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Dick Tracy, 12/3/08

Since I’m in a vaguely good mood today, let me say something nice about the art in Dick Tracy: The art in Dick Tracy is really pretty good. Today’s strip strikes me as a particularly fine example of how Locher uses blacks and whites to very striking effect — no endless slathers of zip-a-tone here! I love the shocked face of Braces’ henchwoman in panel three quite a lot — it looks like a print, or a woodcut, and I think it could stand alone as a sort of minor pop art masterpiece.

Of course, all this visual appeal is deployed in the service of violence and insanity. At long last, we learn today why villain-of-the-month Braces has braces — so that his dismembered robot could electrocute him through them, obviously. Remember, no Dick Tracy storyline can end until somebody dies in agony.

Gil Thorp, 12/3/08

Speaking of violence and insanity, check out panel three of today’s Gil Thorp. You can try to tell me that we’re seeing the Mudlarks put a short running play into action to get that first down, but if that’s the case, why isn’t number 22 holding the ball? Why does the Valley Tech player in the middle of the panel look like he’s about to shiv someone, and why is the Milford player just to right of him clawing one of his opponents’ eyes out? No, it’s clear that this game has completely collapsed into an anarchic brawl. Assistant Coach Kaz (recongizable by his now-almost-sedate earrings), with his well-known propensity for savagery, cannot be counted on to put a stop to this madness; indeed, his defensive corps (whom he has reduced to mindless obedience by refusing to acknowledge them as individuals) will soon run onto the field to join in the melee.

Crock, 12/3/08

Yes, I’m sure the US tax authorities are very interested in auditing the income of a French military officer, stationed in North Africa.

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Mark Trail, 11/14/08

Let’s imagine that you just started reading Mark Trail, say, nine days ago. Now, this supposition puts us firmly in the realm of the thought experiment, because nobody has “started” reading Mark Trail anytime in the last few decades, obviously, print is dying and the strip is coasting on nostalgia and will keep being drawn until its last reader dies, in 2019, but imagine that you started reading it nine days ago. You would say to yourself, “Good Lord, this strip is insanely action packed, with all the punching!” And then you’d be hooked, and willing to sit through eight to eleven months of mangled syntax and giant mutant animals and questionable ecological science and horribly misguided sexual advances and Mark’s eerie, soulless grin waiting for the next punch. But if you started reading this strip, say, twenty-three days ago, you would have inevitably given up on it before we got to this awesome Mark-Rabbit battle of fists.

What I’m trying to say is that this strip needs MORE PUNCHING, which will allow it to grow its audience and, eventually, be the only strip left in your daily paper (which, due to repeated cutbacks, will be only eight pages long, and will feature Mark Trail, obituaries, baseball box scores, and a single tire ad). BUT: will more Mark Trail punching diminish the awesomeness of each individual punch? Discuss.

Mark and Rabbit sure are striking iconic poses in the final panel, what with Mark’s fist swung up in a classic uppercut and his shirt collar mussed with exertion, and Rabbit’s hat flying off his now senseless head. It would be better if the two of them were even remotely near one another.

Dick Tracy, 11/14/08

Now, if you had just started reading Dick Tracy nine days ago, you’d think, “Gee! In this strip, robots both perpetrate and absorb all the violence! This must mean that actual humans never suffer any harm here.” And you would be so, so wrong. The only question is how Braces will be horribly dismembered; in true ironic fashion, it will involve his own robot, somehow, but it remains to be seen how many of his limbs will still be attached to his torso by the time he finally expires.

I admit to being charmed by “U R NEXT, POLICE PERSON!” Has Brute Force’s vocabulary chip been programmed to be carefully gender neutral, or can he simply not distinguish between the he-fleshling and she-fleshing varieties?

Apartment 3-G, 11/14/08

There are two reasons to love Lu Ann’s sassy Bea Arthur lookalike cousin Blaze: (1) he’s sassy, and (2) he mysteriously doesn’t look exactly like every other youngish male type in Apartment 3-G’s New York City. Today, we learn the reason for (2): instead, he looks exactly every other youngish male type in Apartment 3-G’s world outside New York City.

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Gil Thorp, 11/7/08

At long last, the how of Matt the Hat and Jeff the ’Czak’s crackpot Jeff-killing scheme has been revealed, and it actually makes a shred more sense than one might have expected from this strip. Now all we’re missing is the why, though this being Gil Thorp we’re obviously never going to get it. If Jeff didn’t know that his heart was a ticking time bomb of death before he went to the doctor, then this is just the most pointlessly “wacky” high school dude prank in recorded history. And if he did know, then how did he know? Did he spend the entire summer eating mayonnaise out of the jar with a spoon and just sort of draw the obvious conclusion? Or did he literally feel his heart begin to die inside his chest one day? The latter possibility would at least explain why he’s so damn melancholy.

Dick Tracy, 11/7/08

There’s been an insanely long and interminable buildup in Dick Tracy as we were introduced to these two titanic metal men on a collision course, but at last they’ve met and we get to see what we’ve been waiting for all this time: robots insulting each other like fifth graders, using txt spk. Whee!

Apartment 3-G, 11/7/08

“My heart is racing with anticipation”? Tommie, with that sort of wooden, sub-par thought ballooning, it’s no wonder that you never get any panel time, and that your boyfriend and the other guy who was trying to be your boyfriend are secretly having a sex affair.

Psst! There is a great deal of invigorating talk about the recent election right over here.