Post Content

(Hey! What’s with the new site design? What’s this business in the top menu about “membership?” Get all the info here!)

Hagar the Horrible, 1/9/17

The period in Western European history between the fifth and tenth century are often called the “Dark Ages,” though contemporary historians tend to push back on this. It’s true that social organization changed radically, in many ways for the more chaotic and violent, after the fall of Rome, and much of philosophy was lost to the Latin world; but technology continued advancing, with the stirrup and the horse collar only appearing in this period. Still, advanced concrete really was one of those things that people forgot how to make, vanishing from the West in the 5th century and not reappearing until the 14th, which makes this strip anachronistic. Maybe the newfangled poured stone was a (re)invention by this particular craftsman, who found himself promptly murdered by the local viking chieftain for annoying him, leaving Europe concreteless for hundreds of years to come.

This strip is also a great example of how character design can really screw with a visual gag. Lucky Eddy always wears a long robe (cloak?) that goes down to his ankles; logically it should have dragged through the wet cement, but instead it looks like he’s hopping and making cloak-sized holes.

Dennis the Menace, 1/9/17

In our previous discussion of “just what religion are the Mitchells, anyway?”, we settled on high church Episcopalian, probably, and I dunno, maybe this is a cultural stereotype, but I don’t think the Episcopalians are gonna be that upset by the idea of Heaven as having an eternal open bar.

Mary Worth, 1/9/17

Does Mary Worth understand sarcasm? Does she know that “Good luck with that!” is usually sarcastic? I can never tell with her. Anyway, I too wish Iris a non-sarcastic good luck! Good luck not thinking about Wilbur at all! It’s easy if you try!

Post Content

Dennis the Menace and Family Circus, 12/7/16

Happy Pearl Harbor Day, everybody, a day that will live in infamy, a day that went mostly ignored in the comics today, even though many of the old-man characters in various strips are anachronistically supposed to be World War II vets, something even Crankshaft is too young for, honestly. Anyway, these two panels taken together pose the question: what’s really menacing in this life? Is it Dennis’s wild and aggressive accusation that Mr. Wilson, a decorated war hero, was secretly in league with Tojo and the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere? Or is something more banal and yet ultimately more terrifying: that even the most dramatic and momentous events in human history can fade, in the course of just a single lifetime, into a misty half-memory that someone like Jeffy will only vaguely have a grasp on?

Dick Tracy, 12/7/16

The fact that the main villain in this Dick Tracy storyline’s name was “Selfy” and that he was obsessed with taking selfies was one of a jumble of ideas that were entertaining even when they didn’t quite gel with each other. It mostly got dropped over time, but it’s fun to bring it back in the end here, as Selfy attempts to take a murder-selfie that turns out to not be quite murder-y enough.

The Phantom, 12/7/16

Fool! The Phantom doesn’t pay high prices for cable or satellite service! He’s already got Internet access in the Skull Cave, and gets his TV via over-the-top streaming services of varying legality! He’s not held down by your rules! He’s … the Ghost-Who-Cuts-The-Cord!

Post Content

Dick Tracy, 12/5/16

It’s no secret that, once the days of Dick Tracy’s violent insanity ended in 2011 (with a storyline that concluded with a villain in a bondage mask being eaten alive by rats) and a new creative team took over, I stopped focusing much on the strip here, mostly because it just wasn’t such an object of sick fascination for me any more. There hasn’t been anything particularly dramatically different about the current plotline, yet somehow it’s really caught my imagination with its string of low-key absurdities as it shambled from “a mean Congresslady wants to put space aliens in concentration camps” to “a guy who can’t stop taking selfies is lying low at the zoo.” Anyway, today’s strip particularly tickled me, mostly because of Dick’s line in the first panel. “Another storage area? Who knew that zoos had so much stuff that they needed to store? When am I going to get to stop looking in areas where things are stored and start shooting people in the face?” Don’t worry, Dick, I’m pretty sure that getting cattle prodded in the back is very much something that the Major Crime Unit’s internal review board will be glad to let you get extremely trigger happy over!

Dennis the Menace, 12/5/16

Wow, Dennis the Menace turned into bondage porn so gradually we barely noticed!

Hi and Lois, 12/5/16

Wow, Hi and Lois turned into a crushingly realistic depiction of a couple exhausted by parenthood and slowly losing whatever residual affection they had for each other so gradually we barely noticed!

The Lockhorns, 12/5/16

Is this the first time we’ve seen the top of Leroy’s head? I don’t care for it. I don’t care for it at all.

Mary Worth, 12/5/16

[I run up the stairs and throw open the door to the rooftop]

[I’m on the roof of an apartment building in a dreary metropolis]

[It’s pouring rain]

[I run to the edge of the roof and with a great heave pull aside a huge tarp]

[Underneath it is an ancient-looking spotlight]

[I throw a huge switch on its side]

[electricity surges into it and huge shaft of light beams into the sky]

[something’s written on the spotlight, something that’s now visible across the city]

[everyone for miles around cranes their necks to read the message written on the clouds]

MARY WORTH IS ABOUT TO GIVE A FORTYSOMETHING WOMAN ADVICE ABOUT WHETHER IT’S OK TO FUCK A 25-YEAR-OLD.