Judge Parker, 2/6/20
“You ever see the movie Bulworth?”
Mary Worth, 2/6/20
Is … is that a threat, Hugo
Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/6/20
WE GET IT, REX MORGAN, M.D., HUMAN BODIES ARE FRAIL, MORTAL MACHINES AND NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO TO THEM, THEY WILL EVENTUALLY BREAK DOWN AND DIE
Mark Trail, 2/5/20
Sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date with recent developments in Mark Trail, but they go something like this: Dr. Camel thought he heard the tell-tale whistle of a yeti and so he just bolted out of his tent into the Himalayan night, and also into what appears to be an avalanche in progress, and now Genie, his lover (?), is running after him. If Mark Trail ends up standing dispassionately over their frozen corpses tomorrow morning, snaps a picture of them for the cover of Woods and Wildlife, says to nobody in particular “I guess the yeti will just have to remain a mystery,” and then starts heading back down the mountain, I admit I will be kind of impressed.
Blondie, 2/5/20
I have now reached an age when I see incomprehensible tech jokes in legacy comics and have the nagging feeling of “are they out of touch or am I?” Like, on the surface this all makes no sense to me, but … maybe deleting pics off each others phones is how the prepubescent set flirts these days? Like it’s the equivalent of a mischievous boy dipping a little girl’s pigtails into an inkwell, except it’s up-to-date, and gender-neutral, and also causes you to lose your cherished memories? At any rate, Elmo has learned a tough lesson about regularly syncing your devices with the cloud, and Dagwood has learned that maybe he should take pictures of things sometimes, with one of these new-fangled “cameras” everyone’s talking about.
Mary Worth, 2/5/20
Wilbur is, of course, referring to that time he decided to travel the world for his dumb column and Iris dumped him, which led to her very successful and happy relationship with hot young millionaire Zak, and also led to Wilbur getting sex-grifted in Colombia. It’s still not entirely clear to me whether Dawn ever learned about the latter episode, and now I dearly hope she didn’t so that when Wilbur describes the whole thing to Hugo in graphic and erotic detail, she’ll be hearing about it for the first time.
Family Circus, 2/5/20
Is … is Big Daddy Keane actually smiling at his son’s ignorance? “That’s right,” he’s thinking, “this is America. No son of mine will be pressing anything but 1 for English.”
Gasoline Alley, 2/4/20
Gasoline Alley is in the middle of a story where Baleen the waitress has some sort of will-they-or-won’t-they thing going on with the short order cook, whose name is, uh … OK, look, I know I read the comics so you don’t have to or whatever, but I refuse to keep track of what the ancillary characters in Gasoline Alley are named, OK? I just … I only have so much brain space and I’ve apparently decided to dedicate a lot of it to an encyclopedic history of Mary Worth storylines so you can look it up yourself, I dunno. The point is that I guess the guys in panels one and two are supposed to be inspiring jealousy in our short order cook man, and maybe they’re supposed to be handsome? Possibly? The gentleman in panel two has a certain Carter-era Donald Sutherland charm, I have to admit, but the first guy is just kind of grimace-winking and it is not erotic or appealing, in my humble opinion.
Hi and Lois, 2/4/20
Hi and Lois is of course about 60% still stuck in the Mad Men era, aesthetically, which is kind of interesting for assessing the whole look of our receptionist here whose mild flirtation has sent Hi into such a sad, sad tizzy. Like, she could be a hip young thing circa 1961, or she could be doing a rockabilly revival look from the ’90s, or she could be from right now, when I think this aesthetic is making kind of a comeback! Lois’s subtle contempt is, of course, timeless.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/4/20
Ahhh! Andrzej is a wrestler! Or, as Aunt Tildy, an aficionado of the squared circle would put it, a rassler! This love connection is gonna happen, I just know it!