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Dick Tracy, 8/26/24

Someone who’s had some weird romance arcs in his time is Junior, Dick Tracy’s son in the comic strip Dick Tracy. Long ago he was married to Moon Maid, daughter of the Governor of the Moon, and he had a half-Lunarian daughter with her, but then she got blown up by a car bomb meant for him. Later he married Sparkle Plenty, daughter of comical rustics B.O. and Gertie Plenty; that relationship was briefly thrown into turmoil when Moon Maid seemed to reappear, but then it turned out some gangster had modified his hapless girlfriend with Lunarian DNA, and the poor woman eventually changed her name to “Mysta Chimera” and accommodated herself to her new life as a hideous genetic abomination and platonic pal to Junior and his family. However … is there a new contender for his love? How else do you explain that he’s chosen a tastefully glamorous photo of Rikki Mortis, the goth lover of notorious corpse-criminal Abner Kadaver, as his desktop wallpaper? More on this Tracy family romantic drama as it (probably fails to) develop!

Hi and Lois, 8/26/24

One thing I love about legacy comics is how they freeze certain stereotyped images and settings in amber, even when the journeyman artists and writers tasked with churning out the comics are young enough that they themselves only remember them from older comics. One example is the idea, omnipresent in the comics, that upscale fine dining restaurants feature plush decor and white tablecloths; in fact, that hasn’t been true for newer restaurants since the ’90s, and even the old timers have mostly transitioned to the new aesthetics, which are all about high ceilings and hard, industrial-style surfaces. A 2018 Atlantic article that I think about all the time chronicles this transition and points out that the result is a much louder dining experience, which restaurants like because it’s less conducive to sitting around pleasantly chatting and thus increases customer turnover and restaurant profits. Anyway, I was reminded of this today because another aspect of modern restaurant design is that it features large, open, continuous spaces instead of the warren of rooms you might have found in a traditional eatery, so there’s no longer any place to stash the Flagston family where the other, more desirable patrons can’t see or hear them.

Mary Worth, 8/26/24

I dunno, Ed, this seems like a great way to show up at your wedding and discover that the theme is “WHY WON’T MY NEW HUSBAND PAY ATTENTION TO ME????”