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Dick Tracy, 7/6/10

Two men have already died by gunfire in this Dick Tracy storyline, but any hardcore fan of the strip will tell you that such mundane deaths are totally inadequate. Today the villainous Anja Nu meets her end in a fashion that, if not grimly ironic (unless it turns out that she’s unhinged because she was raised by her grandfather, a Nazi fighter pilot/war criminal), is at least gruesome. One might have hoped that Dick would have found some reason to start the plane’s motor so that Nu’s body would be ground to hamburger by the spinning propeller, rather than just crushed to pulp, but I think we’ve achieved the acceptable bare minimum for Dick Tracy carnage.

Apartment 3-G, 7/6/10

Ha ha, Tommie’s pit of embarrassment just keeps getting deeper and deeper. Who are the mysterious Ted and Lucy? Well, they were the “perfect couple” who started the Margo finger-quoting craze four years ago. Then Tommie caught Lucy making out with some dude from her poetry group (with “poetry group” obviously meaning “a Craigslist casual encounters ad”), and Tommie and Ted decided to try out this adultery thing to see what all the fuss was about, with hilariously awkward results. Last we heard they had reconciled, and now we see that they’re still together; apparently they’ve come to this makeover ambush to reinforce the mutual contempt for Tommie that now keeps their marriage together.

Tommie doesn’t have a choice; her answer has to be yes. Tommie never chooses anything. Tommie just lets what happens to her happen.

Herb and Jamaal, 7/6/10

Rev. Croom’s congregation, which all the Herb and Jamaal characters seem to attend, is always thinking obsessively about the afterlife, all the time. We know that the Reverend has told Herb in confidence that his unredeemably sinful soul is destined for eternal and fiery torment, and today we see that the cycle of theological cruelty is perpetuated through the family. (Herb probably doesn’t realize that his mother-in-law already knows she is damned, though that just makes his jibe all the crueler.)

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Beetle Bailey, 7/2/10

I have to admit that I love the expressions of both characters here in panel two. The look of unalloyed happiness on Cookie’s face is pretty heartwarming; all the abuse he receives from most of the soldiers whom he serves doesn’t diminish his joy in food — either in preparing it or just watching a master eat it. And Sarge’s expression of earned self-satisfaction is also charming. At least there’s something he’s good at that doesn’t involve cruelty or violence (other than violence to his circulatory system, I guess).

Dick Tracy, 7/2/10

Wait, did I claim yesterday that Anja Nu was on the side of good? Ha ha, what the hell do I know, this is Dick Tracy, everyone’s trying to kill everyone else as painfully as possible, obviously.

Panel from Mary Worth, 7/2/10

I reproduce here this panel in isolation because I thought you’d all want to see, in as much detail as possible, the moment when the good drugs kicked in. See how Jenna’s eyes are bugging out? That’s because she can see through time, man.

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Spider-Man, 7/1/10

I’ve never been on board an airplane that explosively depressurized due to a superhero cutting open the fuselage and flying out, but if I were, I’d imagine that, in my helplessness, I would actively refuse to look at the gaping maw in the side of the plane, as if that would cause it to no longer exist. If everyone else on board took the same attitude, then nobody would notice how exactly said hole would magically be filled in, and once it was fixed, we’d probably all forget about it and just return to our seats in an orderly fashion. Say, has this Georgia O’Keeffe-inspired webbing sculpture always been here? I didn’t notice it when I came on board. Must have missed it, somehow.

Dick Tracy, 7/1/10

So Dick Tracy’s current storyline, which I won’t even bother trying to explain, has ended as they all do: with a fresh corpse lying in a rapidly spreading pool of blood. This particular variation on the theme is noteworthy primarily because Dick is so gobsmacked at being rescued by Anja Nu, who, though somewhat monomaniacal about her play, we’ve had no reason to think of as being on anything other than the side of good. I guess Dick is just generally shocked at any act of kindness on anyone’s part. Maybe her “good reason” is that she just likes killing people, Dick! Surely you’d understand that.