to Dick Tracy so they could turn it into a game, though.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/27/21

Say, have you somehow, against all odds, gotten emotionally invested in the character of Kyle Vidpa/Jake Rowling? Well, if so, the fact that he appears to be on the verge of fatherhood is probably making you feel … something? This is making you feel something, right? Sound off in the comments to let us know that that might be, exactly!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 7/27/21

We all, of course, are familiar with Grimm, one of the beloved title characters in Mother Goose and Grimm. Today’s installment of that strip poses the question: what if Grimm died, and was condemned to eternal torture in Hell, forever outside of God’s grace? That’s a real knee-slapper, if you think about it!

Pluggers, 7/27/21

AWWW YEAH IT’S THE PLUGGERS WET T-SHIRT PANEL YOU ALL ASKED FOR

WAIT, WHAT’S THAT? YOU DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS? YOU NEVER COULD’VE EVEN CONCEIVED OF ASKING FOR THIS?

HUH! LOOKS LIKE WE’RE ALL BEING TORTURED FOREVER OUTSIDE OF GOD’S GRACE, I GUESS

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/26/21

Remember Bizzy Buzz Buzz, the Snuffy Smith character who was named after a popular (?) 1960s toy and whose whole deal is that she likes to obsessively clean things? Well, she’s back. This lovable unaccompanied minor who just can’t get enough of doing unpaid labor for her kinfolk is back! She will be returning every 3-5 years to this strip whether you like it or not, so you might as well grit your teeth and fall in love with her, it’ll be easier that way.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/26/21

Ah, well, it seems like Phil’s death-faking may have been a bit less involved than I had anticipated, and really the only people possibly facing any legal consequences would be the lawyers who straight-up lied to Darrin about why they were sending those covers to him, but what’s a little light lying for a client, who it’s been established was sort of cheated out of a lot revenue for his comics creations and probably couldn’t pay you very much in the first place? Anyway, it turns out Phil mostly faked his death because he didn’t like attention, but then after a few years he realized that in fact maybe he was wrong about that, so he revealed that he was alive in an extremely dramatic fashion at a packed comics convention, so everyone could pay attention to him and his insane life choices.

Dustin, 7/26/21

We all love the comic strip Dustin, because it’s brought balance to the Generation Wars by proving that everyone, whether they’re a Silent or a Boomer or a Gen Xer or a Millennial or a Zoomer, is basically unlikeable. But have you been waiting for the strip to take on a bold new frontier by getting unpleasantly horny? Well, good news!

Pluggers, 7/26/21

Say, did you know there’s a French phrase for this very phenomenon? It’s l’esprit de l’escalier, which literally means “the spirit of the staircase,” the idea being that you think of the perfect bon mot as you’re walking up the stairs to your apartment after you’ve left the party. In related news, I thought of the phrase that’s mostly likely to trigger a plugger into a violent rage, and it’s “Say, did you know there’s a French phrase for this very phenomenon?”