Aging, death, etc.
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Dick Tracy, 2/20/25
Dick Tracy is a comic strip that operates in an exaggerated storytelling mode, entertaining us with outlandish plots about corpse theft and so forth. But it can also touch on very real, down-to-earth issues, like the problem of inadequate nephews. Are your nephews good-for-nothings who don’t even have the skills and/or gumption to properly steal a dead body? Dick Tracy sees you, and hears you, and knows you are valid.
Pickles, 2/20/25
Another comic I’ve added recently to my rotation is Pickles, a low-key strip about old people. I appreciate today’s installment because it avoids the cliche of making an adorable little moppet the resident computer genius and instead identifies the “generation [that’s] pretty handy with modern technology” as the children of old people, who are, let’s be extremely real, getting pretty old themselves. Sure, assigning tech support to a 52-year-old with bad knees may not get your strip cut out and hung on refrigerators, but you have to respect the commitment to verisimilitude.
The Lockhorns, 2/20/25
“Why doesn’t this person use the opportunity given to him to inflict violence on the one who has wronged him?” is Loretta’s takeaway from what she’s learning about soccer, and that should be concerning to Leroy, probably.
Dennis the Menace, 2/20/25
Mr. Wilson, they’re going to try to cancel you for this, but you’re right. Dennis Mitchell is a five-year-old child and just in general should not be spending extended periods of time at other people’s homes outside a formal arrangement; today he’s banging on a pot like a drum in a very irritating manner and you shouldn’t have to put up with it. I support you in your quest for a common sense resolution of the Dennis issue!
150 replies to “Aging, death, etc.”
DT:
“Befuddled bodysnatchers! Pathetic pilferers! Lackadaisical larcenists! Bungling burglars! Plodding poachers! Omigosh, I’ve run out of alliteration! — now what do I do?”
RMMD:
“What about the guy you bailed on? Are you reporting him to the dating service?”
“Nah. A killer asteroid’s going to hit Earth in 2032 and destroy all life as we know it, so, really, what’s the point?”
MW:
“This meal is scrumptious, Mary! — why, you must have spent minutes assembling this home-cooked sandwich!”
Pluggers Actually, if you use your bathtub for storage, you are a hoarder who needs serious psychiatric help.
Dick Tracy-Join us tomorrow as she dives into the ‘C’s and ‘D’s.
MW-I think we all know what Dawn wanted to see with Dirk.
DtM – Forget the pot-banging, those fart clouds are far more menacing.
That yelling lady in Dick Tracy must be Captain Haddock’s daughter.
That doesn’t look like soccer depicted in The Lockhorns. From the looks of it, I’d guess it’s some sort of rhythmic gymnastics routine for men.
I love Blue-Footed Boobies! They’re my favorite bird, next to the Great Tits.
Lockhorns:
“Why didn’t he use the free kick he got to kick the guy who fouled him?”
“Listen, Loretta — this is basically a sport with European rules. And — let’s not kid ourselves here — they don’t get anything right over there!”
Christ, Pickles, Josh? Facebook is full of AI content generators that post Pickles all day. I guess they figure that its total lameness will let it through whatever screens the Zuck still bothers to use.
@Bob Tice: Blunderbutt Burke & Hapless Hare!
Thats what “Dick Tracy” needs, Dr Zachary Smith as a bad guy.
DT I know that it’s all just for the alliteration, but ‘anachronistic’ seems like a particularly bizarre insult, especially for Dick Tracy. You’re calling cell phones with radio watches and driving 1940s electric cars!
Have you noticed there is no joke in today’s Dennis the Menace? It’s just this kid’s annoying; I wish he would go home. I for one am hoping this is what the strip is evolving into- various iterations of Dennis is really a pain in the ass and we hate him.
DT – S-s-s-sorry auntie, but did you get a load of the tits on those blue footed boobies….
Pickles – At some point, Pluggers actually start believing they lived the Little House on the Prairie episodes they watched….
Shlockhorns – In the balls, Leroy…don’t forget that part….
DtM – So…Dennis got into George’s “special” maple syrup….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
DT:
You know you’re a plugger when your auntie deputizes you to perform the exceedingly simple task of purloining a specific dead body from the local morgue, and you bring back the wrong one.
