The paper is so full of old strips running as “classics” now that I don’t even know which ones are currently running and which ones are retired. “For Better or For Worse” had a kid dancing with a CD player today, and I learned that strip hasn’t even been running new ones since 2008! Just reruns. Blondie, conversely, a comic strip that should have died in the ’30s, still runs strong with no signs of stopping, mostly because the family that runs Blondie keeps on breeding their own endless army of Blondie-writers.

In short, I’m not going to worry too much about if a Sunday strip is actually a brand new strip or an ’80s rerun. I don’t care. If it’s in the paper and it’s dated for today, it’s eligible. Even if they talk about the Nixon tapes or the bombing of Nagasaki, that’s someone else’s problem, not mine!

Dilbert

As we all should be aware of by now, Scott Adams a cranky right-wing nutjob piece of shit who thinks his show was cancelled because he was white and who thinks Republicans were/are going to be hunted during Biden’s presidency. This context paints the whole Dilbert strip with a different brush, namely the “aging privileged Boomer who thinks the whole world is constantly out to get him” brush.

Thus, how can you read the above strip and not picture the scenario from which the inspiration was drawn? Scott Adams arguing with a 22-year-old Starbucks employee, probably, using phrases like “I have demolished your argument with my superior logic” while she tries to tell him to stop giving her payment in Chuck E. Cheese tokens. Scott Adams arguing with his liberal nephew during Thanksgiving dinner, using phrases like “it has nothing to do with what we’re discussing” when his nephew tries to present the wealth of evidence available out there that Trump’s pants were full of poop for the majority of his four years in office.

The corporate stuff is all true, though. Speaking from personal experience as an engineer who currently works for a corporation, it really fucking sucks shit. Scott Adams is right about that. This is why I’d rather write about comics.

Heathcliff

WHOOPS! How did Heathcliff, our Lord and Savior, accidentally end up on the pages of Sucky Funnies Sunday?? Heathcliff is not a benevolent entity, and I should not expect forgiveness from him quite so readily. I have truly sinned, and my penance shall be long, grueling, and assuredly demoralizing. Heathcliff expects no less from his disciples.

Heathcliff strips always embrace the avant-garde. If you read a Heathcliff strip expecting a punchline, you miss the point entirely. Heathcliff provides a rich world-building experience with consistent, insular logic. One does not read a Heathcliff strip to be entertained. One reads a Heathcliff strip for enlightenment. Heathcliff strips transcend earthly characteristics; mapping endless paths to the realms of the Freudian instinctual parts of the human mind in order to challenge social and behavioral conventions.

For instance, “never give a cat hot sauce” implies that Heathcliff is not the only cat in this universe who will terrorize the neighborhood dogs with charring blasts of fire-breath. In fact, the implication is that all cats have this ability! Dogs and birds are subservient beasts to cats in Heathcliff’s world, and Heathcliff’s elderly owner (or should I say, “elderly pet”) has no control of the situation if a cat happens to obtain a bottle of the precious weapon.

Really makes you think, right?

Yes.

Ziggy

Ziggy sucks. The comic strip and the idea of Ziggy sucks. Ziggy was created by some dipshit who used to work as an executive for a major greeting cards company, and than that dipshit’s son took over and has been continuing the strip longer than I’ve been alive.

Here we see a narrative that was lifted straight from a Hallmark card from 1965. Sappy positivity is all over the Sunday Funnies. A lovable loser like Ziggy is very relatable to all the unlovable losers out there, and they look to Ziggy to feel like they’re in good company.

I like to imagine that there are many versions of the last panel is on the cutting room floor. Ziggy gets mauled by a polar bear. A shark leaps out of the water and eats his face. A maniac grabs the saw and decapitates his ugly, bald head. There are so many better endings here. What a waste.