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Gil Thorp, 7/2/19

Now let’s just hold on a darn minute here! I may not have the photographic recall of soap opera plots that I used to, due to me being old and/or having like 15 years of them to remember at this point, but I am reasonably sure that this Gil Thorp strip gets multiple facts wrong about the backstory of these characters?

1. Jaquan made what I thought was his first appearance in the strip a couple of years ago, accompanied by Trey Davis, who was a heavily recruited Mudlark college basketball prospect back in 2006. By 2017, he was an “an absurdly high-priced personal coach and trainer” and Jaquan was his client, not a Milford alum, and just tagging along?
2. Meanwhile, Hadley V. Baxendale definitely hasn’t reappeared in the strip since 2005, which I know because she was one of my favs and I would’ve remembered her return! I got extremely excited about her ex Steve Luhm’s 2009-2010 reappearance, but alas, no Hadley.
3. The one who helped Jaquan “defect” from the NBA, in the sense that she put the terrible idea of going to grad school in his head, was Heather Burns, who you might remember as the girl who quit the soccer team to very briefly become a third-string tight end and play an extremely few downs back in 2016.

So what’s all this “reconnect” business? I’m genuinely wondering if whoever’s in charge of continuity over at Gil Thorp HQ was like “enh, didn’t Jaquan have a thing with, what’s her face, the feminist,” and then we got this? Because it would make me very sad if I suddenly became more up on Gil Thorp continuity than the actual creators of Gil Thorp. I mean, it doesn’t even look like Gil is paying very much attention to this backstory, to be honest. He’s just slurping down a giant glass of Long Island iced tea and trying to not let his eyes glaze over too much. “All great schools, congratulations!” he blurts out, once he’s been given a list of proper nouns he can recognize.

Mary Worth, 7/2/19

Meanwhile, we’ve had exactly one (1) strip not about Wilbur before coming back to the subject of Wilbur. Don’t forget, in addition to the hacky advice column that he sends Dawn to fob off onto Mary whenever he’s busy, Wilbur also writes “Survivor Stories,” in which he demands that poor people in developing countries perform their trauma for an American audience. You might think it’d be kind of strange for Wilbur to jet off overseas so early in his relationship with Estelle, but I guess even Wilbur realizes that a little bit of Wilbur goes a long way.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/2/19

Speaking of forcing poor people to perform their trauma, Snuffy Smith has “ha ha, all these characters live in one of America’s most deprived and forgotten communities” lurking in the background of literally every strip, but it’s rare that this bubbles up to the surface level of a punchline like “ha ha, the Smif house consists of a single room, with living and sleeping spaces only divided by a worn, patched curtain.”

Dustin, 7/2/19

I was about to make some smug joke about “what sort of fascist police state does Dustin live in where chalking a sidewalk is considered a crime” but then I did a little research and it turns out it’s, uh, America? (Although the cops are apparently much more likely to enforce rules against sidewalk chalking when you use sidewalk chalk to protest police brutality, who could’ve guessed!) Anyhoo, I’m pretty torn here, because I’m strongly against pointless overpolicing of public spaces but also I’d definitely like to see Dustin go to jail.

Dennis the Menace, 7/2/19

Dennis, that’s a … dog? That’s clearly a dog. There’s absolutely no circumstances where anyone would mistake that dog for a cat or for [extremely heavy sigh] a Pokemon. This isn’t so much “menacing” as “profoundly concerning.”

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Folks: There comes a time in every book’s time in this world when it hits the discount phase of its life cycle. For The Enthusiast, the novel I Kickstarted and published a few years ago, that time is now.

If you somehow haven’t already purchased this delightful tome, you can now get both hardcover and paperback versions at half price ($12.50 and $7.50, respectively)! This deal is exclusive to my storefront on Topatoco — in fact, this storefront is the ONLY place you can get the hardcover version.

The novel is about soap opera comic strips, subways, online communities, stealth marketing, capitalism, and joy. I really enjoyed writing this book and am proud of how it came out and would love to get it into more hands. Check it out! And if you’ve already read and enjoyed the book, feel free to chime in in the comments about how much you liked it!

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Hi and Lois, 7/1/19

Oh, man, take that, corporate fast food chains. Real America, as represented by the Flagstons, our most iconic artistic depiction of the suburban middle class, is sick of your bullshit. Burger King? More like Burger PEASANT. McDonald’s? More like McGARBAGE. Don’t even get them started on “fast casual quick service restaurants” or whatever people are expected call Chipotle and the various “Chipotle but for non-burrito foods” places. From now on, the only good kind of fast food is hot dogs sold at shockingly low prices served out of wooden carts that are grandfathered out of health department oversight. They will not come with any packaging, or any napkins.

Mary Worth, 7/1/19

FINALLY, our long national Estelle-Arther-Wilbur nightmare is over and we’re moving on to a … Dawn plot? Um. I’m not quite sure this is what we’ve been begging for, but since she makes it clear she’s not taking classes this summer, that means she’s got lots of free time that could in theory lead to wacky hijinks. Today we get a glimpse into how Dawn has matured over the years: despite the high-end education she’s getting at UC Santa Royale, which includes very personalized attention from the faculty, she’s polite enough to just smell Mary’s roses and not condescendingly explain what a metaphor is.

Slylock Fox, 7/1/19

Slylock is doing some basic math to prove that Wanda’s average speed since leaving the diner is higher than the posted speed at one specific point along her route, which, if you think about it, doesn’t add up to anything that would hold water in court, at all, but I think it’s even more important to point out that Wanda is an actual witch with the power of flight and maybe the car just flew most of the way there, you know? Speed limits only apply to the ground! What are you, in charge of sky law now, Slylock? You’re not, you hear me? You’re not in charge of sky law!