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Dick Tracy, 4/10/25

So the guy in the suit is lead detective in the case of the almost-stolen corpse, and I guess he figured out who the corpse used to be and was looking at his social media accounts and … bingo! Our favorite idiot nephews! I suppose the detective is using clipped, manly noir talk when he just says “nephews” instead of “his nephews,” but, you know, maybe not. Maybe he’s just saying they have the vibe of nephews about them. They seem real nephewy. They’re somebody’s sibling’s sons, if you follow me.

Wizard of Id, 4/10/25

The main thrust of this strip, which is about the Wizard of Id’s wife having a horny hallucination, is fine, even though I’m not sure why she heard the frog talk before she touched its hallucinogenic skin to her mouth …. maybe it’s magical but also induces hallucinations in a normal, scientific way? Whatever. My favorite part is actually the fact that the Wizard is casually enjoying a martini in his armchair. The guy has a tough job, his wife is horny for a frog, he deserves to unwind! And he’s doing it in a sophisticated way.

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Crock, 3/18/25

I kind of admire the thought process that went into constructing the current installment of “The Men Of Outpost 5 Read Letters From One Of The Men’s Hillbilly Hometown.” Obviously, you have this great joke about how the one guy is a dumb hillbilly who may have mastered the mechanical art of tying a shoe but doesn’t understand how the process fits into the larger context, where you generally tie both your shoes at once. But what gets me is how they decided to set that punchline up. What if he’s prompted to reminisce on this subject because his beloved friend and mentor died? What if he’s in mourning? That sure adds a fun little twist to the gag!

Marvin, 3/18/25

Marvin, the comic strip, debuted in 1982, so if time flowed normally for its cursèd inhabitants, then Marvin, the character, would be in his early 40s, and his parents would have long ago forgotten his awful infancy, which only lasted a couple of years, after all, or at least they would have sanded down the edges in constant retelling into a “we can laugh about it now” situation. But time doesn’t flow normally, and Marvin will remain a baby forever, and his parents will neither know the escape of him growing up nor ever truly get used to the horror. Thus the exclamation points in the second panel here: while this is the sort of bad behavior we expect from this terrible child, his parents are forever shocked anew, each psychic wound inflicted never healing into protective scar tissue.

Pluggers, 3/18/25

Pluggers long ago lost the ability to feel sexual arousal. But products? Well, pluggers sure do love a good product — looking at them, assessing them, trying to figure out how much they cost, then either nodding their head at a good price or shaking their heads at how expensive things are these days. They still have those pleasures, at least, even though others have long passed them by.

B.C. and Wizard of Id, 3/18/25

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if the courting mores of modern times were mapped onto a previous era — the Stone Age, say, or a vaguely medieval period that also had magic in it? Well, today’s B.C. and Wizard of Id have the answers for you, my friends!

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Gil Thorp, 3/6/25

Damn, Gil Thorp really has become a playground for amoral narrative outcomes. First Marty falls off the wagon and improves his drip immeasurably, then Coach Gerads bounces back from being beaten up by his own students to become the insouciant antihero of the Valley Conference. Goshen’s defeat of Milford on the football field presumably drove a local car dealership out of business, but Coach Gerads clearly doesn’t care who he drags down to hell with him.

Wizard of Id, 3/6/25

You guys know how I’ve been adding some old reliables into my rotation again? Well, Wizard of Id is on the list, but I haven’t really talked about it here because it’s frankly even more dire (in a boring, non-fun way) than I remembered. But a strip where the title character attempts to bend the cost curve of his avian-flu-stricken kingdom by shitting out a bunch of eggs? Well, I admit that one caught my attention. Not sure if the stars floating around his hindquarters are supposed to represent pain or magic or maybe both.

Luann, 3/6/25

“Sounds like you need to kiss?”

“What? Kiss?”.

“Yeah. Komfortabler Innovativer Spurtstarker S-Bahn-Zug. It’s a family of bilevel electric multiple unit trains built by the Swiss company Stadler Rail. I think taking a train ride through the European countryside could really help you focus on what’s important in your life.”

“Wow, this is a pretty strange way to flirt.”

“Flirt? You mean Flinker Leichter Intercity- und Regional-Triebzug?”

Heathcliff, 3/6/25

Heathcliff’s father is out of jail now, but after years of incarceration, he still has psychic scars. In a twisted way, prison feels like a safe place to him. His soul will never be free, and I think that’s sad.