MW: “Don’t blame yourself”??!! No, Dawn, please do blame yourself, because this was entirely your fault. You were so mesmerized by this man’s alleged hunkiness that you set yourself up for all kinds of abuse. You’re lucky he only wanted to call you childish names, and not do something much worse to you.
An old Mad Magazine joke: an elderly congresscritter defends the seniority system for committee assignments: “You can’t trust important jobs to those young 50-year-olds. They got wild ideas.” I want to see an extension of the Pickles approach, where the gag is the ridiculousness of elders using Kids Today lines on middle-aged offspring. As if Boomers were butchering mastodons for food at age 5 and GenXers grew up with Star Trek food replicators.
Josh, once again you’re right about the Lockhorns now being Millennials. If they were still Boomers, Leroy would implicitly dismiss soccer as a foo-foo sport for effeminate Europeans, watching only red-white-and-blue American football where macho he-men inflict CTE on each other.
DtM: I don’t blame him! Dennis, go HOME!!
DT: Always angry Auntie Alliteration
Lockhorns: Sock-him, amirite?
DtM: The alternative is for Dennis to be home during one of the Mitchells’ many, many “business gatherings” where he’ll invariable parrot something terrible his dad has said about one (or all) of the guests.
Hurray, Pickles! You’ve (mostly) adequately captured the skill disparity between generations! Now do the bit about opportunity cost making it unreasonable for newer generations to do any of those things, except as hobbies. No one needs to know about the mountains of clothes shipped to Africa, children should learn to sew, dammit!
Lhorns: I love that the player on the screen has the same weary heavy-lidded expression as Leroy and Loretta. I always assumed that their misanthropy was a personal trait, but it looks like everyone in this reality, even successful professional athletes have the same outlook on life. God, I wonder what their cheerleaders are like…
MW: “And then they’ve got people in their lives who tell them, ‘the past is how you choose to remember it,’ not that I’d ever do something like that.”
FC: What kind of “fitness” magazines does your dad have in the garage, Dolly?!?
Dustin: Well, this strip isn’t actively hateful, so that’s something.
A special edition of Cthulhu Solves Your Problems for Mr. Wilson:
1. Cthulhu shows up.
2. Everyone goes insane.
3. Problem solved.
This has been a special edition of Cthulhu Solves Your Problems. Tomorrow: getting those stubborn stains out of your carpet.
MW: “People tend to act on what they want to see rather than what they do see. For example, I’ve invited you over here because I want to see you accept and act on my invaluable advice, even though I know you are too thick to ever have and that you never will. It’s human nature and arguably your greatest fault. How’s your grilled cheese?”
CS: Film? You couldn’t draw a monitor between the two in the first panel. I’m not going to insult another country’s health system, especially since I don’t think film is possible in any country. C’mon man!
DtM: The only explanation that makes sense is that the Mitchells are paying the Wilsons to take care of Dennis, either because Alice works (not likely) or she just wants her free time. Mr. Wilson resents that his pension and social security are not enough to live on and he’s forced to put up with this bratty pain in the ass. Now that’s some master-class menacing!
DtM: Toddlers bang on pots because they’re exploring their senses along with cause and effect. Dennis at five is well past that stage and is banging away noisily solely to cause Wilson a blinding migraine. And I find it hilarious. I’m a bad person.
Lockhorns — When did the Loretta and Leroy move to Europe? That Golden Visa program must be getting cheaper. . .
Luann: That piece of paper is awfully stiff. Mrs. Horner must have laminated it. Once again, though, we’ve got a plot that relies on one of the cast being unable to openly express their feelings for a b-b-b-boy, which works well when set in a junior high setting.
CS: “That’s right: you have no back. Frankly, it’s a medical miracle that you’re able to stand upright at all. Spite can really be that potent. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to write a paper for the medical journal.”
9CL: Continuing from yesterday’s strip, Edda, who had previously knocked Amos down to whale on him, has picked him up so she can scream obscenities at him. Meanwhile, the evil nun (but not Valak) who was less than a foot away from the two has apparently backed up a bit so she can watch the spectacle.
DT — Frankly, I’m shocked that the Aunt Claire isn’t named A. Literation.
