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Dick Tracy, 10/23/18

The new-look Dick Tracy creative team loves to go to the strip’s 87-year-deep well for old favorite characters, but also introduce new ones, and since I’m still a defiant Dick Tracy Philistine after more than a decade of making fun of the strip, I have to check in with the invaluable Dick Tracy wiki to tell which I’m dealing with. That’s how I learned that Vitamin Flintheart has been in the strip since the ’40s, and that “In 1998, Vitamin was living in New York City, appearing in a production of Hamlet. He discovered his friend Dick Tracy, who was suffering from memory loss after eating tainted food on an airline,” a storyline that I’m devastated to have missed. Kandikane, meanwhile, is a recent addition, having been introduced in the last Vitamin storyline as a documentary filmmaker/candy cane obsessive who wanted to make a movie about the old fellow. Anyway, looks like he knocked her up! Just in case you wanted to think about May-December sex stuff involving Dick Tracy characters! Now you have to think about it! I have to think about it, so you have to think about it!

Six Chix, 10/23/18

I’m honestly going to be spending days mulling over the typography of the “At The Negative Commenters Association Meeting” sign. Why is “negative commenters” in a different font? Why are all the words all-capped except for “the”? Why is “at” in weird little extra box at the top of the sign? If this really were the Negative Commenters Association Meeting and that were really a sign letting you know where you were, wouldn’t that “at” be kind of weird and not-quite-right? Anyway, this is yet another Six Chix in honor of Unity Day 2018 (or, sorry #UnityDay2018), so good luck trying to figure out how this cartoon relates to bullying, at all! Oh, sorry does that make me a negative commenter? I don’t care! This cartoon is a baffling affront to the spirit of Unity Day 2018! (Please share this blog post on social media using the hashtag #BafflingAffrontToUnityDay2018)

Crankshaft, 10/23/18

Well, it looks like Crankshaft lost control of his bus on a rain-slicked hillside, killing him and all his passengers. Was his fiery death worth the suffering of all the innocent children who perished with him? Yes, yes it was.

Mary Worth, 10/23/18

At least someone around here understands the concept of consent.

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Shoe, 10/18/18

As a rule I hate Shoe strips set in fern bars where Shoe or the Perfersser hit on some sexy bird-woman and then wordplay happens, but I’m willing to make an exception in this case. First of all, notice that the Perfesser has his laptop open on the bar, showing that he’s spending his evening engaging in a little light embezzlement while throwing back a few cold ones. Then there’s the look of sudden urgency on his face, as if his opening line wasn’t meant as flirting it all, but something much darker. “Can you think of a way I can get the Treetops Tribune to reimburse me for $750 I lost at the dog track? Please, they’re gonna take my thumbs!”

Dick Tracy, 10/18/18

Oh man, it seems “Pauly” is some dude who looks significantly older than Dick Tracy, and yet is somehow seeking revenge for the death of his father, “Crutch,” who Dick Tracy probably killed. You can only see his face in the flashback-orb but I assume they called him “Crutch” because he was on crutches, and Dick gunned him down back in the early days of the strip when it was OK for a comics protagonist to be an open eugenicist. Anyway, since “this” turns out to be “failing to kill Dick Tracy, keeping his granddaughter and her friend safe, and getting killed yourself,” it’s not exactly the greatest act of revenge ever and you might not want to proudly proclaim it as such as you expire in your family enemy’s arms.

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Mary Worth, 10/17/18

Oh my god, it’s even better than I could’ve hoped: Mary is going to force emotional progress on Mr. Wynter by driving him to the pet shelter and browbeating him into adopting a pet while he begs her to stop! This is of course a terrible way to deal with a man’s sadness over a lost dog, simultaneously rushing the grieving process and belittling the specific bond he felt with his unique beloved pup. Honestly, though, my take is: why stop here? Why not just take things to their logical conclusion? Remember Saul’s devastation over the the loss of the love of his life? Why doesn’t Mary just drag him down to some adult education class that skews female — quilting? — and say “Maybe we can also cheer up a lonely widow or divorceé and make their day!” Saul will cling desperately to the side of the car, but with her persistence and surprising upper body strength, Mary will ensure that Saul loves again, whether he wants to or not.

Mark Trail, 10/17/18

A lot of people have been begging in the comments for me to check in on the Mark Trail storyline, which they’ve claimed is “exciting,” which, are you kidding me, it’s consisted entirely of Rusty and Mara having a weird, awkward conversation with “Backpack Guy” about which parts of this small Mexican town aren’t safe for two American tourist kids, one of whom is an obvious moron. However, I do of course need to present today’s strip to you, since it features the triumphant return of Extremely Cool Motorcycle Dude, who definitely seems to be from a different faction from Backpack Guy. Which of these two artifact-stealing-adjacent groups has Rusty and Mara’s best interests at heart? Is it neither of them? Can it please be neither of them? That’d be great.

Dick Tracy, 10/17/18

This Dick Tracy storyline has been remarkably short and low on character motivation — just a couple weeks after we’ve been introduced to Pauly and suddenly he’s a guy who’s always wanted to kill Dick Tracy, blah blah blah, now he and Dick are firing pistols at each other at close range and making no attempt to dive for cover or anything, etc., etc. Mostly I want to point out that Pauly looks like you put Dick and Sam together in the transporter pod from The Fly and turned the Color Palette knob all the way to “brown.”

Family Circus, 10/17/18

Today’s Family Circus features the Keane Kids staring at their parents’ increasingly passionate embrace, commenting upon, but not quite comprehending, the difference between the erotic bonds between the two adults and the filial bonds between parents and children. It’s the best panel they’ve presented us with in years!