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Dustin, 1/8/19

It may not have been obvious from the Dustins I’ve showcased here but the gimmick of Dustin is that Dustin is a 23-year-old college graduate who has moved back in with his parents and is having Failure To Launch problems. As a Gen-Xer, I am a neutral party in the raging war between Baby Boomers and Millennials, and I hereby declare that Dustin is really shitty in its treatment of young people! Like surely there is humor to be mined from this conflict of worldviews but instead we get things like today, “Ha ha, youths can’t hold down a job because they just spontaneously fall asleep all the time! Meanwhile, the ADULTS who MADE THIS COUNTRY WHAT IT IS TODAY are going to enjoy some LEGITIMATE HIGHBROW CULTURE.”

Gil Thorp, 1/8/19

I appreciate it when bit players in the comics really give it their all in the one or two panels they appear. It’s subtle, but I’m particularly enjoying the “ain’t I a stinker?” realness being served up by the employee of [squints] S-Kybomi Outdoor Media Solutions here. This may be the Best Performance By A Working-Class Guest Character In A Continuity Comic since 2014’s iconic “Man In Hat Who Doesn’t Care About Doc Ock’s Runaway Tentacles Enjoys Sandwich.”

Six Chix, 1/8/19

As we all know, you can take an expensive vacation to Paris, go to the Louvre, get lost in the Louvre, get annoyed by the Louvre, realize that you could do a comic about your experience at the Louvre, get paid to do that comic, and then write the entire cost of your trip off on your taxes. But can you write the cost of a trip to Paris off on your taxes if you just make fun a comic doing that? We’ll see what my accountant says! Fingers crossed!

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Gil Thorp, 1/7/18

So obviously we all knew that this billboards thing would end up as an attack on Coach Thorp, but I don’t think we were prepared for how hilariously nonspecific the accusations would end up being. “Wait!” cried Robby, of the titular report dot com. “I just meant ‘save the kids from his half-assed coaching!’” But it was too late: just hours after the #pizzagate and #qanon crowds saw the billboard posted on Reddit, the doxxing swiftly followed, and the angry mob had burned down the Thorps’ house, Kelly’s travel agency, and, just be safe, Milford High itself.

Mary Worth, 1/7/18

“I’m just going to wear these black armbands to symbolize my mourning for the trust in our marriage that’s now dead! He’ll get the hint!”

Shoe, 1/7/18

“And it seemed weird at first, but, like, we’re birds who wear clothes, you know? I mean, I’m wearing clothes. You’re wearing a shirt and shoes but no pants for whatever reason. Who can really explain the world-building here, right? Anyway, this dog is my sister, I guess.”

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Mark Trail, 1/6/19

Mark is kind of oblique in panel one about the change in public sentiment on big game trophy hunting, but what he’s really hinting at is that Mark himself was at the forefront of opposition to canned hunts long before it was fashionable! True Trailheads remember the delightful story from 2010 (summarized here) where Mark’s neighbor set up a fenced private hunting preserve as part of a plan to get elected governor (really), and the man’s own stepdaughter’s pet deer (YES REALLY), named Lucky (I KNOW), almost became a victim! But were there #SaveLucky campaigns? Was there an online petition site at https://www.thepetitionsite.com/383/290/338/save-lucky-the-normal-colored-deer/? There was not. There wasn’t even an internet back then, as far as Mark knew, because he still writes his stories on a manual typerwriter and only had a flip phone until 2016, so Mark just had to punch the dude in the face instead.

Judge Parker, 1/6/19

Remember when Sophie was obsessed with collecting data and learning about the nuances of modern third-world conflicts. Well, now she’s getting her news from Yahoo! Yahoo! This is just sad.

Dick Tracy, 1/6/19

There’s a guest writer filling in for a two-week “Minit Mystery” in Dick Tracy, and given the overall current vibe of the strip, it’s pretty bold to hinge the whole plot on nostalgia being literally toxic.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/6/19

PANEL AFTER PANEL OF RED-HOT GOING-TO-THE-AIRPORT-BUT-NOT-ACTUALLY-GETTING-ON-A-PLANE ACTION!!!!!