Lockhorns: I can understand Americans doing a soccer comic during the Men’s World Cup (or the Women’s, if it were a female player on a screen). At a push, maybe the Copa America. But I’m meant to believe Leroy, the picture of suburban downwardly-mobile WASPism, is watching soccer in an odd numbered year, on a Thursday in February? What is he, some sort of European? What’s he going to get into next? Buttered crumpets? Shitty dance music? Recreational nudity?
Dick Tracy: “I wish we’d finally see some boobies on the comics page!” *A finger curls on the monkey’s paw*
Lockhorns: I like Loretta’s attitude. “Why do you need a gun when you can just punch somebody in the mouth?”
CS: “Here are your x-rays.”
“What do they show?”
“That your back is out.”
“I’m paying you good money to tell me something I already know? You quack!”
“Okay, your x-rays show that you have spinal stenosis and osteoarthritis of L4-L7. Primary noninvasive treatment involves analgesia and thermotherapy.”
“In English, please.”
“Your back is out. Take some Tylenol and lay on a heating pad. You can pay on your way out.”
“Asshole!”
[smirk]
DT: Aunt Claire is right to express such vehement disdain for her screw-up nephews. They’re so incompetent that they can’t even grow proper mustaches!
@taig:
On Luann : the woman who told the ENTIRE TOWN about the time she electrocuted her gonads is now a shy little girl who’s afraid her poem about having fallen in love with a hunky male nurse is too unsubtle to be read in public (because the HE’d find out about how she feels!).
Pickles – what gets me about this is that my Boomer mother and Greatest Generation grandmother were of the generations that created and embraced convenience/processed food. It has been the Gen Xers and Millennials I know that have started getting away from it.
It’s impressive enough that Leroy, an American, is watching soccer. But it takes it to a whole new level when he’s watching a team that plays in just their socks and yellow t-shirts. Support those struggling minor league American teams!
***
#@%$ this, D*ck Tracy. Just use some #@%$&^¢ grawlix.
@Tabby Lavalamp: Let’s not convey unfortunate implications; the soccer team does wear red shorts, too.
Pickles – Pickles is just the reading man’s Pluggers.
Seriously Martha, why the fuck is he here? Are we babysitting? Because I never agreed to that. We didn’t have children for a reason, Martha.
GT: I see an entire panel devoted to an oddly drawn….Is that a chicken? A rabbit? You can sort of see its little rabbit head. A Cornish game hen? Duck? Goose? And why is there an entire panel devoted to it? Is Inma just so bad at cooking that she should stay out if the kitchen? If she is the kitchen, did she just walk around all day with the apparent fowl under her sweater?
DT: Grrrrrrr!!!
Dick Tracy – Alliterating Aunt’s Corpse Caper Block By Nepobaby Nephews!
Pickles – Pickles is Pluggers without the populist pretense.
Low-key is the strength of the strip, because it was used to replace Dilbert in a number of newspapers after Scott Adams’ racist rant, and Non-Sequitur when Wiley Miller hid a “Fuck You Trump” in his strip.
The Lockhorns – Give the Lockhorns credit for seeking to stay with the current mood of the nation, even if that is a nation with increased political violence, an assassination of the health care CEO, and three fights in the first 9 seconds of a Canada – USA hockey game.
Dennis the Menace – Gives Dennis the Menace credit for seeking to stay with the current with the policies of the nation, where thrusting child care onto the elderly is the policy advocated by the sitting VP, though in this more moderate strip’s case childless retired men make up for their failures to meet traditional norms by pitching in some as well.
We I saw Pickles on my computer screen, I thought for a moment that I was not on joshreads.com but facebook.com
MW: It’s probably a good thing that Mary is trying to simplify the spousal abuse (not really clear on what else to call it) inflicted upon Dawn as human nature rather than ACTUALLY trying to solve it in any meaningful way, because we all know she would not have handled that with any type of intelligence whatsoever.
MW-“That’s why I keep pushing your father onto women. I don’t see his faults as flaws. I see them as endearing quirks.”
GT: How nice. They’re having roadkill for supper.
MW: “Don’t blame yourself, dear. You can’t help it that you were born dumber than a paving stone.”
Dustin: Dustin hangs out with what’s-his-name because he thinks it makes him look better by comparison. Man, that’s a high price to pay.
