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Dick Tracy, 12/10/21

Ever since the raid on Apparatus HQ, Dick’s been hard at work down in the phrenology lab, trying to determine if the Ace of Spades’s gimp mask concealed a sloping Italianate brow, or, worse, the lantern jaw of an Irishman.

Blondie, 12/10/21

[adds “nice, plump gobbler combo” to the list of phrases that if I encounter them again I will immediately call the police]

Mary Worth, 12/10/21

God damn it, if this isn’t some kind of Wilbur fantasty sequence I am calling on all Comics Curmudgeon readers to immediately riot in the streets!!!! THEY CAN’T GET AWAY WITH THIS

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/10/21

She … she called the news hotline and told them all about it? Try to keep up, kid.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/9/21

I honestly kind of respect how many no shits this local news crew gives about this extremely pointless segment. Like, normally they would’ve called in advance, made sure everyone relevant to the story was available and in the same room before they started, talked them through the questions they were going to ask, gotten consent forms signed by their parents, etc. But, whatever, channel [squints] “GTV8” does it cinéma vérité style, letting the chain of connections and relationships that ultimately brought the truth to light unspool for the viewers at home exactly as the documentarians are discovering them. I certainly hope that this entire thing is being broadcast live, as was the hour or so they spent standing around on the Morgans’ doorstep earlier.

Gil Thorp, 12/9/21

God bless Gil Thorp, a soap opera strip that I believe on the whole fulfills its basic mission of delivering goofy teen sports-related drama pretty well, but not every storyline can be a winner, and this fall’s has definitely been something of a dud. How appropriate, then, that it ends due to something happening off-panel, completely outside the control of the protagonists. I do appreciate that Marty is trying to sound like a big-time sports journalist who’s just had an intern run in to the studio to keep him updated on the latest scores even though he’s clearly just reading them off his phone.

Dick Tracy, 12/9/21

You ever wonder what happens if the new bras they give you before you go into witness protection don’t fit right? Well, don’t worry: that’s when the Federal Boob Inspectors swing into action.

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Crankshaft and Curtis, 12/1/21

I’m genuinely of the opinion that “gaslighting,” as a word, at one point conveyed a useful concept but has had its impact significantly reduced by ever-broadening use. But still! These two strips use a structure common to mild domestic comedies, where a child or old person is unfamiliar with or confused by a concept intuitively understood by an adult of a normal age. But in this case, the concepts are, respectively, “There’s a thing called a ‘smart pad’ that everyone has, maybe everyone is required to have” and “ghost flush,” and gosh darn it if I don’t feel as if I’m Ingrid Bergman being manipulated by Angela Lansbury and Charles Boyer! Am I an old person, like Lillian, flummoxed by the “smart pad” revolution and unable to remember where I put mine and increasingly suspicious that I don’t even own one? Am I a child, like Curtis, who has never heard of a “ghost flush” and would immediately assume that it was about a ghost, flushing? Am I full-on in the Berenstein Bears universe now? WHAT IS HAPPENING

Dick Tracy, 12/1/21

Oh wow, it looks like Dick’s decision to dabble in hoodies was actually just a way to help him to transition to full on disguises, huh. You know, I never pegged Dick as a supergenius or anything, but I have to respect the fact that he saw the flaw in in this criminal gang’s “Let’s wear identity-obscuring gimp suits at all times, even when we’re just hanging out with each other at the office” shtick before they did.