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Dick Tracy, 1/29/09

Dick Tracy is well known for such stunningly pointless narration box scene setting as “In another room” and “Elsewhere,” but I have to admit to being somewhat intrigued by “Much later”. By using qualitative, not quantitative, terms, the strip sets up an intriguing narrative tension about exactly when the third panel is supposed to be taking place. Are we meant to read it as “Much later, after Dick’s gruesome, nine-hour ‘enhanced’ interrogation of Professor Noll, at the end of which he described the secret project he was working on, confessed to a number of crimes he couldn’t have possibly committed, and then was shot ‘trying to escape’?” Or as “Much later, after the human race has evolved into a species with no pupils, shiny black skulls, truncated, pointy breasts, and a tendency to name people things like ‘Driller’?”

Gil Thorp, 1/29/09

Of course, Central has an incredible home-court advantage. Playing basketball on a court with four-foot ceilings does limit the number of home fans who can come and cheer, but for teams unused to such conditions, the stooped, simian lope that they make necessary can be a real distraction — one that the permanently hunched over Bobcats can exploit.

I’m not sure what the two clowns standing behind Marty are up to — trying to get their faces on the radio? That’s not how it works, guys — but I sincerely hope that the blond-haired glasses-wearing dude is making the universal jerk-off motion with his left hand, as he appears to be.

Blondie, 1/29/05

I strongly disapprove of the set-up for this joke. Dagwood can’t possibly be much older than, say, 50; obviously anyone born after 1960, when asked by a child if some common, century-old device were available during their childhood, would respond not with “Yes, and yet I’m also going to offer a description of an archaic technology that will make me seem even more wizened to you,” but with “JESUS CHRIST ELMO HOW OLD DO YOU THINK I AM,” followed by some serious soul-searching and a series of inappropriate and regrettable music and clothing purchases.

Mary Worth, 1/29/09

“Yes, before I came to visit you, I never imagined the hatred and despair that lurked just beneath the besequined surface of this beautiful sport! Now every time I see a coach talking to a skater on TV, all I’ll be able to think of will be the many ways that each has been able to wound and disappoint the other over the years. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to finish my glass of blood as soon as possible and get the hell out of here before this little papered-over truce you’ve established inevitably collapses in tears and acrimony and slashing blades.”