Post Content

Blondie, 10/16/14

Amphetamine variants, across a socioeconomic scale running from meth to Adderall, are often used as productivity drugs: they focus the mind and, in the short term, make it easier for you to do work, especially work you don’t particularly want to do. By rejecting his friend’s offer of a little illicit worktime pick-me-up, Dag emphasizes his commitment to decadent leisure: as with food, his interest in drugs is entirely sensual, not utilitarian.

Spider-Man, 10/16/14

Last week Doc Ock skittered off from his penthouse lair to go enjoy the work of his earthquake machine … somewhere … else? “Somewhere else” turned out to be just straight-up chilling on his couch, presumably in a different lair, while his tentacles dangle forlornly, waiting for the artificial earthquake that never comes. Is he supposed to be watching TV? I bet he’s supposed to be watching TV. Everyone in this strip is always watching TV, all the time, and if there isn’t one there when you need it, it’ll just sort of appear, conveniently.

Marvin, 10/16/14

It’s pretty impressive that, in a strip whose punchline is that Marvin’s family is in such constant terror of his poops that everyone keeps careful track of his digestive velocity, the most unsettling part is actually his smug little smile in panel three. “That’s right, my bowel movements are so vile my own grandfather refuses to deal with them! Heh heh.”

Dennis the Menace, 10/16/14

The Mitchells have done the math and figured out that they can afford to meet their legal obligations as parents without interacting emotionally with their son at all! Look at them, smiling to themselves and not even making eye contact with him. Someone just found out what true menacing really is.

Archie, 10/16/14

Based on the sad, reverent way Jughead has doffed his cap, I’m going to assume that Archie died in the ring.

Post Content

Archie, 9/11/14

If Mr. Lodge really wanted to make sure Archie didn’t damage any of his delicate artworks, he could’ve, say, just moved his precious crystal spheroid more than an elbow’s length away from the chair where he seats his clumsiest guests! Or, instead, he could just construct an elaborate cage around said chair, so Archie can see the delicate orb and know that he probably would’ve broken it if not for Mr. Lodge’s draconian measures. He forgives and doesn’t forget and also has the sort of wealth and copious free time that allows him to implement elaborately passive-aggressive retaliatory measures, is what I’m saying.

Blondie, 9/11/14

Good lord, Dagwood, you see Lou pretty much every workday of your life, and yet you still can’t recognize when he’s trying to initiate an erotic role-play scenario. It’s like you don’t even know who he is, after all these years.

Momma, 9/11/14

Hello! If you’re a fan of Momma’s unsettling sexual undertones but have finally had enough of the Oedipal angle, might I recommend today’s strip, in which Francis and his sister obliquely discuss venereal disease?

Post Content

Spider-Man, 9/9/14

It does seem a little sad that, in order to find a foe worthy of Newspaper Spider-Man’s capabilities, the strip creators have had to pick a character out of the deep Spider-Man rogues gallery who’s literally a moron. I do like the Ox-eye’s view in panel two, in which Spidey attempts to physically draw the information out of his bewebbèd foe. In panel three, our hero expresses shock that someone in the criminal underground wouldn’t want to freely give out his name.

Archie, 9/9/14

I’m truly enjoying the emotional roller-coaster our hapless fast food employee is on here, from glum sadness to eye-twitching rage. Remember, advertising isn’t just business-to-consumer communications (B2C, as we say in the biz); it’s also business-to-business, or B2B! Join the fast-paced world of fast-food franchising, where you can serve delicious burgers to customers who are as attractive as these handsome actors! The sour looks all around in the final panel are a sad commentary on the web of mutual deceit on which modern consumer culture is built.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/9/14

Isn’t this charming! The mysterious millionaire who creepily wears widow’s weeds at all times and her thuggish henchman have brought these children to a windowless warehouse corridor in a dangerous neighborhood! GOOD PARENTING DECISIONS BY THE MORGANS, AS PER USUAL.

Blondie, 9/9/14

Anthropologists tend to see distinctions between societies that enforce rules of social conduct based on guilt and those that enforce them based on shame. They should probably study wherever it is Dagwood came from, since he is clearly capable of neither.