Thursday is for big reveals
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Dick Tracy, 11/12/26
BIG REVEAL IN DICK TRACY: That weird tiny old man who gets carried around everywhere is a Marine who fought in a battle that took place 76 years ago, which means he’s in his early-to-mid 90s at this point. Presumably back then he was a weird tiny young man who got carried around everywhere, so I’m not sure how effective he was in combat. You’d think this big reveal would’ve been more appropriate for Veterans Day, but I guess Dick Tracy has agreed to cede that holiday to Pluggers, which I respect.
Mother Goose and Grimm, 11/12/26
The composition of this strip bothers me so much! Why do we need Grimm to say the title of the book, and Attila to react to it, when we can also see it printed on the cover? Like it should’ve been Grimm’s dialogue in panel two and then the visual of Ralph in panel three. That’s all you need! Maybe the artist thought, “Oh, I have to have him say it out loud, because some people only listen to the dialog and never read anything,” which doesn’t make sense but makes more sense than anything else.
Luann, 11/12/26
I decided to free myself from reading Luann daily around 2014, and then, for reasons I cannot really articulate, I decided to start inflicting it upon myself again in 2025. All sorts of horrible things happened during that lacuna, I’m sure, most of which I blessedly have no knowledge of, but I am vaguely aware that there was some tragic non-romance storyline between Bernice and a tortured artist type. I was not aware that there were sexy (?) shoes involved in her abortive seduction attempt, and I probably would’ve happily gone to my grave never knowing, but now I will always be cursèd by this particular bit of knowledge. I wouldn’t have bought shoes with that backstory either, mysterious off-panel stranger!
Alice, 11/12/26
BIG REVEAL IN ALICE: That email that Alice was waiting for? It was a thank-you email! STAKES: RAISED
34 replies to “Thursday is for big reveals”
Alice cartoonist, why do you assume the recipient of Alice’s gift needs etiquette training? Maybe s/he just really doesn’t like Alice! Worth considering!
JP: So you can see why it was *such* a good thing for you to come here at this time, Ms. Another-Mouth-to-Feed!
RMMD: [‘The More You Know’ music]
CS: You can see why it’s such a tragedy that this beloved business is going under. Who wouldn’t want to shop here for all their artistic needs?
DT: Okay, great, but I still don’t know what “well-spotted” means.
JP …. so when our Rich Heiress buddy calls up wanting to come stay, well, did we discuss rent?
Mary Worth: Watch out, Pfizer! Mary’s “Choose Happiness” advice is going to put your new PRISTIQ® anti-depressant out of business before it gets started. Because, as everyone knows, depression resolution is just a trite platitude away.
Alice’s etiquette emporium n’ auto dealership is opening for business! First client: Gearhead Gertie.
Mother Goose and Grimm-Appropriate since the voice actor for the Pillsburt Doughboy has recently died.
MW-The past is only bad if you remember it that way.
Dick Tracy:
” ‘Well-spotted’? What does that mean?”
“Well, it means that there are lots of spots on it.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks!”
Alice is doing it wrong! Newspaper comics is not about complaint about specific people (someone who is rude to you), they are about tarring entire social groups (generational, professional, implicitly racial) with things that irritate you! Read “Pluggers” to learn how to do it!
H&L: Why the annoyed look, Lois? The plan is both sensible and altruistic.
GT: Gerads is a wild-eyed lunatic, as are many of his team members’ parents. Isn’t anyone concerned about this?
“Old soldiers never die, detective!”
“Challenge accepted!”
CS So this _isn’t_ an elaborate use-the-last-inventory-then-order-as-needed Dementia Village setup to keep Battom going?
Dick Tracy:
“And I’m used to having my head drawn to resemble a parallelogram, soldier. Doesn’t mean I like it, either!”
@MKay: re: GT – it’s not clear that anyone can see that, given that they’re hampered by being poorly-drawn artwork themselves. It’s just rude to draw attention to something that could be just the bad drawing!
Mary Worth:
“When you’re a crone and life is making you homely
You can always go
Downtown”
— Petula Clark (adapted)
“But I don’t have a car, Ms. Clark.”
— Nelly Feneley
“Well, then, take Uber or Lyft, you nimrod!”
— Ms. Clark
Frazz goes with The Man in the Arena theme. What is good about it is the kid recognizing that it’s hard to be a good critic. I knew someone who tried to emulate Patrick Reusse, an acerbic Twin Cities sportswriter, by writing nasty things about people. Reusse is talented in his takedowns. My friend wasn’t.
Mary Worth: “I was making progress in my journey toward happiness, but I had a relapse when I looked out my window and saw you giving a hand job to that disgusting old man.”
DT: Born too late for your mysterious old man to be a WWII vet, born too early for your mysterious old man to be a Vietnam War vet, born just the right time for your mysterious old man to be a veteran that I’d guess 80% of the population don’t know anything about and 95% of the population couldn’t name a single individual battle from.
MG&G: The title of The Sun Also Rises is a pretty transparent reference to its main character’s war-induced impotence. So… sorry to the Pillsbury Doughboy, I had no idea.
MG and G:
“Ralph’s onto another title from his discount book club.”
“What’s this one?”
“It has an intriguing title: The Ambient Weirdness of Celine Dion!”
Dick Tracy : I think they held off on the discussion of Mr Wodehouse being a veteran because HE’S THE VILLAIN, and I guess they felt depicting a veteran as being one of the evil deformed criminals Dick Tracy kills was a bad look, even if said veteran clearly is not meant to represent ALL veterans (most veterans are not diminutive ventriloquist dummies, for starters).
