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Dick Tracy, 7/4/18

Citizen! Share your Fourth of July with this steel-jawed law enforcer, literal red-headed stepchild, and alien halfbreed, arrayed before a monochrome American flag! Comply!

Crankshaft, 7/4/18

All week long, Ralph has been flirting with both myocardial infarction and Sandy here, to the dulcet strains of jazz classic I Can’t Get Started — doubly ironic because even if he does, there remains the matter of finishing.

P.S. In California we have fires, and our air really does look like that. I don’t know Ohio’s excuse.

Mary Worth, 7/4/18

Tommy and Brandy emerge from some kind of hostage drama, and the foreshadowing is thick: Tommy will demand sex on threat of murder, and Brandy will gladly opt for death: “Humanity, schumanity — a girl’s got to have standards!”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/4/18

Every year around this time I become insufferable on the subject of fireworks. Growing up, we had the good, real kind — the ones that fly, flash, and most of all explode. I once got arrested for pitching an M-80 into the lagoon at a public park, and I can’t say I regret it.

But now the runup to every Fourth of July brings a week of TV-news moralizing about how awful fireworks are and police BS about how THIS TIME the department will be REALLY SERIOUS about enforcement. The spokespeople are hilarious: “Yes of course we will totally send our officers charging into drunken parties in private backyards, risking their lives to keep lawbreakers from injuring themselves. It’s our top priority. Youuuuuu betcha.”

But the highlight is the late news on the Fourth itself, when every station stops their tut-tutting and backdrops the news desk with a live feed of the Oakland skyline — a lacework of smoke trails silhouetted against a sky lit bright as day. AMERICA, dammit!

Still and all, I wouldn’t put explosives in the hands of Hootin’ Holler’s most belligerent drunk.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Six Chix, 7/2/18

Panel 3: “Gastroenterologist”

Dick Tracy, 7/2/18

OK, I am legit super stoked about this story, partly because I’m just sure it’s going to catch us up on the Space Coupe of Doom last seen in 2013 heading to Jupiter carrying Mysta-fabricators Dr. Sail and Dr. Ghote in the hands of the solar system’s worst pilot. But mostly I’m stoked because I remember the Chester Gould Moon stories from the late ’60’s and early ’70’s, and that shit was lit, yo. So we’re all in for a treat, at least until Sawtooth, the Green Hornet, Blackjack, one or more of the Margies, the Brush, Posie Ermine, or any of the countless other loose ends turns up again.

Sherman’s Lagoon, 7/2/18

Assuming they can get Alberto the triton snail there to both get chomping and overcome his painful awkwardness with the lady snails, Sherman and Megan are going to save the Great Barrier Reef! Responsible stewards of a complex ecosystem, or selfish hoarders of their supply of edible tourists? You be the judge!

Hey, they’re Great Whites! Maybe they can help us choke down Walt Wallet!

Spider-Man, 7/2/18

“Wow, that one guy I never heard of is really that other guy I never heard of! This changes everything!”

Zits, 7/2/18

Ahem, young lady! Jack Dorsey, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk all wish to have a word with you. Mark Zuckerberg is strangely silent.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Dick Tracy, 6/20/18

Oh, right, so it turns out Sawtooth wasn’t at Rocky Horror for fun, but for work, his work being to bite Ygor Glitch to death, in a room that isn’t exactly brightly lit but is very crowded and probably if some dude had his throat suddenly torn open by some other dude’s metal teeth … I dunno, people would notice? Exactly how orgiastic and crazed does the Dick Tracy creative team think Rocky Horror showings are, anyway? Having been to one, I feel confident in saying that a particularly gruesome murder would draw some attention. What does ring true is that the Rocky Horror kids would snidely refer to Dick by the actually funny name of the in-universe comic strip about him, which was a thing that I had forgotten was a thing but is honestly great.

Hagar the Horrible, 6/20/18

Look, Hagar, I get that, after a hundred savage raids in your life, you’re bored with just stabbing people to death. But how many people have you managed to kill or paralyze by hurling them from the top of their own castles, while Eddie and the rest of your men go at it with their swords? Is this really the most efficient way to go about this?

Pluggers, 6/20/18

I’m pretty sure the plugger cat-man doesn’t have a wife? That may be why he looks so startled here. He’s never heard any of this before!