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Mary Worth, 5/20/24

Yeah, sorry I didn’t talk about Wilbur making a beautiful flowered coffin for his dead fish Stellan Sunday, but I just sort of stared at it for a little bit and couldn’t process it properly, so I’m glad I have a chance to reassess today. Anyway, pretty fucked up, huh? Ha ha! My dad had a fish tank when I was a kid and over several years we got more and more fish and upgraded to bigger and bigger tanks. Obviously fish died over time but I don’t really remember us doing anything special for them; I assume we probably just flushed them or threw them out, and we had so many fish that even though you would get attached to individuals there were enough that losing one wasn’t a huge tragedy. Then one day we went to our usual fish store and there was a real crazy looking fish in there and we were like “What is this?” and the guy was like “Just got it in, honestly couldn’t tell you” and we bought it and over the next few weeks it ate all the other fish and then died. Not sure how my dad dealt with that, since the horror ended when I was at my mom’s, but I bet he didn’t give it a big funeral either, even though by that time it was definitely too big to flush. Anyway, tune in over the course of this week to see if I have any other vaguely topical anecdotes to help us all forget about the nightmare of what Wilbur is doing!

Curtis, 5/20/24

On Twitter, once, I saw a guy do an entirely earnest tweet thread about how Silicon Valley disrupted old-fashioned, conformist business uniforms like suits and ties for a more comfortable and unique aesthetic, illustrated by pictures of multiple fiftysomething dudes wearing identical chinos-and-fleece-vests. Anyway, I just want to note that the stuffy shirt and tie were a casual alternative to more formal codes of dress once, and in the Curtis-ruled future, a baseball hat tipped jauntily just so will be a requirement for entry into polite society, to be worn at all times.

Beetle Bailey, 5/20/24

Yeah, man, usually when someone gets arrested, they are in big trouble. That’s a good observation, Killer, thanks for keeping us informed.

Alice, 5/20/24

Alice, you were kidnapped by aliens last week! That seems like a pretty big deal or at least a conversation starter.

Tina’s Groove, 5/20/24

I’m a 49-year-old man and my entire life I’ve assumed that a “halfway house” is called that because it represents a way station halfway up the path between your troubled past and the better future that you’re working towards. Does it … does it not mean that. Is getting closer to one bad in this metaphor. Do you want to go all the way down to zero, so you have no house at all. I gotta go lie on the couch quietly for a while.

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Daddy Daze, 5/13/24

One of the most fascinating and bonkers “big ideas” books of the ’70s was The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, which posited that before about 800 BC, human beings weren’t “conscious” in the way that we now understand it and were not capable of introspection, but instead perceived decisions formed in one part of their mind as hearing “commands” from a “god” telling them what to do. While I do not actually believe this theory as an explanation for human consciousness and the beginning of civilization as we know it, I do think it explains what’s going on in Daddy Daze, as the Daddy Daze daddy engages in an endless series of unhinged philosophical discussions with his “infant son” (actually the other hemisphere of his bicameral mind, which rather than guiding him instead torments him with a series of playfully deranged falsehoods).

Alice, 5/13/24

Ruh-oh! Looks like those aliens have successfully kidnapped Alice and trapped her in a featureless, silent void. Realizing that their captive needs some sensory stimulation, they’ve decided to let loose with a little “swing”! (“Swing Music”: A musical style that was popular from the late 1920s – 1940s, big thanks to the King Features editorial intervention that explains the least confusing thing about this entire comic.)

Arctic Circle, 5/13/24

That sky is bright blue and it’s clear the sun is out. That poor vampire you woke up is going to vaporize in mere seconds! You monsters!

Mary Worth, 5/13/24

Guess we need to rephrase this: time to eat Stellan and Willa!

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Alice, 4/15/24

I’m happy to report that, sine I started reading Alice a few weeks ago, I have fallen thoroughly, 100% under its spell. This strip takes perfectly ordinary situations, like when you receive parrot medicine from beloved novelist and short story writer Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) but are then unable to give it to your parrot because it flies away, and turns them into delightfully surreal episodes. Ha ha, that parrot does not want to take that medicine! Also Alice (?) is … flying? And her head …. looks like that? Anyway! Alice, I don’t fully “get it” but I’m keenly interested to see what it’s doing next!

Crock, 4/15/24

Look, man, I get what you’re going for here and it’s basically cute and whimsical, but maybe don’t have your characters stumble upon a field of hacked-off human extremities rotting in the desert sun if your comic set is against the backdrop of grinding colonial insurgency, OK? Just … trust me on this one.

The Phantom, 4/15/24

So this current Phantom storyline, it turns out, is about Kit Jr. joining the Ghost Who Walks on one of his adventures, so we can all find out if he really has it what it takes to step up, become the 22nd Phantom, the ultimate jungle warrior and seemingly immortal crime fighter, and fulfill the destiny he was born and bred for. Anyway, turns out he definitely does not have what it takes! He’s just going to get strangled with a chain by some low-level henchman wearing a tank top, because he wasn’t paying attention, like a dumbass.