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Blondie, 7/18/18

Blondie is of course absurdly scrupulous about never using actual brand names in the strip. I’ll accept “Online To-Go” as Dagwood trying to come up with a generic phrase that describes the process of ordering food from various apps whose names he cannot be bothered to remember, but the real problem becomes apparent in panel two, as, faced with the prospect of having to come up with four names in short order, the strip verges from the dopey (“Cheesey Chuck’s”) to the uncanny valley of restaurant names (“Copogna’s,” “Gleerou’s” (?)).

Spider-Man, 7/18/18

The Newspaper Spider-Man strip is finally starting to explain one of its longest-standing mysteries, which is: what exactly are the parameters of its hero’s “spider sense” in this iteration of the spideyverse, and what good is it if it can’t, say, prevent its hero from bludgeoned with a pipe or a club, or just bonked on the head by falling masonry? Well, a few weeks ago we learned that Spider-Man has to be paying attention in order for spider-sense to work (which, if you were paying attention, why would you … need spider-sense in the first place?). Today nicely demonstrates that this is a particular problem for our hero because he is in fact extremely distractible. “OK, my spider-sense is tingling very powerfully, which means I have to pay very careful attention to my surroundings in order to avoid dang–OH MY GOD THAT DOOR IS SLIGHTLY AJAR THIS IS AMAZING”

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Gil Thorp, 7/17/18

So it’s mid-July, and Gil Thorp’s “spring” plot is still happening, but at least it seems to be getting to a semi-satisfying climax, which is this: Barry’s mom is sorry she didn’t intervene over the years, but now that her drunk husband is in jail, it’s safe for her to tell her son that, yup, he’s an asshole. Where she really breaks new ground in the world of Gil Thorp is by asserting that becoming an asshole just to get better at high school baseball isn’t actually cool or good. The whole thing is coming off as kind of an intervention with Barry, and I appreciate the tack Ace Reporter Dafne is taking. Barry, so many preppy jocks become intellectual stoner guys in college! High school libertarians are suddenly freshman-year socialists! Why, less than a month ago, Dafne herself was white! All you have to do is not act like every single interaction with another person is a contest for dominance that you’re on the verge of losing and have to pull out all the stops to win! We believe in you! You can do this!

Hagar the Horrible, 7/17/18

An underrated and extremely unsettling running gag in Hagar the Horrible is “Lucky Eddie’s life partner is a mermaid, whose daughter he sold to a zoo.” Anyway, since Hagar and Helga have actually double-dated with Eddie and his fish-woman paramour, I’m not sure why he’s pretending to be ignorant here. C’mon, Hagar, this is a post-The Shape Of Water world here, fishfucking is totally OK now!

Hi and Lois, 7/17/18

Usually it’s Thirsty’s yard that’s depicted as being littered with trash, as one of this strip’s understated class/classiness markers, so I guess you can understand why the visibly rumpled drunkard feels the need to get a little dig in about the Flagstons’ slovenliness. Still, since Hi is Thirsty’s best and, as near as we can tell, only friend, it does seem like an ill-advised move.

Marvin, 7/17/18

FINALLY, MARVIN WILL FACE PROSECUTION FOR HIS MANY CRIMES

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Dennis the Menace, 7/16/18

Wait, so this is a repeat wrong-number caller? Who admits to Dennis right off the bat that he knows he’s calling the wrong number? What exactly is going on here? Dennis’s pushback is entirely legitimate! He’s the one who’s being menaced, by some phone-creep!

Family Circus, 7/16/18

It’s really a fine line between “Ha ha, our children, being young and unlearned, do occasionally say the darndest things!” and “Oh, Christ, our children are dumb, just dumb as posts, they’re too old to be displaying this level of ignorance, this is humiliating for everyone concerned,” but the Family Circus has just blown right past it today!

Slylock Fox, 7/16/18

Plus she’s … right there? Right there at the bottom left of the panel, in plain sight? That’s Bertha Bear, right? I’m not going crazy here?

Funky Winkerbean, 7/16/18

I mean, guys, you’re, uh, you’re all sitting with each other