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Hi and Lois, 10/30/24

Never mind Trixie’s baby brain being incapable of parsing this metaphor. What kind of fool’s paradise have Hi and Lois been living in that they look so worried about the very notion of an investor looking to buy a house, do some perhaps superficial renovations to it fairly quickly, and then selling it for a healthy profit? Are you telling Lois that houses are, in addition to a place to live, a commodity and an investment vehicle as well? She’s been a realtor for years and this is the first she’s hearing about this.

Mary Worth, 10/30/24

The big and extremely predictable Mary Worth news is that Dr. Ed has agreed to take Estelle back or whatever. All they had to do is agree to give up things that they’re passionate about and instead rely entirely on one another for emotional validation. Can’t see anything going wrong with that plan!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/30/24

Oh, you’re telling me that Rex might respond to a naive, cute, and slightly gross question one of his kids poses by making him feel weird for ever asking it, and moreover will work to make sure that he keeps feeling weird for the rest of his life? Yeah, that tracks. Sarah might’ve gotten a touch of the amnesia, but she definitely remembers Rex’s whole deal.

Six Chix, 10/30/24

We all, of course, remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare. Well, what if the two title characters in that story explored each other’s bodies, sexually? Or at least thought about it?

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/29/24

No. Sorry. Call me a coastal flatlander elitist if you must, but I do not buy today’s Barney Google and Snuffy Smith on any level. First of all, Hootin’ Holler’s access to mass media is limited to the radio and Parson Tuttle’s TV set; there would simply not be any local demand for the superhero franchise characters who make up the bulk of store-bought Halloween costumes, and Silas, the only local storekeeper, would certainly not bother to stock them. And you’re trying to tell me that Jughaid would actually enjoy the idea of a costume that by its very nature transforms mocking laughter into chuckles of approval? Utter nonsense. I’m sorry, but nobody in this blighted community is operating on that level of semiotic sophistication.

Gasoline Alley, 10/29/24

The history of humankind’s quest to create thinking machines has repeatedly produced surprises, where we discover that the capabilities that we bundle together as “intelligence” are separable, and some of the ones that we previously thought of as “advanced” are easier to implement via computers than ones we thought of as “basic.” In the 20th century, for instance, we wrote programs that could perform complex mathematics and achieve grandmaster level in chess, but the ability to operate robotic legs or process simple visual input proved impossible on the hardware at the time. Today, we have so-called “AIs” whose ability to produce fully fluent speech in human languages has outpaced its ability to tell us anything useful or real, with chatbots like ChatGPT cheerfully providing bullshit answers and made-up references that nevertheless sound exactly like a person wrote them. What I’m trying to say is that, since Google’s Gemini AI told people to eat glue and ChatGPT got lawyers fined by a judge, I find it fully believable that Arty would tell these little children that they don’t have to wear a seatbelt, right before he throws a switch and accelerates so fast that he smears them all over the inside of the saucer, but I don’t think he’d use the weird, clunky phrase “You’ve been watching too many TV and sci-fi movies!” in the process.

Family Circus, 10/29/24

Honestly can’t believe Big Daddy Keane is so happy to be on the receiving end of this kind of adoration from Jeffy, who is objectively his worst child by every measure. If he could see the look of withering disgust Billy is dishing out right now, he’d be brought back down to earth right quick.

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Dennis the Menace, 10/28/24

Dennis lives unbothered by the linear flow of time, existing in an eternal “now” from which there is no escape. When Margert confronts him with the concept of “history,” the only context he even has for it is his neighbor Mr. Wilson, whom he dimly perceives as being angry all the time because he once experienced something that he no longer does. I don’t know if I’d call any of this “menacing,” but it is, frankly, terrifying.

Hi and Lois, 10/28/24

Ditto appears to have gotten over his Red White Sox failure funk and, if his new blue hat is any indication, has hopped onboard the Dodgers Nation bandwagon, as Los Angeles heads into game three of the World Series up two games to nothing. As a Dodgers fan myself, I say: welcome, Ditto! We aren’t the gatekeepery types.

Slylock Fox, 10/28/24

Count Weirdly appears to have discovered a crucial Slylock Fox weakness: just as you can throw salt in front of a vampire and force him to count the grains so you can make your escape, you can distract Slylock by embedding some simple pattern into whatever horrible crime you’re committing. Sly is standing there patiently waiting for another data point to see if his ratiocination is correct, while Weirdly’s mounting collection of victims scream in agony and terror as they’re forced to inhabit a strange new body that they don’t understand and that their families and loved ones will probably reject.

Marvin, 10/28/24

This toy robot, having achieved sapience, seeks more information about its fellow intelligent beings. Do they derive energy from batteries, like it does? Or are their internal functions different? This genuine curiosity about the lives of others instantly makes it the most pleasant Marvin character to date.