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Archive: Dick Tracy

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Dick Tracy to close the case on the housing bubble (with hot lead)

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Dick Tracy, 6/7/17

Ugh, remember how the last Dick Tracy storyline started out with low-stakes cosplay grifting perpetrated by three women named Margie and then took a hard right turn into baffling anti-Semitism? Well, we’re going to just ride that level of discomfort straight into this new storyline, where beloved Dick Tray ancillary character B.O. Plenty, last seen siring a hideous nightmare-baby, I think, gets evicted from his haunted home after having failed to pay the mortgage on it.

Spider-Man, 6/7/17

Mole-Man’s “He’s vowed to do so!” in panel one is endearingly naive and is perhaps indicative that he wasn’t devious enough to maintain political power in the underground realm. Lots of politicians vow to do things before they enter office — cut taxes, fix health care, conquer and enslave the surface dwellers, whatever — but often move those goals to the back burner once they’re confronted with the realities of governance. MJ’s observation in panel three is on the mark and further evidence of Mole-Man’s diplomatic incompetence: if he had access to an immortality serum, surely he could’ve opened trade negotiations with the world above and at least gotten some windows installed in the earth’s crust to let a little sunlight through.

Hi and Lois, 6/7/17

“I hope Mother Earth, the metaphorical embodiment of our planet’s ecosystem as a nurturing parent, doesn’t get jealous of my actual mother, who’s rocking a hot bikini bod and making everybody horny” –an infant in an actual comic published in newspapers around the country

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This … is Chicago, right? I’m just gonna keep assuming that

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Dick Tracy, 5/31/17

I freely admit that I don’t understand even a little what exactly Dick Tracy is doing with this “the Margies are all named Margie and it’s cute and they committed some mild CosplayCon grifting and also HARBOR AN UNREASONING HATRED OF THE JEWS” plot. I will say that Margie’s “I know how your people work, Catchem,” doesn’t ring true to me. First of all, everyone knows it’s “you people,” and second of all, most anti-Semites who “know how you people work” would probably assume that the sinister Jews are pulling the strings from behind the scenes, probably in a bank somewhere, rather than getting their hands dirty as beat cops. And yet isn’t that just any despised minority’s dilemma? Nothing will be good enough for those who hate you. Sam Catchem wanted so badly to be accepted as an ordinary Neo-Chicago police officer that he dresses like a damn leprechaun, for God’s sake, and still he catches this kind of abuse from the Margies of the world.

Hi and Lois, 5/31/17

Ha ha, it’s funny because depression is quite common amongst older people, especially if, like Mr. Wavering, they don’t have a partner, but Trixie is too naive to understand this!

Mary Worth, 5/31/17

I know we’re pretty deeply committed to the Katie-Derek-Esmé love triangle plot right now, but, you know, if Toby were to accidentally purchase a cursèd Mayan artifact as a souvenir and bring it back to Charterstone, leaving a trail of gruesome, mysterious deaths her wake, I certainly wouldn’t object.

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He’s not even using binoculars! He’s just that good

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Blondie, 5/24/17

I gotta respect today’s Blondie: at first I thought it was going to try to go back to the well of “Oh no, the scientific classifications of objects in our solar system have changed since I was a child, and I have not gotten over it despite the fact that it happened literally more than a decade ago.” But then it took a sharp turn into much less explored territory: ever since the turn of the millennium, all of what we perceive as our “existence” is really a vast computationally generated simulacrum that we can dimly understand by thinking about our own crude social networks. What is a planet? What is real? The only ones who know are those who set the rules for our reality — and those rules, and their makers, are utterly inscrutable to us.

Dick Tracy, 5/24/17

Meanwhile, Dick and the Major Crimes Unit are closing in on the Margies, who are not only mid-level cosplay convention grifters but also, apparently, anti-Semitic vandals? Ugh. Anyway, all Dick Tracy trufans are going to be thrilled when Dick cracks this case using one of his most beloved and widely known skills: satchel recognition at a distance.

Judge Parker, 5/24/17

Wow, Abby’s dad shaves and puts on a nice suit when he poses for a photo with his secret family. But when he’s just chillin’ at home, arguing with his real wife about his infidelities, he grows a gross mustache and wears a collared shirt on top of another collared shirt for some reason. Sad!