“Claire, my dear, your stereotypical Tourette’s is acting up again. Aripiprazole, methylphenidate, or dealer’s choice?”
DT: Was Claire traumatized by a “Best of Dr. Smith” marathon of the original “Lost in Space”?
DtM: It must have cost a lot of money for the Wilsons to have their kitchen painted in a lavender to pale mint green ombré. And probably drugs for inspiration.
FC: Adult Jeff in his studio changes a P to a B. “Nailed it!”
Today I learned that Dennis the Menace is almost certainly developmentally disabled.
I feel bad for having mentally ridiculed him in the past. Also, I have to give more consideration to why Joey hangs out with Dennis, and give Margaret and Gina some kudos for trying to educate Dennis a little.
Enough with the “endearing quirks” already!
MW: In Dawn’s case, muffins are not enough. Mary is serving puff pastry.
Hi and Lois: Social Influencer is code for Cult Leader
Zits: Don’t ignore the warning signs, you are turning into “Dustin” and need immediate intervention
Dennis the Menace: Those behavior modification drugs have chemically lobotomized him putting him at the functional level of a toddler but at least he’s not setting the house on fire.
Pluggers: “You’re a Plugger if you have boxes of classified federal documents in your bathroom at Mar-a-Lago”?
Don Abundio, translated:
“I hurt my finger!”
“Oh, poor boy”
“Whenever I see someone cry I want to soothe their pain”
“I can cry on command!”
Family Circus: PJ really needs a new diaper!
DT – An animalcule is a minute or microscopic animal. But what’s an “animacule”? A diminutive soul?
DT: I feel like this Aunt Claire person could learn a thing or two about nephew berating. There’s a lot of rich material in the Hall and Oates area, perhaps upon the lines of them both being Oates or something. It would be a cinch to work in the alliteration. Oafish, odious, onerous—shit, if you’re going to say anachronistic anyway, obsolescent is right there. Are you even trying, lady? Now I’m just getting mad.
BF: “I’d miss Tim Horton’s! Those French people know NOTHING about pastry!”
DT: Hell, the nephews can’t even raise decent mustaches.
Curtis: Mmmmm, onion crackers.
Dustin: Scratched the blind guy’s eyes out?
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: @Philip: (On Lockhorns)
It looks like Cthulhu already showed up…
@But What Do I Know?: Allie Teration?
@Peanut Gallery: Maybe she meant “anime-cules.” I could see these two guys as Hanson and Sanson.
DT: Do you suppose the guy in panel 3 dyes his hair every day to match his suit? With that level of commitment to detail, you can bet he’d snatch the right body!
@Peanut Gallery:
Sólo sabes que Don Abundio lastimó al niño en primer lugar sólo para preparar esto.
DtM: Calvin bursts into the room banging his own pots and pans and proceeds to kick Dennis in the ass.
Animacules sounds like a Pokémon knock off.
“Gotta catch ’em all… and you failed me.”
DT: I’m a big fan of alliteration, so I’m willing to hang around until, “Zombified zebraheads!”
@Pozzo: I’m partial to the Oxpecker.
There is no cute interaction here. No malapropisms. Just Dennis doing something horribly inappropriate in their home and making irritatingly loud noise. The most menacing thing in today’s strip is how happy Martha is at Dennis just sitting there banging pots with spoons raising George’s blood pressure.
You know divorce is legal now, right, Martha? You don’t have to murder your husband by proxy with a stroke anymore. Is this something you just want to do?
@Anonymous: No shit. Or just the opposite.
My first thought was that his suit was so tight that he was like Ralphie’s brother in A Christmas Story. Then I saw how lumpy P. J.’s suit was and realized he had taken a Marvin-size dump in there.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: #25
Great Cthulhu – the homemakers’ best friend! (Can he clean my cat’s litter box for me?)
The Lockhorns: Why didn’t he use his free kick to kick the guy who fouled him? Because these soccer players’ extraordinarily sharp, acute-angled feet keep popping the balls, and would be incredibly harmful if applied to another person’s behind.
Pickles: My elderly mother is actually quite handy with modern technology, and spends maybe too much time on her iPad playing those games that regularly require in-app purchases to win. I figure it’s still better than her driving to a casino with her friends every couple of weeks, although the apps never reward her with free crab legs.
