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Dick Tracy, 12/22/07

I’ve managed to go several weeks without mentioning Dick Tracy, and that’s because it’s been stupid and incomprehensible and insane. The meandering, pointless storyline has involved a maniac holding the governor hostage in an old haunted mansion at the end of a tunnel behind a painting; meanwhile, a wrecking crew has shown up to demolish the house the same day that a high-profile charity haunted house sleepover event involving local politicians is ostensibly in progress inside, and they refuse to obey the orders of the police. Today’s comic is worthy of mention, though, because it features the bad guy (or maybe the governor — I’m not entirely clear on this point) falling to his death, a mighty SPLATT ringing out as his organs are pulped inside his body cavity; then his corpse is mangled by a bulldozer, which the operator of said machine barely notices. I would bet money that this strip runs in at least one newspaper that pulled Zits last month because it used the word “sucks.”

Family Circus, 12/22/07

This sort of blasphemous sass that should definitely not bring a wry little smile to the lips of the mother of any ostensibly Christian household. Mommy needs to get out the crucifix and use it to bludgeon the devil out of her sinful son.

Judge Parker, 12/22/07

Hmm, pot brownies should really leave Abbey “inspired” to do little more than sit in the office and giggle about all the clashing color schemes she keeps coming up with. New theory: meth brownies.

Slylock Fox, 12/22/07

You know what America needs more of? Superheroes that pick up criminals by the scruff of the neck and then punch them in the face.

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Dick Tracy, 11/13/07

This week’s award for worst punctuated sentence containing unnecessary exposition: “But why Tracy? Why, me, the mayor?”

Hagar the Horrible, 11/13/07

Straightforward responses to honest questions: Not funny. Straightforward responses to honest questions on a desert island: Funny!

No, wait, I meant not funny. My mistake.

Mark Trail, 11/13/07

“I’ll fix him with my bare hands … which I’ll use to remove my pants!”

Spider-Man, 11/13/07

All future Spider-Man strips will consist entirely of the title character aimlessly web-slinging around New York as he explains what has already happened and what’s about to happen in the current plot. This change will represent a marked improvement.

Family Circus, 11/13/07

Ha ha! Jeffy thinks he’s going to college!

Wizard of Id, 11/13/07

Ha ha! This peasant is so terrified at the prospect of being strangled to death that he fainted!

Mary Worth, 11/13/07

HOLY CRAP THAT DOG’S FACE IS THE SCARIEST THING I’VE SEEN ALL DAY

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Dick Tracy, 10/25/07

I’m going to ignore the concept of an old haunted house with a bad reputation (as opposed to the many old haunted houses haunted by jovial, friendly ghosts who give back rubs and offer stock tips) as garden-variety Dick Tracy madness. But I am intrigued by the mortgage default angle here. Is Dick Tracy going to be the first comic (other than Hi and Lois, which was much more oblique about it) to cover the bursting housing bubble and subprime mortgage collapse? Will this storyline end with Detective Tracy pumping hot lead into some bank loan office while growling “That’s one loan you never should have underwritten”? Stay tuned!

Mark Trail, 10/25/07

OK NOW? NOW WILL THIS FREAKIN’ DUCK STORYLINE END? NOW? Anyway, word of advice to Homer: stay the hell away from those ducks. Their aberrant, freakish coloring indicates that they’re hideous mutants and thus almost certainly highly radioactive. Plus, they’re not really your “family.” They’re ducks. They’re barely aware of your existence. They’ll completely ignore you if someone shows up with a loaf of bread, and when they decide to fly off — which they will — no thoughts of your lumpy face and bandage-wrapped noggin will ever cross their tiny, pea-sized brains again. Sorry, that’s just the way it is. And frankly, that’s pretty much the way it’s going to be with your human children as well.

Marvin, 10/25/07

I kind of love the expression on Marvin’s friend’s face here. He looks like someone who’s just been acquainted with the messy details of human reproduction. “Wait, dad did WHAT to mom’s WHAT? And then he did WHAT? And now a baby’s going to come out of WHAT? Oh, hell no.”

Pluggers, 10/25/07

ALERT! ALERT! A PLUGGER IN SECTOR 7-G HAS IDENTIFIED HERSELF AS “FUN-LOVING”! PLEASE INCREASE THE PERVASIVE SOUL-CRUSHING SENSE OF AWFULNESS IN THAT SECTOR AT ONCE! NO PLUGGER IS PERMITTED TO EXPERIENCE SO-CALLED “FUN”!

(By the way, if you have no idea what the hell this is about, it’s about this, and, by extension, probably this. But it’s Pluggers, so really who the hell knows.)

They’ll Do It Every Time, 10/25/07

Comics Curmudgeon readers are either all cranks or really good at coming up with little real-life ironies that appeal to Al Scaduto — or both! Anyway, “Gaylord Fields” is really faithful reader HBGlord! His explanation of the circumstances behind this strip is much funnier than any commentary I could come up with:

Like literally everything that has ever run in TDIET, the inspiration was real life. Sitting in bed at 4 a.m. fuming after the now-recorded-for-posterity incident unfolded, I looked over at my lovely wife and saw her morph into none other than Migraina! At that moment a light-bulb appeared over my head (which also didn’t help me get back to sleep). I’m sure that’s exactly how great writers like Hemingway got their inspiration to, well, not so much create classic literary works as much as blow their brains out.

Finally, unrelated to anything but something you need to read: Shaenon Garrity has figured out the deal with Funky Winkerbean. (And if you like that essay, you’ll probably want to read her seminal “Why I Hate Anthony” if you haven’t already.)