Post Content

For Better Or For Worse, 5/1/08

For Better Or For Worse’s grim determination to make EVERY GOD-DAMNED STRIP end with some sort of cute pun has hit new heights of nonsense today. Let’s ignore for the moment the fact that “patience” and “patients” are homophones, rendering the joke incomprehensible to anyone not actually reading it written out; we still have the glaring question of what the hell it could possibly mean. Does John wish that he had waited longer to retire, now that he’s beginning to realize that life at home with Ellie will involve more home improvement projects and less ornate model train landscaping? Or is he genuinely sorry that he spent his dental career rushing from patient to patient, trying to cram as many as possible into the day, leaving a trail of slipshod fillings, shattered jawbones, and drill-lacerated cheeks behind him?

Fun thing to say that sounds kind of dirty but probably isn’t: “I hear you’re finally done with the drill!”

Apartment 3-G, 5/1/08

Notice that the instant the word “boyfriend” passes Lu Ann’s lips, she and Jack are immediately transported outside of the latter’s print shop and magical love nest and dumped unceremoniously out onto the sidewalk below. “Boyfriend, eh? …aaaaaaand I think we’re done here.”

Panel from Dick Tracy, 5/1/08

For many of the more bizarre continuity strips out there, the looming question is, “Are the creators in on the joke?” While it isn’t definitive, to me this panel makes a “yes” answer for Dick Tracy more likely. If you think he’s bad now, wait until you get a load of the front of his head, Dab!

Post Content

Dick Tracy, 4/30/08

Yes, you might say poetic justice, if in fact there were any poetic justice in the situation whatsoever. I suppose Cole Lector was rich, but it’s not as if Dab Stract or the police are going to be handing over his money and geegaws to the poor now that he’s been killed. In fact, the whole notion of redistribution of wealth ought to make Dick so righteously angry that he’d grab that Red bow out of Dab Stract’s hands and break it over his knee, just like he would snap that Commie Robin Hood’s spine, if he could lay his hands on him. The only possible answer is that Dick is not in fact listening to a word Dab Stract or anyone else is saying, and is just interjecting random tough-guy bon mots whenever he becomes vaguely aware that there’s a lull in the conversation. It would explain a lot about the disjointed dialogue in this strip.

Crankshaft, 4/30/08

Ha ha! Crankshaft’s an angry old man that nobody likes, and he’s about to be stung all over his face by bees! Oh, it doesn’t take much to warm the cockles of my black, black heart.

Family Circus, 4/30/08

“Well, there has to be some reason. For starters, it would help if I liked you.”

Post Content

Marvin, 4/28/08

There have been a lot of subtle changes in Marvin — little tweaks to the artwork, for instance, and the move from thought balloons to word balloons. These might just be presaging a much more momentous shift, in which the strip will cease to be about a droll baby and his droll dogs and cranky grandparents, and instead will focus on toddler Marvin’s Child’s Play-style killing spree. Is the comics page ready for a baby bathed in blood spouting droll witticisms about murder and carnage? Since such material will be replacing urination jokes and dog urination jokes and, God help us, Belly Laffs, I’d say the answer is a hearty “yes”!

Dick Tracy, 4/28/08

So, it looks like the criminal and bizarre Dab Stract, whose face was shrouded in shadow when we last met him, is hideously deformed? For some reason? Just like Cole Lector was also hideously deformed? For some reason? I’m beginning to suspect that the creators of Dick Tracy have a thing for hideous deformities. For some reason.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/28/08

Actually, the medical inquiry was just a cover. No, thrifty Loweezy has recently discovered the Internet and has started supplementing Snuffy’s paltry moonshinin’ and chicken-stealin’ income with a for-pay Website, www.HotSleepingHillbillies.com, which caters to a very specific kind of fetishist. By the excited look on the doctor’s face in the second panel, you can tell that he’s a charter member of the VIP club.