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Curtis, 11/17/18

Curtis is a strip I have a great affection for, despite its corniness, and unlike certain strips I could mention its weird gags about social media feel at least a little based on some actual experience with it. Like, is snake ownership actually the new rage on social media? No, obviously not. But could you sort of see some interconnected subset of the people Curtis follows getting really into snakes, for some reason? Sure! Seems eminently believable to me. I bet Snake Twitter is extremely lit.

Hagar the Horrible, 11/17/18

Hey, remember in Mark Trail when there was a little girl who was bed-ridden with depression because her parents got divorced, and Mark cured her by giving her a puppy? Normally “hey why treat debilitating mental illness when you could just get a pet or go for a walk instead” bullshit makes me furious, but Hagar and Lucky Eddie are a solid millenium away from reliable talk therapy or psychopharmaceuticals, so I guess they might as well give this cute dog a shot.

The Lockhorns, 11/17/18

It’s incredibly sad that the Lockhorns have come to a truce that involves each of them giving up something they enjoy. The only thing they can agree on is their own mutual immiseration.

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The holiday season is almost upon us, with all its joys and chaos, so let’s enjoy the soothing comment of the week, shall we?

“It seemed like a good idea: give Marvin something to distract him while he sat on potty so he wouldn’t wander off and pee on the walls or floor. But $10,000 and one home theater system later, Jeff sat on the couch listening to the sounds of Spongebob Squarepants echoing from the bathroom and wondered if it would be better to cut his losses, wall up the bathroom, and start over.” –Dread

The runners up are also quite festive!

“Private Zero quietly ducks away before he can malign his motherland through association.” –David Willis, on Twitter

“At least the kids’ videogame, Fascist Zombies of Beast Island 2, takes a more nuanced and realistic approach to the violence of warfare.” –BigTed

“Normally Snuffy is pretty lazy, but on November 11 he gets up, puts on a uniform, and pretends to be a veteran in a march so that he can scam cash and meals out of parade watchers. It’s his most exhausting grift of the year!” –pugfuggly

“‘It’s because we’re interesting.’ [uproarious studio audience laughter]” –Noel

“Why’s Slylock assuming an old woman wouldn’t wear a leather biker jacket? Perhaps the real villain of today’s strip … is bigotry.” –Schroduck

“I’m just going to assume that Luke Cage has been employed in HR and is here with a little plastic cup for Mr. Jameson’s random drug screening. Workplace drug violations are a serious crime.” –Escape Zeppelin

“Hey, this isn’t such a bad birthday for Loretta. She gets to use the one chair at the dining room table. No silverware, though. I mean, they’re not royalty.” –Joe Blevins

“Marvin likes to borrow ideas, so let’s hope this is one of those ‘get adopted or be euthanized’ plots.” –Banana Jr. 6000

“Hey Dagwood, you wanna keep your eyes on the road? I know you live a bizarre charmed existence where nothing bad can ever happen to you, but if you wrap this car around a tree, the rest of us are going to die. What are you– NO, DAGWOOD! Stop thinking about delicious funeral catering!” –jroggs

“Why is the spotter sweating? Does Kaz routinely fail his bench presses? Are those 45-pound plates entirely for show? Sadly, we all know the answers.” –Uncle Lumpy

“Not saying that this current arc of Mark Trail has gone on a long time, but Rusty has lost his dentures.” –Marked Trail

“I’m going to go down to the community college’s ‘Cultural Cafe’ this very afternoon … Who knows? Maybe I’ve got kin! Perhaps children I’ve adopted and forgotten about. If I adopted them from the U.S., I’ll probably find them at McDonald’s, but anywhere else, the Cultural Cafe is surely the place to bump into them.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

“Rhino plugger is really trying to resist his cannibalistic urge to devour cow, pig, and other kind of pluggers. The fact that he is asking for medical help instead of just praying it away makes this a better help to addicts than Mary Worth.” –Ettore

“Image: Rhino plugger charging his horn into Dr. Dog’s stomach. Caption: ‘A plugger doesn’t let a college boy tell him what to do.’” –Jenna

“Why is Blondie, who’s been the same age since the Hoover administration, so scandalized by the idea of a big bowl of meat and starch on Thanksgiving? ‘Dagwood! We adhere to holistic veganism. Our Thanksgiving will consist of pouring V8 into a vaporizer and inhaling the steam or it won’t happen at all.’” –Irrischano

“So, this story arc began with an angry old recluse unwilling to make friends with his neighbors and whose sole companion was a dog with social anxiety … and it ENDS with an angry old recluse, whose sole companion is a dog with social anxiety. The only difference is now that he’s had a chance to interact with some of his neighbors and get to know them a little better, his contempt for them is completely justified.” –Tonya

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Blondie, 11/16/18

It’s a tough competition, but to my mind the legacy comic strip most aggressively out of touch with how young people talk, think, and act is Blondie. The creators of Snuffy Smith or Crock may know less about computers and social media and such, but at least they don’t build entire strips around their own perception of how those things work, revealing a mindset of mingled bafflement and contempt. Have you ever shouted the name of a popular viral video, which is of course the word “hashtag” followed by two largely nonsense words, to your fellow kid on the other end of a couch so that she can also consume and enjoy that content? Of course you have, this is an extremely relatable scenario.

Mary Worth, 11/16/18

Do you think that Toby knows that Mary is always narrating her exploits in such detail because she’s grooming her to take over as Charterstone’s meddler-in-chief once Mary passes on? As the incident Mary is describing indicates, she’s anything but subtle, but you have to take into account the fact that Toby is very dumb, so she might want to just come out and say it.

Pluggers, 11/16/18

I’m really bummed about the cowardly “bacon patch” joke that’s been grafted onto this panel at the last minute, because I thought that, in “Rhino-Man volunteers to be a subject for dangerous experimental drug trials,” we finally had a Pluggers bleak enough to serve as a sequel to “Rhino-Man hocks his TV.”