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Frazz : Yeah, sure, Caufield, you hate being a critic and saying negative things about people/stuff. You definitely don’t spend all year mocking a person behind their backs (even when YOU’RE the one who’s blatantly wrong).
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Luann :
a) It’s funny because this person who’s all “I CAN’T IMAGINE PARTING WITH A PRIZED POSSESSION! EVERYTHING IS PRECIOUS” was someone who, less than three months ago, was persuaded she was going to move out of her home into a broom closet with her boyfriend. The Dream never mentioned any storage space available to residents, Luann.
b) I know I’ll take flak for this, because I’m defending Luann for being a dumbass, but Bernice shouldn’t be all “GO BACK TO YOUR HOME AND MAKE SURE I NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN” to the person who’s taking her in now that her parents kicked her out. She’s very lucky Luann’s parents like her better than their own daughter, and that Luann has no say in this
mostly because she’s spineless, otherwise when Bernice returned to the DeGroots she’d find ANOTHER “take whatever you want at whatever price, it’s all going to the trash otherwise” lawn sign with all the stuff she brought with her, with Luann saying “find another place to stay”.c) Why is Bernice so eager to get rid of ALL her stuff, anyway? Does she REALLY need the money, or do the DeGroots really not have the room? I mean, why is she angry at having to keep some of it? Why isn’t he just taking the “I don’t really need to go through with this garage sale, the garbagemen will haul it all away next week” attitude?
….So many words about FRIGGIN’ LUANN, and not one on Josh’s subject (Bernice’s non-romance with Nil where I *THINK* it was implied he was gay/Bi?)…Crankshaft: “Wait a minute! You want me to spend good money stocking up my shelves in the expectation that somebody’s going to just wander in here and suddenly want it? Are you nuts? Listen, look around, see what I’ve got, buy some of it, and get the hell out of here! Sheesh, customers!“
MG and G:
“By the way, the Doughboy has been dosing on Ozempic. Now he looks like Bill the Cat from Bloom County!”
Judge Parker: “Financial problems started to weight on us…” “Until I discovered OnlyFans and she discovered sleeping with men for pay!”
Traced Dicky:
Tiny Old Man would be the perfect size for a ball turret gunner on a B-24 in WWII, though.
“The Death Of A Ball Turret Gunner” would be a completely different comedy poem if you visualise him dodging around in the turret with FW-190 bullets missing him by millimetres.
@Anonymous:
When Null was first introduced, he was in Zebu’s class and literally the only one to call Zebu’s bullshit what it was. The Evansii, as usual, forgot their own character story and suddenly he turned into an art type as pretentious as any.
@Pozzo:
Lots of melanoma lesions all over?
@Pozzo: I guess it means “Well done, Detective (and readers)! You spotted my Marines tattoo and correctly concluded I was once in the service.” Except a) the tattoo reveal was so long ago in real time that a lot of people probably already forgot it and b) it was never implied that was supposed to be all that great of a secret, so.
Luann: To be fair those shoes do look like something Matt Bellamy would wear on stage.
MG&G: Oh come on, we already have people reacting to bad puns in place of an actual punchline in Crankshaft, don’t you start!
MG&G — “Oh, Grimm, we could have had such a d*mned good comic together.”
“Yes, isn’t it pretty to think so?”
Alice: Just another day for Alice in MildAnnoyanceland
@Ettorre: Lately it seems newspaper comics are about authors working through their grievances, personal traumas, mental health issues, and sexual fetishes (looking at you, Luann — also you, Judge Parker).
The tiny man looks like he should at least be able to afford a manicure so those unkempt nails are a brazen choice.
***
Well, Luann? We’re waiting. What’s the great story behind those shoes?
@Baja Gaijin: Yeah, once in a while Mary Worth descends from idiocy (telepathic dogs, move in with your adult children) to something potentially very dangerous to some segment of the readers. Today’s “depression is a choice (subtext: so it’s your own fault)” is firmly in the latter category.
C’shaft: Look. Either the manufacturer is still in business, in which case you can see about placing a bulk order directly through them, or they went under, in which case there’s probably a Reddit filled with artists who are discussing good substitutes. Even with the enshittification of the internet, it’s not that difficult.
MW: It’s been said that while a child who has lost their parents is an orphan and a person who has lost their spouse is a widow/er, there is no word for a parent who has lost a child because that grief is too great to be encompassed by mere language. Unless you’re Mary Worth, who just suggests “Have you tried not being sad about it?”
Pluggers are a walking disaster area.
RMMD: “Besides, you do know that most thrift stores are non-profit organizations which often assist people in need, and in buying from them you support that mission, right?”
My own experience suggests that reading slower aids comprehension. Shy Starlight
@Tabby Lavalamp:
What’s the great story behind those shoes :
So, at one point, the Evansii decided to transfer “Jack and Nil are potential love interests” onto Bernice for some reason, even though she had never met them before. When she was dating Nil, she stole a kiss, went all “I’M A MONSTER I VIOLATED HIS CONSENT” over it, drafted a gigantic list of all the “no touching ever” rules she was setting for their continuing relationship (though she immediately started breaking all of them, because the whole thing was obviously about how her sole turn-on in the relationship was the idea that it was forbidden and clandestine), Nil eventually went “Bernice, I don’t see you as a girlfriend, you’re my muse”, and Bernice threw together this hideous “hippie” outfit for the role (including the shoes featured here), pranced around like an idiot, Nil’s actual partner showed up (they were named “Frédérique” or some such, hence why I wondered if Nil was meant to be gay/bi) and was all “what’s with her?” and Nil was all “she’s a moron, I’m not with her”.