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Mary Worth, 12/19/19

Man, that smile Mary has in panel two? That’s her realizing that she’s finally making headway in this, her most difficult meddle yet. Sure, Estelle’s been unlucky in love — but can she really be cajoled into falling for Wilbur, who didn’t seem like much of a catch even before his recent downward spiral? It would take all of Mary’s powers to achieve these goals, and the sense of satisfaction success would bring would warm her black heart for weeks. “And yet, despite his obsession with his ex-girlfriend, and his obnoxious drunken behavior, you miss him, Estelle? Very interesting. Very improbable. And very gratifying.”

Marvin, 12/19/19

Meanwhile, speaking of terrible smirks, I at first assumed Marvin was being incredibly smug about how his family had failed at Christmas, again. “Eh?” he seems to be saying. “My father has ruined the holidays, and my parents will fight over it for months to come? Eh?” But I think the reference to A Charlie Brown Christmas speaks to a more specifically mercenary malevolence: the horrible baby thinks that if his family takes in a sad, neglected tree, they’ll become universally beloved, just like Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang, to which I respond: 75% of Peanuts strips aren’t about Charlie Brown shitting himself, kid.

Blondie, 12/19/19

Hey, Blondie trufans! Can you simply not get enough of such classic Blondie gags as “Dagwood carries a huge pile of boxes so you can’t see his face” and “Dagwood has a freakish, improbable hairstyle, with two bits of hair that were originally intended to be cowlicks now extending from his cranium like antennae?” Have you ever wanted both of these tried-and-true bits combined into one unbeatable punchline? Well, today’s strip is for you, my friends.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/18/19

Barney Google was absent from his namesake strip for literally decades, but he started making occasional appearances back in 2012 that have become frequent enough that his presence in the strip — and in Hootin’ Holler — have ceased to be noteworthy. Why, he’s even participating in the ordinary of rhythms of the community, by, for instance, getting the absolute shit beat out of him for no good reason, it’s just a thing people do out here, we guess.

The Lockhorns, 12/18/19

The thing I love about this panel is how comprehensively miserable Leroy looks. Like, do you think he wants this? Do you think he wants any of this? But despite Loretta’s snide remark, he knows his duty. He’s going to wrap up that box of tube socks and give them to somebody, by God. Don’t let anyone say he didn’t do what was expected of him, even though it kills him inside.

Mark Trail, 12/18/19

The “proof” Harvey is talking about is definitely yeti turds, right? Harvey’s gonna make Mark look for yeti turds? Very excited for the rest of this week!

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Crankshaft, 12/17/19

I’m not sure who exactly this Generic Gloomy Businessman is supposed to be; presumably he’s a representative of the private equity firm that bought the anemic local mall, then juiced its cash flow by loading it with debt and raked in huge “management fees” as a prelude to declaring bankruptcy and shutting the whole thing down. But shoutout to him for delivering a setup line that doesn’t really flow naturally with either the thing Crankshaft thinks he’s saying or the thing he’s actually saying. Anyway, I for one am looking forward to next year’s Christmas sequence, where Santa-Crankshaft sits grumpily on the pile of rubble where Centerville’s primary retail center used to be, watching the twinkling lights on the cars driving fifteen miles away to the Wal-Mart over on Route 179 to do their shopping.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/17/19

Meanwhile, over in Westview and ten years in the future, Les is sitting in a dark room alone, obsessively watching cartoons, muttering to himself! Is this the result of some deep, underlying emotional issues which, despite his remarkable degree of self-absorption, he’s never really tried to address head-on? Or is it because his daughter abandoned him? Probably the second one, right?