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Dick Tracy, 11/29/23

The summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I stayed on campus to do an independent study and worked part time at the library in their book repair lab. While I didn’t get to handle rare books like Dick Tracy’s sinister bibliophile/stab maniac X. Libris, I did learn how to handle the various tools of the trade to get more prosaic volumes back on the shelves, including some knives and knife-like implements. Did I become enough of an “expert” in this “work” to neatly stab someone through the ribs, killing them instantly? No, no I did not, and frankly I kind of resent that.

Hi and Lois, 11/29/23

When Winnie-the-Pooh got his head stuck in the honey jar, it was of course of a matter of fairly serious import to Pooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood, although it was obviously quite funny to those of us who read and enjoyed his adventures. The Flagstons seem to occupy an intermediary space, one in which they take on the role of both the observed and the observer, simultaneously laughing at the antics of others while engaging in antics of their own that discomfit them and amuse us. What would our own predicaments look like from an outside vantage point, if our lives were grist for narrative? Would episodes of anxiety and irritation elicit cruel laughter, rather than sympathy? Something to think about, the next time you get your head stuck in a jar of some sort.

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 11/26/23

CASSANDRA [bursting through the studio door]: Quick, Kopy, I need a favor. Put this portrait up on your easel and act like you’re painting me. I’ve already made sure that I’m wearing the same clothes as in the picture; let me get myself in position so I get the strut exactly right.

KOPY: Gee, Cassandra, this painting is completely dry, and I don’t even have any blue paint out. Slylock’s gonna see right through this scheme! You’d better just run if you don’t want to get caught.

CASSANDRA [posing sexily, just they way she knows Slylock likes it]: Who said anything about not getting caught?

Dick Tracy, 11/26/23

OK, yes, ha ha, Sam’s colleagues on the Major Crimes Unit are razzing him by implying he’s going to extract saliva from their suspect X. Libris by smooching her, and Liz is even demonstrating the frenching technique he’ll used to acquire an adequate sample size, but we need to talk about the metaphor Sam is deploying in response in the final panel. I guess we’re supposed to visualize him … face down in the gutter? Sort of swimming along? But he’s wearing a snorkel, so he can get a real good look at what’s going on down there? And these floating brains keep blocking his access to air? It’s all very unsettling, and once they solve this series of gruesome stab murders, probably everyone on the squad should sue everyone else for creating a hostile work environment.

Gasoline Alley, 11/26/23

Hey, did you know that back in the early ’80s, Bolero was considered a top “sex record”, a cliched thing you’d put on the old hi-fi if you brought a special person back to your pad and were ready to get down? Not saying that’s what’s going on here, but I do invite you to imagine going home with someone and instead of hopping into bed they insisted you wait for a bizarre cat food commercial featuring singing mice, to “set the mood.”

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and Family Circus, 10/29/23

You know, I was about to go on a whole rant here about how the fact that Hootin’ Holler’s only clergyman is a grifter and fraud has resulted in Snuffy holding to some kind of folk syncretism, since he’s freely combining a pagan ritual in which humans take on the guise of evil spirits with a celebration of the risen Christ. But then I was humbled when I got to today’s Family Circus, a strip whose theology I have always assumed is impeccable. We see the Saints themselves rejoice at seeing children dressing up as gangsters or literal witches! I am, as the kids say, sitting my ass down and learning.

Dick Tracy, 10/29/23

Hey, let’s not forget, this Dick Tracy plot isn’t just about the elevated world of rare book crime, it’s also about stabbing, and since Xaviera here has a knife, she probably did the murders, case closed! I do sincerely appreciate the cinematic composition here; presumably Xaviera keeps talking over the last few panels, but from Dick’s perspective her voice fades away as he catches the glint of the blade and all he can think is knife knife knife KNIFE KNIFE STAB STAB STAB KNIFESTAB