Saturday, July 26, 2025

Those darn comic strips in WaPo

Free for All
Washington Post July 26 2025: A15.
online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/25/nvidia-gergen-texas-flood-misogyny-reagan/


(Steve Kelley, Jeff Parker/King Features Syndicate)

Buzz off

"Dustin" portrays women as shallow, mean and rude. The strip's female characters consistently shame male characters about their weight, intellect, appeal (to women), lack of initiative, struggle with willpower and so on.

The strip also relies on the trope of men approaching women in bars and getting shot down. I find this outdated, stale and devoid of creativity. Do the writers hold a resentment toward women?

Rhona Bosin, Silver Spring




(Dan Schkade/King Features Syndicate)

A comic walks into a bar

Amid all the chaos and violence in the world today, do The Post's comics really need to regularly feature imprisonment and torture? The new "Flash Gordon" strip is written and formatted for a graphic novel, not a newspaper whose readers include children. This kind of material doesn't belong in the Comics section.

Eric Wenocur, Olney




(Chris Browne/King Features Syndicate)

A blight in shining armor

The July 15 "Hagar the Horrible" comic lived up to that titular sobriquet. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a medical condition that can be debilitating to those living with it, not a casual term for somebody who likes things to be clean. The Post's decision to print that strip belittles those who struggle with OCD.

Thomas V. Berry, Orlando




(Mark Tatulli/Andrews McMeel Syndication)

Ay güey, mucho mejor

Regarding the Corrections in the July 19 paper, I must say I rather enjoyed the comic "Lio" being published in Spanish for four days. It made me take the time to look up the translation, and I actually laughed more after translating than if I had read it in English to begin with. It was a nice change of pace and made me use my brain more than I usually would have reading the comics.

Mark Doty, Glen Allen, Virginia


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