Post Content

Mary Worth, 6/19/24

One of the things one must always be on guard against is the brand of nostalgia that convinces you that the past was always better and that the world we live in is a fallen one. We must instead recognize that every age has its own highs or lows. Do we miss the days when Ian Cameron loomed larger in this strip, veering wildly from smug condescension to bug-eyed rage? Sure, yes, obviously. But current-day Ian’s still got it, as he goes for the one-two punch of “As a professor, I can say with confidence that your dead fish did not experience emotions even when it was alive” and then furiously stage-whispering in hopes that Wilbur will overhear as he solemnly accepts a Mourning Muffin from Mary.

Dick Tracy, 6/19/24

The current Dick Tracy storyline is not interesting enough for me to summarize, but I did think you’d all enjoy this strip, in which the MCU gals have figured out that an attractive lady is somehow tied into their current case and so have decided to download various pictures of her living her best life, print them on glossy photo paper, put them into a manila folder, and hand them over to Dick. The man is happily married but there’s no harm done here, he does not go on the computer and he’s earned this.

Alice, 6/19/24

As far as Alice Lore goes, “Alice accidentally fucked her cousin in college” is not quite as outlandish as “Alice was kidnapped by aliens,” but because it’s more grounded in reality it feels more menacing, I think.

Six Chix, 6/19/24

“Get it? We’re dogs! We literally bark up trees sometimes, even though we now also walk on our hind legs and wear clothes and run medical practices. Anyway, turns out you’re dying, sorry we didn’t figure this out six months ago when we maybe could’ve done something about it.”

Post Content

Gasoline Alley, 6/11/24

So, the reason the electricity went out at Walt’s is that a big tree fell over and pulled down the power line running from the utility pole to the house, and now some guys from the power company have come out in the middle of the night to repair it. This is, obviously, annoying, and could easily be the most annoying thing that would happen to you in a given year, if your year was pretty good overall, but I do not think it could in any way be described as an “unbelievable ordeal.” It’s actually quite easy to believe! You think Walt and Gertie are going to describe it to other people and they’ll say “My God, you can’t be serious”? No, it’ll be more like “Oh wow, that sounds annoying. Nice that the power company came out to fix it in the middle of the night, though.”

Dick Tracy, 6/11/24

If we’re going to go through the trouble of continuing to make Dick Tracy comics, then I suppose part of that process has to be about exploring how Dick Tracy and his friends and foes would interact with modern-day stuff. I feel ambivalent about it, but I respect that they want to do it rather than just rehash golden age Dick Tracy stuff endlessly, and I have to say that I am marginally more intrigued to find out what Dick Tracy thinks about cryptocurrency than I was to find out what he thinks about furries.

Bizarro, 6/11/24

There are two things I love about this comic. The first is that the snowman outside the apartment has clearly spent a lot of time sculpting his snow-body into the flowing shape of a ethereal spectre, but is big enough to recognize that his friend’s cheap prop humor is more likely to win kudos than his own more subtle work. The second is that Bizarro has, in a bold refusal to adhere to conventions, chosen to do a joke about snowmen going to a Halloween party in the middle of the summer.

The Phantom, 6/11/24

A classic bit I do on my blog is to look at a day’s comic and say “Ha ha, surely the next development in this strip will be [something that is far too silly to ever happen in a comic strip]”, and a classic bit that the comics do in response is to produce a subsequent development that’s substantially sillier than I predicted. Anyway, I apologize for joking that “Space-Ox,” the private rocket company in the current Phantom storyline, is run by Elon Musk Ox (he’s just like Elon Musk, but also an ox). In fact, it’s run by Ian Mollusk (he’s just like Elon Musk, but also a snail).

Post Content

Blondie, 5/28/24

I think it’s very telling that Dagwood doesn’t seem to particularly care about getting to work on time using this new futuristic technology; instead, he’s mostly interested in taunting his supposed friends after he beats them in a competition they didn’t even realize they were part of.

Rhymes With Orange, 5/28/24

You know you’re of A Certain Age when you see this cartoon and don’t really care about the flat stomach aspect but instead think about your creaky, increasingly hunched back and say “Would this work on my BACK? Yes, please, just do it, smoosh me out, squish me flatter, I’m BEGGING YOU”

Dick Tracy, 5/28/24

The newspaper comics are a fundamentally great medium because there are days when you don’t know you want a whole panel of some guy with a comically archaic mustache seen from a weird angle, but then you get it and you think, “Yes, this is what I wanted. Thank you for this.”