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Spider-Man, 12/4/17

Guys, I’m gonna be blunt: I don’t think the Newspaper Spider-Man comic strip has a real solid sense of how “science” works. Like, I’m no biologist with a speciality in limbs myself, but I imagine Dr. Connors would be analyzing the genetic mechanisms that control limb regrowth in species like geckos, or maybe studying how limbs grow in embryos, say, then forming hypotheses about how those processes could be reproduced in an adult human. But, no, he apparently just brought a big cardboard box of bottles out to his swamp-lab. “One of them will help restore my lost arm! Vinegar? Liquid-Plumr? Pesto? I won’t stop guzzling down whatever’s in these bottles until my arm grows back!”

Blondie, 12/4/17

As we all know, Dagwood and Blondie spend most of their time sitting in the same room facing away from each other. They’re doing a little experiment to try to restore some emotional intimacy to their everyday lives by sharing the same piece of furniture, and it is not going well.

Dick Tracy, 12/4/17

We’re launching into a new Dick Tracy storyline this week, and it begins with Sam and Dick grousing about how they’re always at the beck and call of Diet Smith, wealthy inventor and supplier of cool cop gear, just because he’s rich. Sure, it’s fun to be a policeman and decide who lives and who dies, but our heroes are getting sick of being tools of capital. But will there still be a need for brutal police violence after the revolution? Don’t worry, boys: according to all of human history, yes!

Dennis the Menace, 12/4/17

Is this even … is there some menace happening here? This is just Henry leering at cheerleaders on TV. Not really sure if he’s watching Bring It On or the College Cheerleading Championship on ESPN, but the point is that daddy’s horny and Dennis knows it and he’s telling his mom about it. I guess the real question is, is there anything that isn’t menacing happening here? Even Ruff looks to be in a heightened state of unnatural arousal.

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Dick Tracy, 11/28/17

Dick Tracy is starting a new storyline this week, as usual bringing back beloved grotesqueries from the strip’s long history, and, you know, can you imagine how awkward it must be to have to make small talk in Mr. Bribery’s waiting room. “Sooooooooooo … your mom was called ‘Ugly Christine,’ huh? I guess there’s no real chance that was, like, ironic or anything, huh? Ha ha, obviously not. I mean, I’m the only black character in this strip and my name is ‘Lee Ebony.’”

Shoe, 11/28/17

Parallel evolution is an amazing process! It’s how animals as distantly related as the shark and the dolphin have come to look so much alike, and why the civilization of sapient birds in Shoe functions so much like our own. They have clothes, and corrective lenses, and even corporate media mouthpieces that cover for the crimes of the capital-holding class!

Family Circus, 11/28/17

Billy is definitely going to jail, right?

Mark Trail, 11/28/17

The sheriff is definitely going to feed all these people to the bear, right?

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Dick Tracy, 10/18/17

Awww, yeah, the Space Coupe is back! And maybe with it some of the batshit energy of the 1970s Dick Tracy — no more of this “fake Abe Lincoln audio recording” crap that was the focus of the recent storyline. I’m not sure if there are multiple Space Coupes or if this is the same one where villains from three years ago suffocated to death. Maybe this blue dude is some space alien who found their corpses and decided to joy ride their spaceship back to its planet of origin for a little light interplanetary conquest. Looks like he’s already discovered one of Earth’s finest products already: delicious tobacco! Like all spacecraft built in the ’70s, the Space Coupe came equipped with a designated Camel Containment Unit, to ensure that the mildness levels in the astronauts’ T-Zones didn’t drop to unhealthy levels.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/18/17

Man, that’s … not was doxxing is? Doxxing is when someone who was previously anonymous or pseudonymous online has their real identity revealed, or when you post personal contact information for someone who doesn’t want it posted. Posting fake news articles about someone is … well, it probably has some other dumb fake Internet word for it, but “doxxing” isn’t it. The future is stupider than anyone could’ve possibly predicted.

Marvin, 10/18/17

Look, we spend a lot of time dwelling on the poop jokes in Marvin, but there’s something else important about the strip to keep in mind, which is that over the past decade or so it’s expanded beyond the core Miller family to add new characters (grandparents, talking pets, grandparents’ talking pets), all of whom, without exception, are embedded in a mutual web of loathing for everyone who’s ever appeared in the strip.