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Dustin, 4/16/20

Because Dustin tries to take an even-handed approach to its tales of the generation wars, it gives each of its main characters little foibles: Dustin, for instance, is lazy, feckless, stupid, unattractive to women, and generally is responsible for this once-great nation going down the toilet, whereas Dustin’s dad sometimes likes to snack too much. Anyway, I’m a guy who knows a little bit about emotional eating, and if Dustin thinks his dad can’t shovel popcorn into his maw while weeping, well, it looks like stealing his dad’s popcorn is just another “job” he’s going to fail at.

Mary Worth, 4/16/20

Mary’s go-to piece of concrete advice when people are having a hard time choosing between options is to tell them to make a list of pros and cons, and it looks like Dawn is getting a lot of material as she decides which boyfriend to dump!

HUGO: Extremely hot
JARED: Clumsy, sniveling nerd
Hugo +1

HUGO: Will not shut the fuck up about how much better things are in France
JARED: Will not shut the fuck up about Star Wars
Tie

Looks like Hugo’s still in the lead!

Blondie, 4/16/20

It’s taken years, but I guess the comics-reading public has grown numb to Dagwood’s obviously erotic relationship with food. So now, in order to titillate and repulse us by turns, Dagwood is turning to the auto-erotic, becoming obviously aroused by video footage of himself unhinging his jaw to swallow a sandwich whole. Who says legacy comics can’t innovate?

Dick Tracy, 4/16/20

This strip’s occasional “Minit Mysteries” have usually honored the second half of that phrase, each one providing clues over its two-week span that would allow to reader to solve the mystery, Slylock Fox-style. However, it seems the current Case Of The Sexy Tied Up Alien is going to be solved the “old-fashioned way,” which is to say by the police force executing a no-knock warrant and charging in with their guns blazing, killing perpetrator and victim alike.

Family Circus, 4/16/20

Man, the Family Circus intern/algorithm that combs through the archives for topical panels sure is working hard, huh? I assume this one was originally created as part of a campaign against single-payer health care.

Gasoline Alley, 4/16/20

Gasoline Alley, the strip that brought you a thrilling storyline about trying to return a DVD player, now puts you through each pulse-pounding moment of a meeting that falls apart because the organizers can’t figure out the A/V equipment and the main speaker is late!!!! Can you handle the thrills??????

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/15/20

You know, in the literal century this strip has been in newspapers, it’s been easy to sometimes lose track of what it’s really about, the true meaning of Snuffy Smith, if you will. Sure, most people probably think of it as a vehicle for increasingly baroque FDR-era hillbilly jokes, playing on stereotypes and a visual vocabulary that literally nobody alive today has any first-hand experience with. But today, on Tax Day (observed), Snuffy reminds you of what he’s really all about: he does not pay taxes, and if you know anything about him, that’s what you should know. It’s not like he has some elaborate political theory about being a sovereign citizen or the U.S. government being illegitimate or anything that; he just don’t truck with the revenooers. Screw you, Commissioner of Internal Revenue Charles P. Rettig! Snuffy isn’t paying you shit!

Crankshaft, 4/15/20

Hey. Hey there, comics fans. I know what you’ve been thinking about but are too shy to ask: “How have Ed Crankshaft’s poops been lately?” Well, the answer is regular, real smooth and regular. Also, he doesn’t have any clue about anything that’s been going on in the world, and honestly, I think that’s a perfectly valid trade-off.

Family Circus, 4/15/20

Speaking of poops and things going on in the world, I have no idea if this one was pulled from the Big Family Circus Vault because of its resonance with our modern TP-hoarding crisis or what, but this is definitely the sort of thing that could get a unloved red-headed middle child “volunteered” to a lab as a human guinea pig for testing coronavirus vaccines, just saying.

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Dick Tracy, 4/14/20

Hey, folks, remember like two Dick Tracy storylines ago, when sexy part-alien Mysta Chimera was held captive by the sinister Mister Roboto? Well, if you liked that, you’ll enjoy the current short-run “Minit Mystery,” in which the sexy part-alien Mysta Chimera is held captive by the sinister … well, they haven’t been identified, but they were apparently her partner back in her first story, when she was genetically engineered to believe she was erstwhile Dick Tracy daughter-in-law Moon Maid but that all turned out to be a big fake and she was just a gangster’s daughter who won a lookalike contest and then her body and mind were horribly altered with alien DNA as part of a scheme to steal Diet Smith’s Space Coupe. Anyhoo, I mostly bring this up because Mysta getting tied up clearly seems to be somebody’s “thing,” which is neither here nor there, but the addition of nightmarish blowtorch torture puts this right in classic Dick Tracy territory.

Daddy Daze, 4/14/20

Oh, this actually explains a lot about Angus, the precocious, seemingly super-powered Daddy Daze baby! He’s not a “baby” so much as a genetic experiment that aims to create something greater and more powerful than an everyday human, and his “parents” are actually the major shareholders in the mysterious corporation seeking to profit from this forbidden science. Once Angus gets to high school and his powers become manifest, they will get all the blame, in the sense that they’ll be tried for crimes against humanity.

Mary Worth, 4/14/20

Hahaha this is amazing. “Oh shit,” thinks Dawn, “I thought I was in love with Jared, but I forgot that Hugh was incredibly hot. What the fuck was I thinking?”