Dennis the Menace: I’m sure Dennis is annoying to have around, but the Wilsons should be used to it by now. I think they’ve been on edge ever since they bought a Nespresso machine at the post-Christmas sale at Kohl’s, and it looks as though they’re each on their sixth cup of Capriccio since this morning. Mrs. Wilson clearly just loves the flavor, but Mr. Wilson has to hold on to the table just to stave off his caffeine shakes.
@Garrison Skunk: That’s what “Dick Tracy” needs, Dr Zachary Smith as a bad guy.
____________________________________________________________________________
“You bubble-headed boobie! You nickle-plated nincompoop!”
@Violet: Ooh, that’s diabolical! I didn’t think of that possibility, maybe because I was so focused on avoiding the obvious punchline “Me lastimé mi pene!”
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
@Pozzo: I’m partial to the Oxpecker.
Let’s not forget the Dickcissel.
LHorns: “Now why is the guy getting a red card? All he did was use his free kick to kick the guy who fouled him!”
I actually did laugh at that Lockhorns, though
Rex Morgan – I think she’s going to report him for harassing her at the bar. She couldn’t report him for being a bore, because that applies to everyone she knows.
Frazz – Caulfield and Mrs. Olsen are being nice to each other and behaving like friends, and I thought this was a nice strip. That isn’t a polar vortex – hell just froze over.
Mary Worth – What in the world are they eating? Comments have suggested grilled cheese sandwiches or puff pastry, but I don’t think that’s it. It’s all one color with a flat top and bottom and some kind of glop in the middle. They’re eating it with forks, and even though there’s a bite of food on the forks, the food substance remains whole. I honestly have no idea if this is salmon squares or some kind of gawdawful dessert. I bet Mary expects to be praised for it, whatever it is.
Pluggers – Seriously, who does this? Does he give himself sponge baths in the sink, or is that full of useless crap, too?
CS: I guess Lena is having to cover Ed’s routes this week.
FG: Paf? (Second panel sound effect) Did Flash cut one as he landed? Vigorous physical exercise does tend to promote flatulence.
Pluggers: He must really stink.
@The Rambling Otter: Well played!
My understanding is that the current generation of adorable little moppets actually has pretty dire computer literacy! Schools no longer actively teach computer skills because “kids are digital natives, they know all that stuff already”, and combined with the increasingly streamlined, opaque, app-laden nature of modern OSes it’s led to a cohort of teens who couldn’t tell a file extension from a web browser.
@I speak Jive: re: MW: Over the past week or so, ALL the food in the funny pages has been brown and rectangular. It’s waffles all the way down!
GT: Ah, here’s something new. A badly-drawn spatchcocked chicken. (Cut out the backbone and fold the bird open like a book. It roasts in a skillet in 30 minutes instead of the two hours it would take a normal roast chicken.). Why did I think Inma was vegetarian? Maybe this is for mom and dad, and she gets a big bowl of plain couscous instead. And just look at her tormenting her father with loose hair and naked wrists, the slut.
Has the website layout changed for everyone and I just missed an announcement, or is my browser somehow messing up the site? I see the COTW not as a header anymore, but as a block on the left side of the screen, with posts and comments forced over to the right.
DT: The community of people who’ve always wanted to see Stockard Channing swearing like Joe Pesci in Home Alone is vanishingly small – but by God those freaks are dining well today.
FG: That’s some mean leap on Flash’s part; Zarkov must have glued an anti-gravity machine to his balls.
@Anonymous: Luann : the woman who told the ENTIRE TOWN about the time she electrocuted her gonads
Luann has no gonads; she’s like a Barbie doll down there.
Pickles: Earl is tangentially also making a play for the fragile white male demo which needs to put on the costume about things other white guys are associated with.
Also “the children of old people, who are, let’s be extremely real, getting pretty old themselves”: Faux nostalgia is catching up to Earl, who’s forgotten it’s 2025 and septuagenarians are running out of the “when I was your age we could raise a family and buy a house on the man’s paycheck alone” brag. No, you couldn’t.
The Lockhorns impressed me by showing a player kicking a ball with an actual soccer-style kick. Gil Thorp could take lessons.
