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Blondie, 1/24/18

This strip definitely has the smell of a scenario that was jury-rigged to fit a predetermined punchline. Like, “Ha, wouldn’t it be funny if Mr. Dithers watched Dagwood napping on the couch via Facebook Live? But wait, why would Dagwood be home? Is he playing hooky? But if so why would Blondie film him? He took the day off, I guess!” But still, I think this has produced a genuinely hilarious scenario, in which Dagwood, who is of course infamous for napping at work, took a day off just so he could nap at home. In conclusion, I hope Facebook paid for this product placement, because I hate to see syndicated comics just promoting other people’s brands for free. If they don’t pay up, call it Pacelook or Pacebook or whatever!

Dick Tracy, 1/24/18

A good thing to do if you’re sending someone deep undercover into a criminal gang is to give them a communications device only available to the police, which broadcasts audio so that anyone can hear it, and then say your undercover officer’s real name super loud if you just hear garbled talk through the speaker, almost as if they’re talking to somebody else!

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Dick Tracy, 1/21/18

Dick Tracy is one of the lucky few sci-fi-ish franchises that have run so long that they’ve seen real life overtake their signature gee-whiz future tech. Just as Star Trek’s 1960s-era communicators look ludicrously bulky compared to the actual communication devices of the year 2018, Dick Tracy’s signature wrist wizards are basically everyday technology in the ’10s. Whatever advantages they have in sleekness (presumably they don’t need to sync to a cell phone) or style (is that an analog clock taking up a good quarter of its UI?), they lose a million points for subtlety, especially if, for instance, they’re being used by an police officer working deep undercover within the criminal apparatus. It looks like T-Bolt (actual name “Lee Ebony,” and I’ll leave it up to you as to which is more cringeworthy) should’ve just used a burner phone from 7-11 like a normal person.

Gasoline Alley, 1/21/18

Hey, uh, do the first two panels in the second row imply what I think they’re implying? Gasoline Alley HQ is going to find itself on the receiving end of a Blue Lives Matter protest in short order if so.

Panel from Slylock Fox, 1/21/18

Oh, snap, sexists, I bet you failed to figure out this mystery because you forgot that girls can be gamers too! This is like that “the surgeon was his mother” riddle, but updated for our current era (our current era, it goes without saying, is extremely stupid).

Spider-Man, 1/21/18

Finally, after months of build-up, it’s time for the super-powered battle between Spider-Man and the Lizard that we’ve been waiting for! [one panel later] Ah, well, uh, let’s see if the Hulk can handle this.

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Dick Tracy, 1/17/18

So, just to remind you of the ongoing antics in the Dick Tracy Moon Maid plot: Glenna Ermine, daughter of flower-themed gangster Posie Ermine, was surgically and psychologically altered so that she looks like, and for a while believed herself to be, the deceased Moon Maid, daughter of the Governor of the Moon and Dick Tracy’s daughter-in-law, and now Ermine and the Governor (side note: who’s governing the moon in the Governor’s absence? Is there a Lieutenant-Governor of the Moon???) have broken into Diet Smith’s heavily guarded compound where Glenna, who now understands her origins and refers to herself as Mysta Chimera, lives. Anyway, if you thought that being held incommunicado in a research facility run by a defense contractor was a bad deal or something, today’s strip should disabuse you of that notion, since you can see that Mysta is free to relax and grill some burgers outside in the freezing Neo-Chicago winter anytime she wants!

Blondie, 1/17/18

Ahh, you know the old saying, “History is written by the winners, and then taught to the children by people who come across as ‘nice,’ but the children can’t help but sense the elided stories of the conquered and exterminated that lie beneath the sunny tales of victory, and so they and their adult friends who maybe they spend more time with than is healthy end up staring blankly out across the snowy landscape, unable to express the gnawing feeling of absence that underlies everything they know.”

Spider-Man, 1/17/18

Looks like Doctor Connors should’ve had one more bottle in his box o’ potential-arm-regrowing potions: a bottle of Hulk blood! All’s well that ends well, unless his new arm gets angry for some reason.

Pluggers, 1/17/18

Plugger multitasking: a plugger can simultaneously operate a manual-shift truck that would baffle an elitist city-dweller, exacerbate his incipient diabetes, and promote his favorite #brands.