Post Content

Blondie, 6/3/21

THING I LIKE ABOUT TODAY’S BLONDIE: The little anthropomorphic power-lifting mascot for Power Burger, holding aloft a barbell with hamburgers for weights! It’s simultaneously pretty cute and a little menacing, which is exactly the sweet spot you want for this.

THING I DISLIKE ABOUT TODAY’S BLONDIE: The fact Dagwood and Herb are just chowing down on their power burgers right there in the front seat of the car. Are there no tables inside Power Burger where they could enjoy their meal? Are there no parks or public spaces in their bleak exurb where they could enjoy a burger outside in the nice weather? Can they not even go home to eat? Are they ashamed?

Six Chix, 6/3/21

Hmm, I’m guessing this strip is taking the reasonable position that single-use plastics are, on the whole, bad for the environment and we should try to phase out their use. But if that was the aim, maybe they shouldn’t have made the single-use plastics look like a bunch of cool party guys, whereas the ecologically virtuous containers are a bunch of sourpusses? Just putting that out there!

Mary Worth, 6/3/21

Remember, folks, there are two different kinds of absent fathers in the world: fathers who are absent because they’re off doing virtuous things, like doctoring, in which case you’ll turn out fine, more or less, and fathers who are absent because they’re criminals, in which case you too will grow up to be a criminal. Sorry, criminality runs in your blood, I don’t make the rules!

What I do make, however, is requests to turn your attention to faithful reader Wander’s beloved Mary Worth and Me blog, where he and his wife have recreated Ashlee’s stunning photo shoot. If you’d like to be one of the “cool kids,” I request you do the same and send me the pics!

Post Content

Six Chix, 6/2/21

Sorry, folks, I can’t even deal with the ostensible joke here because of the bird’s use of “peeps” to refer to fellow birds, which is both not really related to the punchline of the strip and frankly too cute by half. There’s an old bit of comedy jargon that calls this sort of thing, where two unrelated jokes distract from each other, “putting a hat on a hat.” You should generally remove whichever one of the jokes is less funny, which I realize is hard to do in scenarios where neither is funny, but I think this strip is good evidence the leaving both in isn’t helping.

Gil Thorp, 6/2/21

Wait a minute, the library board isn’t an elective body or even appointed by elected officials, but is just a self-selecting oligarchy where current members choose new members based on their own self-serving and inscrutable criteria? That’s it, my mind’s totally changed on this whole library situation, Abel Brito needs to force his way onto this board by whatever means necessary and end this medieval institution by burning it to the ground.

Mary Worth, 6/2/21

Oh, sorry, it looks like before Ashlee sashays out of Drew’s life, expensive Rolex in hand, she’s going to get together with him for one last lunch for old time’s sake and absolutely roast him for his many personal failings.

Post Content

Mary Worth, 6/1/21

Wow, huh, if you had asked me how this was going to go, I would’ve guessed, at various points over the course of this storyline, first “Ashlee becomes emotionally/sexually obsessed with Drew, who quickly tires of her”, then “Ashley becomes enraged at Drew when he fails to make her Instagram famous,” then finally “Ashlee hooks Drew for the long con.” But nope, it turns out that what Ashlee meant when she told Drew that “I recognize that face!” was that she had seen his Instagram feed and caught sight of his fancy Rolex in one of his selfies, so she used his pics and geotags to figure out where he might regularly stop to eat, got a job there to arrange the meeting, seduced him and set up a photoshoot, and casually nabbed the watch while he was distracted. Mission accomplished! The whole elaborate scheme was about the acquisition of a single expensive watch! Gotta say, I always appreciate it when Mary Worth zigs when I expect it to zag.

Judge Parker, 6/1/21

So there was a long stretch in this strip where Sophie’s whole deal was that she had PTSD due to her kidnapping and she couldn’t decide if she wanted to go to college, much to Abbey’s consternation, so she just hung around Cavelton and ran some failing mayoral campaigns instead. But now it’s Randy’s turn to be kidnapped, Sam’s hung up on it, and apparently Sophie’s been away at college for … months? And seems to be doing fine. “Wow,” she’s clearly thinking in panel two, “Maybe I should look into getting a job on campus during semester breaks from here on out.”