RMMD: Summer is done with the dating service? Is this a service or an app? Because the distribution curve of 40-something men on dating apps doesn’t favor her taste in good people.
Zits reaches Calvin and Hobbes’ heights. Remember Calvin whining about having to do a chore and stating “I won’t be complaining about it for another 15 minutes”?
Wait. Scratch that. Calvin is a seven-year-old, and Jeremy is a high school junior on his third strip of not starting to write a term paper due at midnight.
Pluggers are overlapping with BG&SS with such frequency they will become the same strip in three years.
BG&SS: Even before getting bribed, Snuffy Smith is seen to have “I can buy canned goods at the store and eat their contents before the forthcoming nuclear apocalypse” money. He’s the richest man in town.
Leroy is supporting the AS Roma?!?! His whole personality scream SS Lazio! (This joke is hilarious if you know the context!)
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
Reminds me of the classic Chick tract parody Who Will Be Eaten First.
DT: This lady swallowed a word-a-day calendar! And she is screaming in pain from the stomach ache, because it’s a terrible idea to swallow all that paper, glue and plastic!
Claire is following the classic management strategy by the Kingpin: shout at your employees to work harder! It’s nice to see that the glass ceiling is no more for female bosses!
@Daisy: Well, he could, but do you really want that?
@The Ghost of Jarrod: [Alien, non-Euclidean chortling]
I agree with Mr Wilson. Not only is Dennis irritating, but the Wilsons’ house is not fit for children. Look, they keep their shoes indoors and they let him play on the bare floor!
DT:
Perhaps this woman is related to 1980’s Tracy foe Uppward Lee-Mobile. A yuppie Ponsi scrammer (with his wife Trendy), he often erupted using alliterative phrases. For example example: “Leaping Linear Jets!” “Devastating divestitures!” “Careless cuisine!”
@MKay: “Zealous Zealots from Zaire!”
@Roxanne Jones: Fact is, I cannot tell at all whether you’re joking
By the time that “Claire” reaches the middle of the alphabet, it will become clear that this is just another recurrence of Orphan Annie intruding into Dick Tracy. The lizards, they are leaping. Kudos, though, on the hair dye job and on finally finding a set of contact lenses that make it seem like you have pupils.
@Lauralot:
Yeah, it just suddenly changed one day about a week or so. Not particularly for the better, but at least it’s not grossly worse like just about other website redesign in the history of the internet.
Dtm- an elderly couple allowing a child to drop by and do whatever he wants to.
In other strips he routinely embarrasses his mom’s cooking and his
Father’s work place.
From that, I can only assume that the Wilson’s are acting as a sanctuary
From abuse by the parents.
All this time the title has been wrong. It should have been “Dennis the Menaced”
@Lord Flatulence: Hey, your Lordship! That long unbroken line at #77 has the same effect as a long link – it minimizes the text on certain phones to make site unreadable. I’m surprised Sequitur hasn’t complained yet.
I really appreciate the commitment to craft in today’s Lockhorns: a plain white ball lacking any patterns, a shirt without any hint of a number or logo, no chalk lines on the grass, not the slightest indication of any teammates or opponents on the pitch. And by craft, of course, I mean the golf game that the artist will have plenty of time for after mailing this in.
DT: She comes up with new alliterative phrases on the fly. He’s a slowpoke who has to begin every sentence with the same word. Yeah, I don’t think this partnership is going to last, and her balled-up fists give us a hint to how it’s going to fall apart.
Lockhorns: How drunk is too drunk to play soccer? The threshold has to be pretty high since Andy Capp plays it, but being unable to keep your eyes open would have to put you pretty close to it.
Pickles-Due to the passage of time Grandpa was probably born in the Sixties.
C-Shaft: “My prescription is for a lot of padding, already in progress.”
HtH: So Hagar stood there hoisting his loot long enough for the painter to add a realistic likeness of him to the portrait of the king? It doesn’t sound like one of the seven habits of highly effective pillagers.
JP: If Ces’s research on hacking was just rewatching The Net and Sneakers and—God help us all—Swordfish that’s fine but it might be a mistake to let one of his characters out him on it.
Luann: Luann’s avocation as a poet is going slightly better than I would have expected it to.
Phantom: Wasn’t expecting to be dropped in the middle of the annual physical of a man with no nipples but here we are.
