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Gasoline Alley, 3/3/21

I am at this point very obviously committed to my specific bit, which is that I comment on every day’s comics right after I read them, having no idea what the future holds for that strip, in order to replicate this website’s origin story, which is that I would make jokes about the comics to my wife every morning over breakfast until she told me to make a blog about it. But sometimes doing things that way means I miss slow-burn developments in the comics. Like, take for instance, Gasoline Alley. Today’s strip involves a man returning a pair of glasses to a woman after they accidentally fell into his shopping basket at the supermarket. Ah, you’re probably thinking, this is the beginning of a romantic meet-cute! In fact, this is latest “twist” in grueling storyline about this lady losing her glasses while shopping that’s been going on for three weeks, and in a sense I’m sorry I haven’t been bringing it to you blow by wildly undramatic blow. Go back and read the last month or so, if you think your heart can handle it!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/3/21

Wow, looks like Rex is going to have to add another entry to his list of “Seemingly anodyne phrases meant that are meant just to fill time but actually end up unpleasantly extending a conversation.” This one is going to result in him having to talk to a second person, so it gets a little red star next to it.

Dennis the Menace, 3/3/21

I’m a big fan of Mr. Wilson’s completely gobsmacked facial expression here. “Did he just try to eat that coin? Is he that stupid? Is my nemesis that stupid? And what does that say about me?”

Funky Winkerbean, 3/3/21

Les isn’t just history’s greatest caregiver; he also watches sports in the correct way, for virtuous reasons, unlike you, you filthy, depraved animal.

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Funky Winkerbean, 3/2/21

Oh, boy, it looks like the early coronavirus pandemic echoes in Funkyverse strips that were probably written a year ago have reached the mothership, everybody! It’s funny that Crankshaft used the opportunity to do some zany jokes about hand sanitizer and whatnot, whereas in Funky Winkerbean itself the key question is “How can we make this global pandemic, which is particularly dangerous to the immunocompromised, all about Les — specifically, how can we show that Les is the real hero in Lisa’s cancer story, and is also unpleasantly neurotic?”

Crankshaft, 3/2/21

Meanwhile, Crankshaft is just riffing on headlines like “How a superspreader at choir practice sickened 52 people with COVID-19” with bits like “Wouldn’t it be funny if in the middle of a choral performance, the old lady playing the organ just straight-up dropped dead? Right there in church? In front of everybody?”

Mary Worth, 3/2/21

Look, it’s all fun and games to claim, without evidence, that your dog is a “champion tracker” when you never go hunting and there are no real stakes to it, especially when your dog is a tiny dachsund with a comically large snout! How much tracking does anyone’s pet dog do on a regular basis, anyway? Hardly none, right? But just know that if you say this sort of thing enough, you might eventually be called upon to render actual tracking services, and that can get real awkward real fast.

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Funky Winkerbean, 3/1/21

What’s the worst thing going on here? Is it that Les thinks it makes him sound sympathetic when he says his first reaction to his wife’s cancer diagnosis was to become the smartest cancer knower that ever lived, rather than attempting to comfort her or whatever? Is it that Les made a joke about Dick Tracy “investigating” things, even though as readers of this blog well know, Dick rarely does any real detailed research and mostly just shoots at weirdos? Is it that this lady thinks that Dick Tracy is some obscure comics character known only to trufans and obsessives, rather than one of the most famous comic strip characters in the world? Is it that, right or wrong about that, she thinks that shouting “Got the reference!” at this reading of a sad cancer book will make her sympathetic? WRONG, TRICK QUESTION: the real answer is that the worst thing going on here is that Les is still, years and years after his wife’s death, doing endless publicity tours for his book about her illness, rather than writing another book or spending time with his daughter and his current wife or, like, doing literally anything else. Anyway, he and “Got the reference!” lady will definitely be having an affair by the end of the week.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/1/21

Oh, did you think we were done with Buck? You fool. You idiot. You sweet summer child. This plotline is going to consist of some very mild failure to adhere to diabetes protocols, some very swift compliance to said protocols in response to extremely minimal consequences to said failure to adhere, and endless, endless praises. All hail Buck! It’s good that your numbers look like that, Buck. Let’s all hear it for Buck!