Checked out the Funny Pages today and it looks like the Bumsteads are celebrating that it was possible to buy toilet paper while Hi & Lois look like they have given up and accepted that catastrophic climate change is going to kill us all

Days ago, Blondie and Dagwood were celebrating finding toilet paper in a store.

Today, they are eating at a buffet.

They are going to catch the coronavirus.

BLONDIE: no masks, Mr Dithers is high risk
BEETLE BAILEY: bar open, Gen. Halftrack is high risk
SHOE: economy is bad
HI & LOIS: evergreen (why would Hi think this is a good spot?)
FUNKY WINKERBEAN: climate change is real but 0 masks
SALLY FORTH: working from home is for the birds

On today's Funnies Page, only Sally Forth seems to exist in 2020 COVID-19 America. (I guarantee the local paper is getting complaints.)

At least Classic Peanuts has the excuse of being from 1973

Hi & Lois' TP problem stems from carelessness, not a pandemic-related shortage.

Beetle Bailey: the U.S. Army has apparently been working from home under COVID-19 and is now re-opening
Sally Forth: still fully engaged in 2020 reality. I have no doubt that lots of old people are writing angry letters as if this is 1970s Doonesbury
Marmaduke: full of spreaders

Once again, Sally Forth is the only strip on the local Jefferson City comics page that consistently exists in our 2020 pandemic reality. Granted, it will take a while to catch up to the infographic on the cover of today's @nytimes which shows how truly fucked America is.

Garfield is as aggressively frozen in pre-COVID time as Classic Peanuts from 40+ years ago.

Blondie is taking on the banning of plastic straws, a hot button 2020 issue.

I think Hi & Lois might have just crossed over with Funky Winkerbean & Family Circus, endangering them all.

1) I just noticed that the local paper here labels the comics/crossword/tv listings under the heading "DIVERSIONS"
2) Garfield is typically evergreen but it is the closest I have seen to them addressing 2020 reality
3) characters who have to listen to these punchlines & react

1) no idea how far in advance Hi & Lois is submitted but the Flagstons have never been more unlikable
2) Funky Winkerbean is a baffling strip to drop in on
3) Sally Forth remains aggressively set in COVIDtimes
4) Marmaduke is more of a responsible citizen than the current potus

This is the first time I have noticed SHOE referencing COVID-19 2020 reality. (I admittedly have not been checking every day but most of the times Shoe has been pretty evergreen, jokes that could've been made 20 years ago, etc)

Once again, Sally Forth remains the only strip firmly rooted in our present day reality (although things are possibly just as dire in the Funky Winkerbean universe, which I still cannot get a handle on)

Top half of today's comics page is mostly evergreen and non-topical, although Garfield is 21st Century-specific while still not acknowledging COVID-19 reality.

(I don't know if Garfield has yet, and I am WAITING for it.)

Hi & Lois has cheerfully opened up the schools with NO social distancing, seemingly existing in 2019 while Sally Forth is once again set in our 2020 reality.

Marmaduke, on the other hand, has previously shown masks being worn so this is either a flashback or highly irresponsible

Meanwhile, yet another pro-Trump panel by the local Jeff City paper's editorial cartoonist; I haven't posted any of these b4 but they are as blindly positive about how GREAT things are going in 2020 as they were despairing about how 'bad' things were when Obama was president

UGH

Garfield: still evergreen
Classic Peanuts: 47 years ago
Blondie: the kids are trying to get out of school, which could either be timeless mischief or legitimate 2020 concern about safety
Beetle Bailey: once again acknowledging 2020 COVID reality
Shoe: always dull

Once again, the other strips are making Sally Forth look like Doonesbury most days. I wonder how long some of these strips will be able to remain frozen in pre-COVID reality

9/26/2020: here's what's happening

Garfield: Jon loves his new microwave
Classic Peanuts: turn off the moon
Blondie: leaves fall on hammock
Beetle Bailey: too sunny out!
Shoe: using @realdonaldtrump's "stop testing" covid approach for weight loss.