RMMD: An echo of a pre-dating-app recent past when you could report your date to the service for acting dishonorably and they’d make sure he was dealt with. That did happen, right?
DT: Ok, Star Trek fan service yesterday, today it’s Lost in Space, tomorrow we’ll do Space: 1999. Oh, wait. No one remembers that crappy show. Just jump ahead to Babylon 5.
FC: Let’s hang PJ upside down and use him for a pinata!
Today’s “Insanity Streak” contains somewhat upsetting Clown Erotica. 9CL enjoyers proceed at your own risk
Pickles: Hahaha! It’s funny because the old guy is a self-righteous misogynistic jerk who dumps all the work onto his wife and than feeds his fragile ego by pretending to be superior to the younger generations!
Lockhorns: The domestic abuse jokes are running thin, so as a change of pace Loretta is now being written like a Futurama-style cartoon alien with no understanding of human social norms.
Dennis The Menace: Every day this comic persists the more I genuinely wish Mr. Wilson would be allowed to just tell Dennis to piss off and throw his annoying ass out of the Wilsons’ house.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: re RMMD: Summer is the one who’ll be in trouble after her spurned date reports *her* to the service for walking out on him AND for immediately meeting up with a guy in a bar who was not provided by the dating service, a violation of her exclusivity contract.
@Anxious Millennial Cowgirl: Came here to say the same thing. Millenials and Gen Z love sewing, canning, scratch-made food, forging, foraging, and all sorts of allegedly obsolete skills. For some it’s just the cottagecore aesthetic, but others are genuinely into it.
@Ettorre: I’ll bite. What makes Leroy Lockhorn a Lazio fan? And what kind of people root for Inter? (I had a work buddy from Italy who was a huge Inter guy.)
Zits Spanish to English.
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
Written on the paper…
LUANN: Y’all probably think this is a stalling tactic Luann is utilizing to prevent the potential subject of the poem from reading it, but I say it’s entirely plausible that Luann turned in a professional homework assignment with 38 typos. (It’s also believable that Luann would have had to retake “Intro to Creative Writing”, which she’d have to do if she’s still turning in assignments to Ms. Hoover in the new semester.)
Luann: Why is that guy wearing gloves?
JP — what did I tell you? Security by obscurity at best. Either that, or Sam/Randy are true computer illiterates and the thing was never actually encrypted to begin with.
@2+2=7: LUANN: which she’d have to do if she’s still turning in assignments to Ms. Hoover in the new semester.
Pretty sure this lady’s teaching career ended when she collapsed in the middle of class, and especially since she now needs 5 hours of dialysis every few days just to stay alive.
Pluggers: What those targeted ads on local TV news don’t tell you – it’s not always necessary to remove your free-standing bathtub in order to add a walk-in tub or walk-in shower. Don’t lose valuable storage space! Also makes a great location to keep your houseplants if there’s a window nearby.
Seriously, there comes a time for everyone when it becomes unsafe or impossible to get into a tub like that.
@Tom T.:
Germaphobe
Phantom: Teacher/Warrior/Junior Mentor just dropped in at the groomer’s to get his back hair clipped. If you were Tea Girl, you’d cover your eyes, too.
JP: I love how doing this thing took considerably less time and effort than whining about being expected to do it did. A lesson there for us all.
Peanuts Begins: Another one where you can see the beginnings of a running gag that isn’t there yet. Never mind aeroplanes, Charlie Brown, somewhere out there is a tree, and it hungers…
Pluggers: This is skirting very close to a famous quote illustrating the contempt the British aristocracy had for the working classes in the early 20th century (“If the workers had indoor baths, they’d just use them to keep the coal.”) Except I think when Pluggers does it it’s not meant to be insulting?
@Ukulele Ike: #89: In the beginning of the movie Troy, Achilles, played by Brad Pitt, did the same stunt as Flash to kill Boagrius, a rival king’s hulking champion.
@Squinty: Hey, thanks for the heads up. I didn’t know.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I’m partial to the Oxpecker.
Exotic, at least in the US, but a common old farm horse isn’t bad either and will get the job done.
@Horace Broon:
JP: I love how doing this thing took considerably less time and effort than whining about being expected to do it did. A lesson there for us all.
