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Alice, 11/4/24

A thing I think about a lot is that the guy who the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory inspired to shoot up Comet Ping-Pong in the aftermath of the 2016 election had gotten home internet only a few weeks before. Imagine going from zero to 2016-election-campaign-level internet madness instantly! You’ve heard vaguely that the “Web” is the best way to learn about news and current events, finally get hooked up, and the first thing you discover is that there’s a cabal of pedophiles operating out of a pizza place in D.C. Anyway, it’s eight years later and the internet has gotten a lot worse, so, I’m just going to say it: I’m worried about Alice.

Dick Tracy, 11/4/24

I have a stepbrother who used to be a Marine and is recently retired from the Border Patrol, and that’s a great way to hear all the jokes that different kinds of troops and/or cops tell about each other (he once referred to the Highway Patrol as “AAA with a badge,” for instance). This Dick Tracy storyline started with a crazy (?) guy getting arrested by the Neo-Chicago Transit Authority (T.A.) for jumping a turnstyle, showing a fake (?) employee ID from the mysterious “Totten Organization,” and then he got murdered in the bathroom of the T.A. jail, so I’m hoping to see some similar inter-agency snark upcoming. I feel like we’re off to a good start here with the Chief telling Dick, “Oh yeah, some guy got arrested for an extremely minor crime and then died in jail, right under the T.A. cops’ noses … but wait, this time there’s something screwy about that scenario.”

Mary Worth, 11/4/24

Sometimes with visual art, it’s an open question whether you’re supposed to interpret what you’re seeing literally, or just understand that the people and items you can see have been arranged as you see them in order to emphasize their importance and relevance. Like, did Dr. Ed and Estelle really set up an end table for their three pets to sit on and bark/meow approvingly while they toast one another in front of their five friends and Wilbur? Or are they “really” on the floor, but we’ve only got two panels and surely you don’t want us to ditch the establishing shot or draw anybody’s feet?

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Dick Tracy, 10/23/24

Dick Tracy has spent a lot of this week getting into the architectural history of Neo-Chicago and the state of local landmarked buildings. On the surface, this sounds like the sort of thing that I personally would be into, but it’s actually left me pretty cold. Maybe I’d feel differently if it were about public transit or something, but for now, I say: let’s wrap it up and bring on the officer-involved shootings!

Gil Thorp, 10/23/24

Please excuse a moment of football detective work. Yesterday’s Gil Thorp did not actually establish all the parameters of the game situation when the action depicted started, but we know this much:

• New Thayer was facing 4th and goal, and could “clinch the night” if they scored
• After Milford intercepted the ball, there was 3:15 left on the clock

To me, anyway, this implies that, by scoring a touchdown at that point, New Thayer would have gone far enough ahead that Milford would’ve needed to score twice to catch up; three minutes is plenty of time to put together a scoring drive, so if New Thayer were up by less than 9 after a potential touchdown, it wouldn’t make sense to say they’d clinched anything. That means Milford was losing (though only by a few points) before the interception we saw yesterday; and if Oscar Capp had run the ball back for a defensive touchdown, we probably would’ve heard about it, plus the excessive Mudlark celebration we saw seems pretty clearly to be happening midfield.

Today we learn that the final score of this game was Milford 10, New Thayer 7. Considering what we’ve already figured out, we can safely assume that, after the interception, Milford had to put together a scoring drive to win. (Presumably before the interception the score was New Thayer 7, Milford 3.) What I sincerely appreciate is that we have not been treated to any of the thrilling sports action of this fourth quarter comeback. Instead, we get Coach Hernandez yelling at the new kids for grandstanding, and everyone immediately submitting to his authority. That’s because Gil Thorp isn’t a strip about high school sports; it’s a strip about coaching high school sports. There’s a difference!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/23/24

Speaking of exciting things we don’t see, there was a little bit of a hint last week that Mud Mountain Murphy might be up to his old scene-stealing tricks as everyone got ready for his supporting role at Truck Tyler’s concert. But he didn’t! He did what he was supposed to, the show went great, everyone was happy. Thank goodness! I know you guys were stressed out about it.

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Dick Tracy, 10/17/24

One of the subtler conundrums created by the “comic-book time” phenomenon is the question of how the characters themselves experience it. Like, is Dick Tracy a guy in his late 40s or early 50s who’s been battling weird deformed gangsters for a couple decades? Or did he, like the comic that bears his name, come into existence in 1938, meaning that he’s been at this longer than most of us have been alive, and he’s tired, so tired, of these weirdos’ whole deal? His attitude in today’s strip really suggests the latter. “Oh, what’s that, is there a new hitman in town? A real freak with a mirror for a face who calls himself Mr. Mirror? Should I get excited? Scared? Should I even bother pulling my gun out of my pocket? No, go ahead and answer that call, I can wait.”

Dennis the Menace, 10/17/24

There’s a lot that bugs me about the characterization of Margaret in Dennis the Menace, but a big one is that they need to decide which misogynist stereotype she is exactly. Is she a prissy, humorless, controlling know-it-all and shrew? Or is she empty-headed, vapid, and vain? I feel she veers wildly from lane to lane and they need to pick one.

Hi and Lois, 10/17/24

Ha ha, yes, the teens! The teens are the ones with the phone problem! Definitely not me, a 50-year-old man, or adults younger than me, or adults older than me! None of us have unhealthy relationships with our devices, and definitely social gatherings of mature adults feature exactly as much staring at small screens with varying degrees of surreptitiousness as they did 15 years ago! It’s the teens, I tell ya, the teens!