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Curtis, 3/1/24

The weird thing about arrested-in-time strips like Curtis is that we, who have been reading this strip for decades, have internalized the rhythms of the family dynamics and recognize today’s episode as one of an infinite number of subtle variations of the “Curtis asks his dad for money” gag. But Curtis, in theory, is only 11 for a year or so, and in a strange way he’s experienced much less of his own life than we have, and so can’t predict what’ll happen next. Look at his smile in panel two! “Throw his money out a window?” he’s thinking. “What a charmingly odd idea! Not sure where he’s going with this but I’m sure I’ll have some cash in my pocket by the end of it.” Anyway, Curtis, have you considered getting a Spotify subscription? They have Six-ribs’ whole catalog, along with a huge number of other hip-hop artists, and 60 bucks could get you six months!

Marvin, 3/1/24

It took me a minute to figure out, but I think the joke here is supposed to be “The dog, who should not be eating people food, will end up eating the meatloaf, because someone will be surreptitiously feeding it to him, ha ha!” But this is a strip where dogs and babies have adult human-level cognition, so don’t they shouldn’t act like we’re supposed to be surprised or amused that they might eat adult human food. Anyway, my initial read on this was that the joke was about the dog not wanting to fill the house with horrible odors vented from his bowels, which would at least be kind of a twist for this strip.

Mary Worth, 3/1/24

Toby is truly one of my favorite ancillary Mary Worth character. Unlike Wilbur, she’s used sparingly enough so that it’s a true delight when she occasionally shows up and says things like “I want to take up cooking, which my husband would love, but my neighbor up the hall, who rarely cooks for us, is so much better than me at it, so why bother?” This would be hilarious even if the thing the lady up the hall had just dished out wasn’t the most disgusting brown glop you could possibly imagine. Anyway, Mary is being either incredibly kind or incredibly sarcastic when she calls Toby “a talented artist and a great friend,” because she definitely isn’t the former and I’d be willing to bet quite a bit that she’s isn’t the latter either.

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Mary Worth, 2/29/24

Yes, blah blah blah, Toby and Mary are still going on and on about Keith’s virtues (as a singer and a [squints] farrier?) and unorthodox but still Mary Worth Approved™ family situations, but what I really needed to let you know about is that Mary is dishing up her latest and greatest disgusting slop recipe to Toby, her least discriminating neighbor. Mmm mmm, it’s brownish-grey, it’s viscous, it’s steaming hot, and it’s full of … pebbles? peanut M&Ms? Whatever, Toby’s had so many nose jobs her senses of smell and taste are pretty much kaput, and Mary doesn’t want to just throw this concoction out, because it might get loose and start crawling around and smothering people.

Dennis the Menace, 2/29/24

I’ve given it some thought, and I’ve decided that “No punishment can hurt me, no prison can truly cage me … as long as I can construct my mind palace with the power of pure memory and imagination” isn’t so much “menacing” as “kind of ominous.” I think that’s an important distinction!

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Judge Parker, 2/28/24

Judge Parker Senior’s wayward daughter Ann, having escaped her captor when he decided that Judge Parker Senior was too scary, has apparently decided to try to escape the loving embrace of her family as well. Specifically, she appears to be fleeing into the hedge maze that the Parkers maintain on their grounds, and I for one think it would be very funny if Randy attempts a flying tackle only to miss and end up waist-deep in the shrubbery.

Dustin, 2/28/24

Ring is manufactured by Amazon, and with the close collaboration between the company and law enforcement, I’m afraid that Dustin’s dad use of “police” as a verb here is anything but metaphorical. As a defense attorney, the man is probably already on the local cops’ shit list, and while I don’t usually root for the carceral state, after years of reading this strip I can’t say the thought of him getting violently tased for trying to sneak a midnight snack doesn’t warm my heart a little bit.