Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/1/20

Here’s a fun “lockdown story” for you: for pretty much the whole time my wife and I have been married, she’s been prone to minor colds — nothing serious, but maybe a few days every other month or so — in a way that I’m not, which has resulted in a certain amount of good natured teasing about which one of us has a superior immune system. But a few weeks ago, she realized that she hasn’t had a cold since March, which is when her job had her start working at home, like I do all the time. In other words, it’s not that my immune system is any tougher than hers; it’s that I, like Harwood père, have been quarantining for the last twenty years, pretty much. Anyway, I’m glad that this strip has wrapped up the story of the flamboyant con artist so we can really focus on the guy who’s exactly as boring as me, a guy who blogs about newspaper comic strips for a living.

Crankshaft, 9/1/20

It took me years of reading this strip to realize that Keesterman, the guy whose mailbox Crankshaft annihilates on a daily basis due to some combination of incompetence and spite, is also one of Crankshaft’s only two non-work friends. Anyway, you might at first glance think that Keesterman (who it’s also just occurred to me has a name that means “Ass Man,” which is neither here nor there) is honoring his late friend Crankshaft, who passed away peacefully last night, in a uniquely appropriate way. But of course, that’s not true; Crankshaft will never die, due to the aforementioned spite, and Keesterman is just being extremely passive aggressive.

Funky Winkerbean, 9/1/20

Speaking of hateful Funkyverse characters who will never die, I feel like it’s been years since we’ve seen any sustained Les-Cayla interaction, so I’m excited to see them snipe at each other about the heady melange of danger and sexual attraction to a young actress playing Les’s dead first wife he’s been experiencing in Los Angeles, city of dreams!

Marvin, 9/1/20

I guess “reckless” is supposed to imply something … sexy, maybe? … but look, I’ve read enough columns in celebrity tabloids by “body language experts” to know that these two — sitting next to each other on the couch, facing forward, arms crossed — now only stimulate each other via taunts and cruel misdirection.

Post Content

Gil Thorp, 8/31/20

Man, remember when I had cautious but high hopes for a wacky Gil Thorp summer storyline? Well, it’s pretty much the end of summer, and I haven’t talked about Gil Thorp at all, but I can summarize what went down like this: star quarterback of yesteryear True Standish came back, having graduated and been inexplicably drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays, which is a baseball team, and the sassy and vaguely beloved Corina Karenna, who played catcher on Mike “The Mayor”’s ragtag baseball team from the bad kid school, was recruited to help True work out his arm. If that sounds like it might’ve been vaguely wacky, keep in mind that most of the eight weeks was spent talking about True and Corina’s mothers, who have both battled depression, which was very serious and not wacky at all. But now Corina is attending Milford, it seems, which will … help her mom in some way I didn’t really follow, so I hope that the upcoming fall will feature less of her fiercely but tenderly caring for and defending her beloved family (SNOOZE) and more of her defying authority or at least sassing back at authority at a rate at least 10% higher than the usual Mudlark would.

Dustin, 8/31/20

The point of Dustin is, of course, to turn the battle between Dustin’s dad and Dustin into symbol of the Boomer-Millennial struggle. Of course, thanks to comic book time Dustin’s dad is now Gen X and Dustin is probably a Zoomer, but the point is that Dustin is lazy and can’t hold down a job or find a girlfriend so that’s evidence that young people in general suck. But here’s a young person who works at Dustin’s dad’s law firm and wears a suit and everything, but apparently he still sucks because, uh, phones? Anyway, since it’s clear that young people in general are fully capable of holding down a job, Dustin’s dad might want to consider that his kid sucks because he did a bad job raising him, just putting that out there.

Post Content

Panel from Slylock Fox, 8/30/20

Slylock seems pretty confident that Count Weirdly is lying about being anointed King of Earth by a powerful alien civilization, based on a firm belief that, as described by special relativity, the speed of light is in fact the upper limit at which information can travel. Of course, Count Weirdly has a working time machine, which you’d think would prove that ordinary physical laws don’t apply to him. You’d also think his powers to bend time itself would help him establish his rule over our planet without needing alien intervention on his behalf, but that’s a debate for another time.

Gasoline Alley, 8/30/20

Gasoline Alley is, along with The Simpsons, the last media franchise on Earth still trying to squeeze laughs out of Frank Nelson’s character from The Jack Benny Show. This Nelson-ish fellow has been annoying the Gasoline Alley crew intermittently over the years, and today has proven that even death can’t stop his antics. Still, we shouldn’t let the appearance of this beloved (?) figure distract us from the true horror here, which is that Walt, who was almost finally freed from his cursed, interminable earthly existence and was ready to receive his reward from his Creator, is being dragged back down to the plane of the living on the orders of a cruel family that simply will not let him die.

Shoe, 8/30/20

In the Shoe world of sapient birds, there is no pan-avian solidarity. Different bird species still see themselves in competition, and boast that they would certainly never be dismembered and eaten at human-run fast food restaurants! The fact that whole international businesses exist to murder and cook intelligent creatures isn’t the problem, the problem is actually that some of those creatures are too inherently dumb to avoid getting captured and processed into lunch. Pretty grim, if you ask me!