COTW if I have anything to say about it. Which I don’t, but if I did, it would be.
@Cleveland Mocks: Sheeee-it. Next thing you know, you two are going to start quoting Edgar A. Guest at each other.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I remember Space: 1999, mostly for that lady having a widow’s peak and weird beaded eyebrows.
@105 Squinty:
I’m still on my laptop later then I usually am (where it’s not bothered by long entries) before switching to my phone. I’d be raising hell in a bit when I switch to my phone except now I know not even to bother looking at this blog on it today.
@Peanut Gallery:
Me too, and I heartily appreciate it.
JP: did anyone show Soph the courtesy
of telling her that the drone may be
from law enforcement. Last I remember,
tampering with evidence is a big deal.
MW:. Smart to prepare grilled cheese as a home cooked
meal for a vegetarian. Dawn certainly couldn’t
have made one for herself./s
@Ukulele Ike:
@Cleveland Mocks: Sheeee-it. Next thing you know, you two are going to start quoting Edgar A. Guest at each other.
Uke, it is what it is. :-)
Pickles: He should have used examples of useless skills that he actually has, like changing a typewriter ribbon, developing film, changing tubes in a TV, setting the timing on a Chevy V8, and punching IBM cards.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Rome has two teams. Rome is the more populist, chaotic team from the periphery. Lazio is the team for the upper middle class snobs and fascists. Unfortunately, these days Roma’s hooligans are also fascist. Inter used to be the more bourgeois team of Milan (the city), compared to the working-class Milan (the team). This became complicated when Berlusconi owned Milan. Anyway, I’m not involved because I support Bologna, which is the perfect incarnation of aurea mediocritas
@Banana Jr. 6000: Just to be clear, I made the original joke because red and yellow are the colours of the Roma team
@Maltmash3r: @Activist: I appreciate you guys posting your snark in free verse form. It classes up the joint.
@Ettorre: I also support bologna, on a nice seeded rye with a schmear of mild brown mustard. Mortadella is good, too.
A couple of days ago my elderly father was chiding me for not keeping my house clean enough. I told him “Unlike you, I don’t have a cleaner.”
“Whaddaya mean?” he replied in an outraged tone “I don’t have a cleaner!”
Then from behind him a small voice that cut like a razor said “I beg your pardon?” It was then that he realised that his live in cleaner, cook, bookkeeper, appointment calendar, etc., who I call mum, was standing behind him.
Why are we being insulted in DICK TRACY? We are not “bunglers.” We dive quite spectacularly, we work very hard to raise our babies, we try to carry on our mating rituals even when pervy human photographers get too close, and we’ve been at peace with the planet for as long as our species has existed, about one million years. Yes, we have our family problems sometimes, like siblicide, but you humans have your own big issues. Don’t insult us, we won’t insult YOU.
@Guillermo el chiclero: FG: Paf? (Second panel sound effect) Did Flash cut one as he landed? Vigorous physical exercise does tend to promote flatulence.
I can attest to that.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Andy Capp plays rugby. Just the right amount of drinking gives some players just the right amount of anger (on top of his regular amount).
@ValdVin: Google searches show him playing both, which is a surprising amount of get-up-and-go, considering.
Pickles: Cooking from scratch, sewing clothes, canning fruits and vegetables? Go look up “cottagecore,” pops.
Pickles just dissed boomers. Unfortunately for Pickles, boomers are mostly the only ones who read comic strips. But I respect them for risking alienating their demographic to depict the truth.
I sincerely hope whoever this lady in Dick Tracy is gets her own spinoff, and every strip is just three panels of her screaming nonsense with increasingly deranged faces. Look at that first panel and tell you wouldn’t drop every other element of this series for that.
“Your generation don’t know how to cook” is, and I’m not hyperbolic here, the most middle class thing I have heard in my life. Here’s the news, granddad: Poor people have to learn to cook food or else we die. That’s been a constant since about when the middle ages ruined takeout food 1500 years ago. Somebody who thinks there’s a whole generation of people who don’t know their way around a kitchen, I assume they don’t ever talk to people aside from their servants.
“Anachronistic animacules! Bungling blue-footed boobies!”
“Calm, Claire, calm.”
If they can keep this up through Z, I’ll be very impressed.