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Dick Tracy, 6/11/14

Well, Dick Tracy is going to fully commit to this crossover with the defunct Little Orphan Annie, with added hint-references to, I guess, Alley Oop? Maybe? It’s a series of nesting nods to comics history that maybe a few dozen people are going to fully appreciate, and you know, you keep doing you, Dick Tracy creative team. I’m more interested in the idea that Annie has been kidnapped by/is hanging out with “The Butcher of the Balkans,” whoever that may be. According to Wikipedia, there are at least five people who have been graced with that nickname (and, side note, sucks to be your region if it merits that kind of Wikipedia disambiguation page); two of them are in jail for war crimes and three are dead, one of whom was subjected to some extreme measures to make sure he stayed that way. Is there another one waiting in the wings? What relationship does he have with the Warbucks family? Will uncomfortable questions come up about who made bucks selling weapons to both sides in the wars that killed tens of thousands when Yugoslavia broke up in the ’90s? Is someone going to have to write a lot more checks?

Gasoline Alley, 6/11/14

I wonder if we’re being asked to believe that (a) “awk” is a thing the Kids Today say when they mean “awkward” (do they? maybe! I try to avoid contact with the Kids Today whenever possible) and (b) that children who who have been depicted casually throwing around the word “fellers” would talk like the Kids Today? Either way, I’m much more unsettled by the parrot, who seems fully sapient and increasingly outraged that nobody seems to notice or care. “No! Not the blanket again … I can’t stand any more darkness! Why won’t you listen to me? Why can’t anyone understand what I say?”

Herb and Jamaal, 6/11/14

Looks like Rev. Croom is in some financial difficulty and is dodging his creditors! Fortunately, he’s found some biblical backing for his strategies.