Post Content

Mary Worth, 2/8/18

Mary Worth is, of course, the most emotionally self-actualized character in the comic strip that bears her name. How could it be any other way? All of that is on full display on today’s strip. Mary neither seeks nor fears fame. She’s ready for the attention that her muffins’ greatness might draw to her; but, on the other hand, she knows that the vulgar mob is fickle, and if they turn away from her, it’s their fault, not hers, and definitely not the muffins’. She remains open to and sanguine about all possibilities, with an equanimity that Marcus Aurelius and the Stoic philosophers of old would admire.

Spider-Man, 2/8/18

WAIT WAIT WHY DIDN’T IT WORK … THE FIRST TIME???? Is spider-sense one of those things you have to train, like the way Siri learns to understand your voice better over time? “Huh, he’s about to get whacked by a giant lizard tail. Is that good or bad? Not sure, let’s wait and see! [later] OK, definitely bad, we won’t let that happen again, ha ha!”

Crankshaft, 2/8/18

Oh, whoops, Crankshaft isn’t faking his drug-seeking behavior at all: he’s hoarding pain pills to sell at big markup to his creaky-kneed friends. Are you ready for Breaking Bad, except with more terrible wordplay?

Post Content

Shoe, 2/7/18

Hey, so, uh, it’s a real tasty mashup of shapeless joke building in today’s Shoe, isn’t it? There’s two potential ways this joke could actually make sense: Uncle Lou could’ve quit the accounting firm to go work for the Food Network, and now he does the books for the cooks, or he could’ve quit the police force to become a producer for the Food Network, and now he books the cooks. Only the second one works with Shoe’s Goggle Eyes of Horror™. It’s like they started with the “accounting … books” thing and then made their way to a slightly different punchline and then, like, forgot they could go back and change the beginning before they submitted it. It’s so aggressively half-assed that I almost have to respect it.

Gil Thorp, 2/7/18

Sure, Paloma’s angry about the state of her home island, but now she’s getting some insight into mainland politics. Turns out it’s a thin veneer of democratic process that can’t cover up a broken, unresponsive system anymore!

Crankshaft, 2/7/18

America’s response to its out-of-control opioid crisis is growing increasingly punitive — like, did you know that in many states you have to keep prescription meds in the bottle with the original label at all times, making it technically illegal to use those pill organizers? What I’m saying is, Crankshaft will never face punishment for any of his actual crimes, so if his house ends up getting raided by the local SWAT team after his doctor reports his transparent drug-seeking behavior, I’m totally OK with it.

Post Content

Shoe, 2/6/18

There are plenty of people of all ages who love all the bands the Perfesser just rattled off here, thanks to the Baby Boomers’ stranglehold on the canon of pop culture — I certainly listened to all of them as a kid. If the Perfesser really identifies with them, though, I guess he’s supposed to be a Boomer, and if his date has never even heard of them, maybe she’s … a literal teen? It’s so hard to tell, because she looks just as beaten down and depressed as every other bird-person in this strip.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/6/18

Ahh, June is doing some snooping around Johnny’s grandparents’ background, and finally we’re going to get some dirt on these suspicious char– oh, a kindergarten teacher? Huh. Well, surely the grandf– ah. Model kits. RC cars and such. Hmm. Maybe the real drama is how much less interesting this can get.