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Mary Worth, 4/16/21

Oh, now we’re getting to what Dr. Jeff really means when he says Dr. Drew seems “dissatisfied with life” even though he hasn’t actually expressed any dissatisfaction: he’s not safely paired up in a monogamous heterosexual relationship, the way his happily married sister Adrian is. You remember Adrian, right? She used to occasionally get the romantic sad-sack storylines to take some of the burden off Dawn once in a while. She was engaged to a con artist at one point, then was in love with a cop but couldn’t commit to loving him until he was gunned down during a drug raid, so she agreed to marry him on what she assumed was his death bed, but he survived so she had to go through with it. Later, her bitter man-hating best friend Jill pulled out all the stops to ruin their wedding until Mary fixed her emotional problems. And then we really haven’t heard much from Adrian since! Maybe the reason Dr. Drew isn’t so eager to be married is that he knows that means banishment to a drama-free life, which in turn means he’ll never take center stage in this strip again. Or maybe it’s the endless casual sexual possibilities currently open to him as a handsome young doctor, who can say.

Hi and Lois, 4/16/21

Anyway, marriage leads to parenthood and parenthood leads to disillusionment and disillusionment leads to telling your kid, who still thinks that love and beauty are possible and enduring, that vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

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Family Circus, 4/15/21

Many years ago, I was going through customs at Boston Airport, and one of the customs inspectors had an extremely cute beagle on a leash wearing a vest that said “I’M PROTECTING AMERICA’S AGRICULTURE!” This dog was sniffing around everyone’s bags, and he came up to a family with a little boy who had a soft-sided lunch box that was open, and the dog stuck his head into it to sniff around a bit. The boy squealed indignantly “That dog licked my lunch box!” and the dog’s handler replied, in a clipped and measured tone that I will never forget, “That dog’s mouth is cleaner than yours.”

Anyway, I immediately thought about this when I saw Barfy’s aggrieved face here. “Can you believe this shit?” he’s definitely thinking. “Have you seen the things this child has done with those hands? I came over here to eat food that had fallen on the floor, not to be slandered like this.”

The Lockhorns, 4/15/21

Speaking of Jeffy’s bullshit, you could definitely see a panel where one of the Keane kids, grinning in bed like a dope, declares, “I can’t wait to see how last night’s dream turned out!”, right? Amazing how that kind of sappy line can be instantly changed to a cutting Lockhorns put-down just by changing the speaker.

Pluggers, 4/15/21

This year’s tax filing deadline was extended to May 17, so I guess you’re a plugger if you have your tax day comic all ready to go for April 15 and you’re not gonna let big government tell you to change it! Also, it seems that you’re a plugger if you do your taxes by dutifully researching potential deductions you can legally take (this is how everyone else does their taxes, too).

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Mary Worth, 4/14/21

Ahh, I love to savor the early days of a new Mary Worth storyline, when it’s still full of promise and potential and we can fool ourselves that it isn’t going to spend literally weeks showing us two old people blandly emotionally processing things at the mall food court. Admittedly, we’re starting off with, uh, two old people blandly emotionally processing things in a hospital cafeteria, but, look, just let me have my dreams, OK? Anyway, it seems like the story is that Drew, a facile dipshit who’s long on good looks and short on introspection, is doing great, but what his father worries is: should he be doing great? Shouldn’t he be growing more dissatisfied under the crushing burdens of life’s disappointments? Mary seems resistant, but eventually she will be sent to pester him, and will plant the feeling of deep unease in his soul that is humanity’s birthright.

Dick Tracy, 4/14/21

Oh, right, I forgot that Rikki Mortis was an associate of notorious corpse-criminal Abner Kadaver, and that she got narc’d out to the cops by her fellow goth Dethany from On The Fastrack in one of the weird comics crossovers in the last decade. And by “associate” I mean “girlfriend,” obviously, so get ready to learn how creaky, shambling living corpses display physical affection for one another.

Dustin, 4/14/21

Much as I feel generalized disdain for everyone involved here, I do have to respect Dustin escalating his long-running war with his father to “Mom’s gonna cuck you, old man” levels.

Family Circus, 4/14/21

Man, somehow I feel like I don’t spend enough time on this blog emphasizing that the Keane Kids really are just canonically some of the stupidest people alive, you know?

Hi and Lois, 4/14/21

Wait, did I say stupid? Sorry, I meant “non-conformist.”