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Family Circus, 8/16/12

There’s something I find incredibly creepy about the two twin droplets of fluid in this panel — one of them dribbling from Barfy’s tongue, the other running down the side of Jeffy’s face. The similarity between the two seems to hold some hidden meaning, beyond just “This is what a drop of liquid looks like in a cartoon.” Perhaps the key is the unsettlingly knowing look that Barfy is giving Jeffy. The dog seems to be staring straight into the child’s eyes, and assuring him that the two of them are very much alike, that everything that Jeffy has feared and hoped his whole life is true: they may look different and one sweats while the other pants and they walk on different sets of limbs, but the two of them are a genuine pack. “Jeffy, I am your true brother,” Barfy says, in Jeffy’s mind. “These humans, they will never understand you, never love you, like I can. Come, let us run away together, off into the distance. Let’s go poop on somebody’s else’s lawn. You will know true freedom.”

Dick Tracy, 8/16/12

I know I don’t cover Dick Tracy like I used to, but that’s because the new creative team has jettisoned the combination of head-scratching insanity and brutal violence that always drew me to it. Still, I do feel a need to point that they still know how to keep it real! Like, “nurse Dick back to health and then slowly drain his blood” real.

Ziggy, 8/16/12

Haha, someone at Ziggy central sure has some kind of beef with the global financial system! Call me a tool of capitalism if you will, but can’t we all agree that Ziggy is clearly incompetent to run any aspects of his life and maybe his bank should be running his finances for him?

Hi and Lois, 8/16/12

Never has so much entirely justified contempt for two whiny, hapless children been written so eloquently on a noseless, expressionless face.

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Dick Tracy, 7/6/12

So the new Dick Tracy writer-artist team of Joe Stanton and Mike Curtis have been on the job for more than a year now, and I haven’t been discussing the strip here as often as I did in its previous iteration, mostly because the art is pretty good and the plots are no longer marked by incomprehensible dream-like lunacy punctuated by horrific violence. If I have one major criticism, it’s that so much of the plots seem to have been aimed at assembling all of the strip’s classic villains into one overarching criminal syndicate, which has gotten a bit tiresome to those of us not up on eighty years of Tracy lore. But over the past few week’s the assembled baddies have been caught up in an epic gunfight as Tracy and the cops bust in to make arrests, with a fair amount of carnage ensuing.

Which makes me wonder — what if the last 15 months have just been carefully putting all the pieces of the storied Dick Tracy rogues gallery in place just so they can all be killed in a crazed, botched police raid? And then the new team can say “Ha ha, this strip is ours now, we’re going to make up all sorts of new crazies?” Probably won’t happen, but it would amuse me. Plus I kind of want to see this Indonesian action film called The Raid about a police raid on a huge gang-controlled high-rise tower that goes horribly wrong (here’s the trailer, but be warned that it’s crazy violent) but in practice I probably don’t have the stomach for that much movie violence so maybe this Dick Tracy is as close as I’m going to actually tolerate.

Judge Parker, 7/6/12

Wow, for once things are not going right for our wealthy Judge Parker heroes! They’re being tailed by marijuana farming hoodlums, their fishing lodge is a dump, their reservations never went through, and the proprietress is going to assault them with a hammer at any moment. Don’t worry, though, there are still breasts, so the world makes some sort of sense.

Mark Trail, 7/6/12

If you need more evidence that Mark Trail plots are recycled from another era, imagine a contemporary American parent sending their child (or hideously ugly ward, in this case) off into the wilderness to go take some pictures of sheep. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of it, because children need to learn more self-reliance than this modern crop is picking up, plus “Rusty in danger” plots are extremely hilarious.

Apartment 3-G, 7/6/12

“So, it’s completely safe, when competent people do it, but it’ll be really dangerous with me in charge. Lemme just scan the entry for it on WebMD and then let’s get started!”

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Dick Tracy, 7/4/12

Oh, what’s that, Communist? You’re just a little too busy on this July 4th Freedom America day to admire the US flag? Dick Tracy would like to have some words with you. He’s in the middle of a bloody shootout with Mr. Crime’s gang, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have time to find an enormous American flag and salute it! Those explosions behind him aren’t fireworks; they’re actual gunfire. Dick Tracy won’t let mortal danger get in the way of his patriotism!

Funky Winkerbean, 7/4/12

How great is America? So great that everyone, even non-human primates, are trying to gain entry by any means necessary.

Luann, 7/4/12

Not that we should just open the floodgates to baboons, or, worse, Australians. Luann and Quill finally advanced from endless flirting to light making out, and within minutes, the U.S. government moved to deport his entirely family, making sure that he keeps his filthy foreign paws off of virtuous American girls.

Mary Worth, 7/4/12

Meanwhile, Wilbur has only been out of America’s nourishing atmosphere for a few days, and already he’s degenerating into a sadistic monster. “Imagine the history of this place! Gladiators stood here thousands of years ago, savagely murdering one another, or attacking innocent victims persecuted for their political or religious beliefs, or being torn to pieces by wild beasts … all for my amusement! I can almost smell the blood!”

Hi and Lois, 7/4/12

Back home, the Flagstons clearly believe that America’s independence is best celebrated as far from their fellow Americans as possible.