Post Content

Mark Trail, 11/23/20

You know, Allen-era Mark Trail already upgraded Rusty from “ward” to “son” so I was wondering if he’d be retconned into a biological child of Mark and Cherry under the new regime, but with all this talk of dark secrets and Mark’s cloned lineage, and now new-look biker dude Doc wondering how Rusty will think about their relationship going forward … well, I’m just going to assume they’re all clones, and now they’ll just address each other respectfully as “pod-mate”.

Beetle Bailey, 11/23/20

I’m assuming that “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” is in quotes here because Rocky’s just using it as a general stand-in for “I used to have fun and/or cool,” not because he’s had sex. Nobody in Beetle Bailey has ever had sex. Please, I desperately need to hold onto that notion to stay sane. NO SEX IN BEETLE BAILEY, I FORBID IT.

Dick Tracy, 11/23/20

This pair of criminal masterminds hasn’t exactly set the world on fire with their crime skills, so I think it’d be pretty fitting if Daisy slipped and fell back onto Yeti and they both fell into the sewer and drowned. Dick never spots anything on the drone cam, the meteorite goes unmolested, everyone just kind of moves on with their lives. “Hey, we ever figure out what was up with those people who fell into comas?” Chief Patton asks. “I don’t think so, chief,” says Dick. “I guess it was just one of those things.”

Funky Winkerbean, 11/23/20

If you, like me, find Harry Dinkle intensely unlikeable, I’m happy to inform you that he spends his nights writing in agony, thinking of his past failures.

Pluggers, 11/23/20

Damn it, pluggers. Do you … do you really think you’re the only ones who like ice cream. Come on. Come on now. Give us some pluggers-specific content in the Pluggers syndicated newspaper strip or give it the fuck up

Post Content

Hi and Lois, 11/22/20

Hey, I get where Hi is coming from here! All of these strips have their gimmicks: wacky relatable Vikings, a sassy cat, children let loose in a world without any apparent adult intervention. Even Blondie and Family Circus, which are both more grounded “family” strips, feature heightened, exaggerated characters, each with their own set of recognizable tics. But Hi, and Hi’s world? Well, he’s just a regular middle-class guy living with regular people in regular American suburbia. There are no strict limits on his behavior but no simple prompts to action either — in other words, he can do pretty much anything, but has to choose on his own to do it, which is terrifying. In that sense, his dilemma is the most relatable on the comics page.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/22/20

Sorry, did that get a little Too Real? Well, here are some unlikeable Funky Winkerbean characters (BUT I REPEAT MYSELF! [rimshot]) making puns at each other. The throwaway panels at the top are actually crucial to today’s strip: without them, it looks like Harry is the only one doing irritating wordplay, but when we see the full picture we understand that we’re witnessing interlocked acts of mutual ongoing passive aggression.

Post Content

Marvin, 11/21/20

I have to say, I really assumed that Marvin would quickly lose interest in Finn and Gill, the goldfish who hate Marvin, hate each other, and hate themselves, and would fall back into its easy rhythm of jokes about how babies — get this — aren’t toilet trained and almost seem to take a certain joy in pooping themselves. But obviously the narrative appeal of two goldfish who are condemned to spend the rest of their miserable lives with one another is impossible to resist. I was going to say “short, miserable lives” but a little Googling reveals that goldfish when well cared for can live longer than a decade, and anyway Marvin’s been a baby since 1982, so who knows how much longer these guys have to suffer with one another! They’re definitely going to be suffering a lot more once the Marvin crew realizes that fish just poop in their own bowl and then swim around in their own poop until someone cleans it out, which doesn’t strike me as something that’d be a particularly high priority for Marvin’s feckless family.

Mary Worth, 11/21/20

“I know your issues with family addiction and my own drug-using past make you nervous, baby, but let me assure you: you’re my drug now, and you’re the one I’ll do anything to possess, no matter who tries to stop me” –an email from a very smart and self-aware person who definitely is not going to be disappointed