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Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/18/19

It’s kind of funny how America’s stereotypes of “Brooklyn” (which at one point had official signs at the entrance to the borough that said “FUHGEDDABOUTIT” on them) and New Jersey kind of blend together. This speaks, it seems to me, both to the ongoing story of immigrant life in America, in which communities plant in the city and then slowly move to the suburbs over a few generations as longtime residence brings acculturation and wealth, and just to most people in “Real America”‘s inability to distinguish between the diverse parts of the greater New York Area. Anyway, this has just been a set of musings trigged by today’s Mother Goose and Grimm, a nationally syndicated newspaper comic in which a fly and a rat go head to head for the right to feast on a pigeon’s corpse.

Marvin, 4/18/19

The best part of this strip, to me, is when Marvin locks eyes with us and smiles slyly in the final panel, implicating us all in this gross, petty little exchange. “See, it’s not just me,” he’s saying, “my whole family is real dicks all the way down. Yours too, probably!”

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Pardon My Planet, 4/17/19

Welp, I’ve got three more months of analysis under my belt and I still do not know what the deal is with Pardon My Planet. Are these two a stable couple of characters we’re supposed to know and love? Or does everyone in the strip just kind of look like this? Definitely could not tell you! I do enjoy the image of a Gen-X dude with a soul patch coming home after a long day at the office, settling back in his favorite chair, and then his beloved wife, dressed in a traditional tube top, brings him a soothing martini and engages him in discourse about the etymology of common phrases. I don’t necessarily want to live in this world, but I’m definitely warmed by the idea that it might exist.

Hi and Lois, 4/17/19

Man, it sure seems like Trixie’s been abandoned even more than usual today, doesn’t it? “I’ll just let the weather guy on Channel 7 babysit her until Chip gets home from school,” says Lois, as she hastily packs a bag and prepares to leave forever. “He seems trustworthy.”

Mary Worth, 4/17/19

ARTHUR IS COMING, EVERYBODY

BRACE YOURSELVES

BRACE YOURSELVES FOR THE MOST DELICIOUS DISAPPOINTMENT YOU’VE EVER SEEN

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Shoe, 4/16/19

Me being me, there’s an awful lot I could complain about here: this strip is clearly set at Roz’s counter, whereas Shoe’s failed romantic advances should by rights happen at Treetops’ fern bar, plus I’m not really sure “tank” works as a synonym for “pool,” particularly one that has variable depth. But I’m totally on board for the “bigger picture” here, which is that journalism in the bird-world of Shoe, as in ours, is in economic freefall, and Shoe has decided to jump ship to take on an advocacy role at some billionaire-funded advocacy organization, using his writing skills to promote [thinks for 30 seconds about what a bird think tank might put out position papers on but then deciding it isn’t really worth it] like, lower taxes on gizzard stones or whatever.

Mary Worth, 4/6/19

“We barely even talk to each other! It’s great!”