Hi & Lois: at-risk Mr. Wavering is binge-watching shows. He & Hi stay more than 6 ft apart
Funky Winkerbean: ICE is tracking a woman
Sally Forth: an unpredictable fall! Remember those hammock leaves that fell on Dagwood?
Marmaduke: New Mutants?
Family Circus: Billy is a Dr now

Garfield: nihilism
Classic Peanuts: Peppermint Patty has been sleeping at Snoopy's (not at Chuck's)
Blondie: no masks, no social distancing
Beetle Bailey: no masks, cafeteria dining still open
Shoe: acknowledges the virus casually in service of a typically stale joke

The stench of death haunts Hi & Lois but otherwise the bottom half of the comics page today contains no direct acknowledgement of the coronavirus. I wonder if the comics pages in late 1942 were as free of wartime references?

Garfield: who cares
Classic Peanuts: always great
Blondie: Dagwood getting ready to go back into his mask-free office
Beetle Bailey: I bet Private Plato's story idea is COVID-related
Shoe: fully leaning in to 2019 COVID reality now

Hi & Lois: maybe Hi is working from home now?
Funky Winkerbean: immigration issues
Sally Forth: always COVID-aware
Marmaduke: maskless Phil Winslow pulled too close to a maskless family having an outdoor picnic
Family Circus: Jeffy can't finish his soup -- loss of taste?

Today, Blondie once again acknowledges the COVID reality of 2020, but irresponsibly suggests that quarantine is over now and shows a bunch of ppl who may be infecting one another by sitting in a barber shop with no masks too close together.

Once again, most of today's strips on the comics page today live in an alternate reality (with the exception of Sally Forth). COVID-19 does not exist in them, and if it does, it goes away once they have delivered a gag or two.

Blondie is even worse when it acknowledges COVID-19 2020 reality than when it ignores it. Here, Dagwood is bummed that his work Halloween party is being held over Zoom; the implication is that his boss is doing it to avoid buying free candy for his employees.

This is the first Family Circus I have seen that acknowledges COVID-19. No going back now.

Election Day Comics Page

Garfield: as always, pointless
Classic Peanuts: 1970s TV technology is dated but otherwise this feels current
Blondie: Dagwood doesn't discuss politics, thinks surveys are meaningless. Dagwood sucks.
Beetle Bailey: who cares

Shoe: boilerplate, cynical. I find Shoe exhausting. Generic gags fueled by a general joylessness that makes me feel bad
Hi & Lois: baby Trixie wants u to vote
Funky Winkerbean: ppl are voting and this is the first FW strip all year where I basically understand what's going on

Sally Forth: weirdly, the one strip that has been consistently topical on this page all year does a Thanksgiving strip on Election Day
Marmaduke: hates pepper. Is code for something?
Family Circus: Billy's school is open during the pandemic & Ida Know who will win the election

It is worth pointing out that while the legacy/zombie strips in syndication mostly ignore the circumstances we live in in 2020, Cathy Guisewite has transformed "Cathy" into an indie single panel strip on her Instagram that is fully set in the here & now and I am beyond impressed.

I realize that all these syndicated strips are working far in advance of publication but that only makes it weirder that so many of them have acknowledged the reality of the pandemic only to drop it completely now that it is tearing through the entire country.

Since Blondie is one of the strips that has already acknowledged the reality of COVID-19, having them go to a restaurant with indoor dining in today's strip is a shitty thing to do.

Also, if you can make sense of what point the local editorial cartoonist in my parent's newspaper is trying to make here, it absolutely broke my brain. His political opinions are pure garbage but beyond that, this cartoon's use of Charlie Brown is baffling to me.

Blondie has acknowledged the pandemic but Dagwood is still carpooling and "a big crowd" is still spoken of as a legit option.

Sally Forth has been on the responsible side of things overall but they are still taking the risk of a socially distanced family get-together.

Blondie: maskless indoor dining
Beetle Bailey: they stopped wearing masks indoors
Hi & Lois: mask-free indoor book group
Marmaduke: digging a mass grave