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Gasoline Alley, 12/12/19

You know, I don’t talk about Gasoline Alley a ton here but I really have come to respect its utterly shambolic narrative style. Like, none of the other continuity strips are what you’d call tightly plotted, but Gasoline Alley lurches from event from to event without any clear sense of purpose or direction, much like real life itself, in a style normally associated with European arthouse movies from the ’70s. Over the last few … weeks? months? time has no meaning in this context, honestly, so let’s just say “the last little bit,” the town’s resident psychic physician’s assistant diagnosed the diner’s waitress with a heart condition so she had to take time off, and then a tough-talking sailor woman wandered through town and took the job, and then a train full of little kids on their way to see Santa broke down near the diner, so then they got Slim to dress up as Santa and come entertain them, and now it turns out that the little kids are … mostly assholes? And the tough-talking sailor woman, in her crusty, non-PC way, is threatening to murder them? Not really sure if this kid is claiming his father actually is a gamma radiation-mutated superhero or just a guy with a terrible anger problem, and honestly, in classic Gasoline Alley fashion, we’re probably never going to find out for sure! This is just one in series of vaguely connected things that happen, and will keep on happening, forever.

Crankshaft, 12/12/19

Crankshaft has been doing a whole series of strips this week about hawking your book at a book fair and nobody buying it, maybe because print media is dying or maybe just because nobody likes your book or maybe a little of both, and the whole thing has a definite “pulled from real life” vibe. Anyway, I’m a particular fan of today’s strip because of the Christmas decorations, which really create a mood, you know? These people could all be spending precious time around the holidays with their families, but instead they’re here, in what appears to be a hallway of some sort, staring at their phones, not selling books.

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Pluggers, 12/11/19

Some commenters here think that I overread smugness into Pluggers panels. For instance, my first instinct is to interpret this panel as saying that walking into a chain coffee shop and just ordering a coffee (which, for the record, is what I do, and is something that workers at said coffee chains are perfectly happy to hear, you’re not blowing their minds or anything) is a morally superior act that really sticks it to the big city liberal millennials with their damn frappuccino macchiatos and such. But maybe I’m wrong! Maybe this is just meant to be a value-neutral descriptor of plugger consumer habits, and stringing together a series of nonsense fauxtalian terms isn’t meant as a slight towards the people who actually do order those drinks, at all. If that’s the case, I would propose that the real plugger here, in a country where working-class people are more likely to be in retail than manufacturing jobs, is the slouched, middle-aged, minimum-wage-earning balding-with-a-ponytail dog-man behind the counter, and not Andy Bear, who presumably has a solid pension and set of benefits from his union construction job. Dog-man is probably thrilled to get a plain coffee order, since that’s much less complicated to make! Truly, Andy’s choice is an act of solidarity!

Dick Tracy, 12/11/19

Ahh, our sinister villains are going to stop at nothing to lure Mike Nomad and Steve Roper to their doom, keeping at it even after their exploding car gambit failed. I don’t know why but I find the claim to be “armored car driver” extremely funny. It’s like their logic was “What’s the most trustworthy job? Cop. Oh, but wait, they know all the cops already. What’s like a cop, but, you know, maybe in a truck of some kind?”

Dennis the Menace, 12/11/19

Wait, does the Dennis the Menace creative team think that men call each other up to talk about the internet porn they’re looking at, while they’re looking at it? Because that would be incredibly menacing. Fortunately, nobody actually does that, but still, it sends a real chill down your spine, you know?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/11/19

Good news, everyone! Mindy had her baby, and Mindy and her baby are both still alive! Bad news, though: Check out the expression on Buck’s face in panel three. That’s the look of a man who’s had a terrible girl’s name up his sleeve for months, just an absolute dogshit name, and has been eagerly awaiting the moment to unleash it.

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Blondie, 12/10/19

There’s a fleeting, poignant little moment embedded in an already emotionally fraught scene in It’s A Wonderful Life that I think about a lot. After George has gone to Martini’s and ends up coming to blows with Mr. Welch, the husband of the teacher George has just berated for no reason over the phone, Martini throws Welch out of the bar and in the process declares that George is “his best friend,” which, c’mon, we all know that George thinks of Martini as nothing more than one of the Savings and Loan’s more colorful and ethnic shareholders and has literally never done anything social with him outside of the bar. Anyway, I’d like to imagine that It’s A Wonderful Lasagna is a remake where George and Martini really are best friends, and at the end of the movie the Baileys head down to Bailey Park to enjoy a delicious homemade lasagna that Mrs. Martini has prepared. Would that be great? Martini probably would think so, though George would no doubt prefer to stay on the nice side of town and eat unseasoned roast chicken or whatever the solid citizens of Bedford Falls think of as haute cuisine.

Mark Trail, 12/10/19

Do yetis whistle? Is whistling part of yeti lore? Does anyone remember that this storyline is supposed to be about yetis? I’VE PUT UP WITH A LOT OF BULLSHIT HERE AND I WANT TO SEE A DAMN YETI