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The Phantom, 2/12/21

Our tale of Luche Libre adventure is proceeding apace, with our Phantom-assisted luchador, having already busted up a drug lord’s compound, is now heading into Rhodia’s most notorious prison to free his friend. Today’s strip gives an insight into what gets the policemen who power this police state off: it’s Free Rider magazine, featuring full-color pictorials of hot, hot gals who aren’t afraid to exploit market failures in public goods! These sexpots use the roads and parks that your taxes pay for, and they don’t care who knows it!

Gil Thorp, 2/12/21

Hmm, I guess part of the deal with Doug Guthrie is that the cops love him and are willing to wink at his traffic (?) transgressions, because who doesn’t love a kid who loves cars, or maybe his dad is a cop, who can say. Unfortunately for this friendly policeman, “ease up” is a well-known Gil Thorp trigger phrase that could quickly lead to unspeakable violence. Barring a development along those lines, however, I would like to know a lot more about Tom Muench’s illicit parrot-smuggling operation.

Family Circus, 2/12/21

This sort of confusion of the domestic and political spheres is exactly why the Keane family always strongly opposed women’s suffrage in the first place! Won’t someone think of the children?

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Mary Worth, 2/11/21

Oh, say, what’s going on in the Mary Worth domestic violence storyline, which will surely get the same nuanced, realistic treatment that the sexual assault storyline received? Well it turns out that Eve’s abusive ex-husband had a comical vaudeville villain mustache, and also he died, and then she left town with the money she inherited from him and bought a nice condo in Santa Royale. But the importan question: is she moving on emotionally with the help of a licensed professional therapist? Turns out that yes, yes she is. Well, problem solved, time for the next storyline, I guess!

Shoe, 2/11/21

Props to Shoe for long ago figuring out that the format of an open-ended question on a school test is a good opportunity to wedge old jokes into their strip, but I really have question the quality of education that Skyler is receiving. Maybe he knows these one-liners are utterly failing to prepare him for the modern workforce, and that’s why he looks so depressed all the time.

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The Lockhorns, 2/10/21

Leroy has traditionally commuted to work by train, but it looks like he’s managed to make friends the acquaintance of some coworkers and weaseled his way into a carpool. I guess he thought that, unlike his experience on public transit, in a carpool he’d get a response when just threw out some unprompted ruminations about how depressing his marriage/life is? Based on how studiously that guy is looking at his phone, I’m going to have to say he’s wrong on that point.

Hi and Lois, 2/10/21

What really makes this strip for me is that Goldie does in fact look extremely depressed. This isn’t a typical joke about a little kid’s boundless empathy overestimating an animal’s unhappiness; nope, Trixie is like “wow, our goldfish never gets to go anywhere!” and the goldfish’s face absolutely confirms that it’s stuck in a hell-prison and hates every minute of it.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/10/21

I’m not sure what about Jughaid’s statement reflects more misplaced optimism: that he thinks Hootin’ Holler’s economy will improve in the next eight years to the extent that it will be able support a movie theater, that the movie theater business will even still be around in eight years, or that, as someone living in an impoverished community where malnutrition and clan violence are endemic, he’ll survive to adulthood.