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Dick Tracy, 7/15/22

Oh so it turns out that the Moon Ambassador (formerly the Moon Governor) has lured Dick to Moon Valley because some of the Moon People are plotting to use their anvil-melting powers to destroy all of the human governments and take over the earth. Can you imagine our human armies turning around and fleeing in terror as sexy Moon Women use their powers to melt the anvils upon which our military might depends? Truly chilling. Anyway, because the Moon People are so powerful anvil-wise, their society has never developed important jobs like detectives, so they’re not exactly sure who’s doing the plotting. Why figure out who committed a crime when you can melt an anvil, I always say! It seems like because they don’t have a lot of experience in this area, the Moon People don’t really know the difference between “policeman who tries to solve crimes” and “secret policeman who tries to track down political dissidents” and Dick is not going to do anything to clear this matter up, I’m quite willing to bet.

Hi and Lois, 7/15/22

Neutral Milk Hotel’s 1998 album In The Aeroplane Over The Sea was a transformational work of art for a generation of indie rock lovers, but its origins are remarkably prosaic.

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Crankshaft, 7/8/22

Look, obviously this blog is about 15% by volume me slamming on Funkyverse strips, so I’m just going to get ahead of things here and say that today’s strip is very, very funny, and the time-reverse gimmick is a good one that makes it funnier. Was it worthwhile spending 35 years writing the comic strip Crankshaft in such a way that we all hate him enough to get a genuine belly laugh watching him flee in terror from angry bees? Probably not, but in this moment, I appreciate it.

Blondie, 7/8/22

It’s extremely not new to remark on how much modern filmmaking is dominated by superhero franchises, but that doesn’t mean the syndicated newspaper comic strip Blondie can’t bring anything new to the table. In this case, it’s “late-middle-aged-and-older dudes find superheroes sexually threatening,” which I have to admit is new to me at least.

Dick Tracy, 7/8/22

Oh, right, I had forgotten that the Moon People in Dick Tracy had to leave the Moon for some reason and relocate to an undisclosed location (that turns out to be Antarctica) and Dick pretended to care about his family so he could sniff out the answer to this puzzle, because he’s the world’s greatest detective and also an asshole. I was going to do a joke about him conquering Moon Valley, but he’s a cop, annexing territory isn’t really his bag. I guess he could arrest everyone for violating the Antarctic Treaty System, but enforcing international law isn’t really his bag either.

Family Circus, 7/8/22

Gotta respect the thought process here, which was apparently, “Sure, we establish in dialogue that he’s still drinking his soda, but comics are a visual medium, we need to show that with a big disgusting blob of spit coming out of his mouth. Those grandmas who cut the panel out to hang on their fridge might not like it, but this one’s just for me.”

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Mary Worth, 7/4/22

Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Did you bake a cake for America’s birthday, like Mary did? No? Well, I guess you don’t love America enough, do you? (This sentiment still stands if Mary bought a sheet cake for America’s birthday at the supermarket, which at second glance she probably did. It’s the thought that counts!)

Dick Tracy, 7/4/22

For America’s birthday, Dick Tracy is reminding us that only AMERICA has sent manned spacecraft to the moon, where they discovered that the moon was inhabited by Moon People, one of whom, in this classic storyline, eloped with his son and Dick chased them there and then he did the extremely American thing where he’s shocked, shocked to learn that other countries (or planets) also have immigration laws and they apply to Americans. If I were in prison on the moon, I personally would want it to be an electric prison, because I’m pretty sure you need electricity to generate the oxygen I need to live, but that’s just me.

Pluggers, 7/4/22

Sorry to get political on here on the Fourth of July, everybody! Don’t get too mad at me! Reed Hoover also got political by claiming that hip-hop, an American-born art form that is one of the U.S.’s most popular cultural exports, isn’t welcome at a plugger’s Independence Day celebration. You can get mad at him all you want, but sadly it won’t do you any good.

Beetle Bailey, 7/4/22

Beetle Bailey is here to remind us that like any ideology, patriotism and nationalism are shaped by material conditions. When urging the U.S. to ease starvation in post-WWII Germany, General Lucius Clay, head of the occupying forces, famously said, “There is no choice between being a communist on 1,500 calories a day and a believer in democracy on a thousand.” The quantities here have shifted somewhat, but the point stands.

The Lockhorns, 7/4/22

The Lockhorns, meanwhile, invert the classic aphorism and make the political personal, every day. There’s no room for ideology in Leroy and Loretta’s world: everything gets crushed into interpersonal misery by the intense gravitational field of their mutual loathing.