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Josh Fruhlinger started this blog as a hobby in 2004; now thousands of people read it every day to get a chuckle from comics they’ve followed since childhood. Twice a year, I encourage readers to join me in financial support of the Comics Curmudgeon, to help keep this fine entertainment going.

Click the banner above to contribute by credit card or PayPal. Full details (and an index to the fundraiser banners) here. Thank you!

And while you wait for your generous offshore wire transfer to slip beneath the radar of the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, please enjoy this Comics Curmudgeon exclusive, Random Dick — the Dick Tracy Continuity Randomizer:

Dick Tracy values continuity even less than the so-called Rights of the Accused. Can you find any differences between a regular Dick Tracy strip and a random collection of panels? Let’s find out!

Dick Tracy, 7/22 — 9/18/10 (panels)*

Enjoy!

— Uncle Lumpy

* Random Dick may not work in some browsers and RSS readers. If you can’t see it or it runs too slowly, please use the fast large-format version at this link instead.

Notes: OK, it’s not completely random: strips are assembled from one randomly-selected “Dick Tracy” panel, one “Other Person” panel, and one “Building or Object” panel, and then presented in random order. Many thanks to young codemaster Spiff Lumpy for scripting, html, and debugging.

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Mark Trail, 8/28/10

Oh, he’s going into politics! That explains the giant fence. He’s not building some kind of private hunting preserve; he’s planning on running for office on the always popular “let’s round them up and put them into concentration camps” platform. The fence is his tribute to America’s can-do spirit. We don’t need wasteful government agencies like FEMA to build our internment compounds for us! Private enterprise can do it more efficiently! Look, I’ve already managed to imprison my wife and ugly little stepdaughter, and some dumb baby deer they adopted!

Note where Cherry picked up this juicy bit of gossip: at the hair salon. Remember when Cherry went to get her hair done, four months ago? You probably thought Jack Elrod had forgotten all about this, but Jack Elrod never forgets. Obviously the whole point of Cherry going to the salon in the first place was for her to pick up this plotline-advancing tidbit. The point certainly wasn’t for her to have anything done to her hair, because it looks exactly the same as ever.

Dick Tracy, 8/28/10

“Detective Tracy” and “Miss Sue Doko” are in extra large font here, and while it’s almost certainly just because otherwise the words wouldn’t take up enough of the word balloon, I’d like to think they’re both saying things really loudly and sarcastically, like Steve Martin saying “Well excuuuuuse me,” mostly because neither of two can believe how stupid the other’s name is.

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Pluggers, 8/11/10

You have to give Pluggers a little bit of credit for coming up with a half-assed excuse to rerun panels (“Spotlight on readers who have nothing better to do than send in tons of Pluggers ideas!”); some cartoons just rerun strips in no-assed silence, which speaks to a certain lack of pride of craftsmanship. Anyway, as a professional comics-reader, it’s interesting to keep track of how my own immediate, visceral reaction to a panel can change from month to month. For instance, when this panel first ran back in May, I apparently was moved to write some weird diatribe about awkward sentence construction, Jewish stereotypes, and plugger sex. Whereas today, I just laughed a cynical laugh, because it’s obvious to me now that point is that pluggers are cheapskates who’ve never given anyone a tip in their lives, and plugger wife here dies a little inside every time they sneak out of the diner without leaving anything on the counter, and now Mr. Plugger is making a big joke about it. And certainly he’s not going to do anything nice for his wife, who just has to take care of him for free, without expecting any sort of reward, even emotional rewards, ha ha! You might want to keep an eye on those scissors, buddy.

Dick Tracy, 8/11/10

Considering the important social function served by the morgue in the corpse-lousy Dick Tracy universe, it’s no surprise that the building’s facade features enormous letters that presumably light up at night, so people know right away where they should be dumping the bodies.