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Dustin, 9/9/24

Deckhand on an Alaskan crab boat.
Choker setter for a logging crew.
Apprentice roofer.

C’mon, Dustin—get it over with.

Dick Tracy, 9/9/24

Sure, Ro-Zan is dangerous but Thorin, with his desperation at Moon Valley losing its atmosphere, known antipathy to Terrans, and blatant disregard for human rights, is no saint either—and he’s headed your way, Diet. Don’t forget, “the nation that controls magnetism will control the universe,” and said nation is emphatically not yours.

Hi and Lois, 9/9/24

Hi will both mash his thumb and pulverize the precious Oxy he’ll need for the pain. Ditto will tell him he can still snort it, but he has to pick out the plastic fragments first. Hi will ignore him—he’s in a hurry, dammit—and maybe he can hassle the E.R. docs for more Oxy to ease the pain from his nosebleed.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/9/24

Truck sits and ponders his answer: “Am I Truck Tyler? Used to be, kid; used to be ….”

—Uncle Lumpy

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Dick Tracy, 8/28/24

I guess the woman in the final panel is supposed to be looking up at a big screen, but it really looks like she’s rolling her eyes in contempt at this unfolding scenario. “Ugh, the craft is jamming our drones, I told you we needed to fit them with more powerful transmitters, dad, why don’t you ever listen?”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/28/24

It’s sad: under the Affordable Care Act, most health care plans provide free vaccinations and annual checkups, and at any rate the entire population of Hootin’ Holler surely qualifies for Medicaid. But the lack of communication with the outside world means none of them know this, and Doc Pritchart has no fear that a distant government might take notice of his scams, though he clearly has a healthy respect for the violence that might be visited upon him if he violates the local mores. The dentures thing is a whole different story, given that we strangely consider teeth to be an entirely separate realm from the rest of the body in terms of health care and the regulations around it; also, this may be a strike against my “the Smifs are Zoomers” theory.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/28/24

The inevitable failure of the human body, forcing us to abandon the parts of our lives we love the most even as we face years ahead of us until death? Technically a medical issue, so I’ll allow it as fodder for Rex Morgan, M.D.

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Dick Tracy, 8/26/24

Someone who’s had some weird romance arcs in his time is Junior, Dick Tracy’s son in the comic strip Dick Tracy. Long ago he was married to Moon Maid, daughter of the Governor of the Moon, and he had a half-Lunarian daughter with her, but then she got blown up by a car bomb meant for him. Later he married Sparkle Plenty, daughter of comical rustics B.O. and Gertie Plenty; that relationship was briefly thrown into turmoil when Moon Maid seemed to reappear, but then it turned out some gangster had modified his hapless girlfriend with Lunarian DNA, and the poor woman eventually changed her name to “Mysta Chimera” and accommodated herself to her new life as a hideous genetic abomination and platonic pal to Junior and his family. However … is there a new contender for his love? How else do you explain that he’s chosen a tastefully glamorous photo of Rikki Mortis, the goth lover of notorious corpse-criminal Abner Kadaver, as his desktop wallpaper? More on this Tracy family romantic drama as it (probably fails to) develop!

Hi and Lois, 8/26/24

One thing I love about legacy comics is how they freeze certain stereotyped images and settings in amber, even when the journeyman artists and writers tasked with churning out the comics are young enough that they themselves only remember them from older comics. One example is the idea, omnipresent in the comics, that upscale fine dining restaurants feature plush decor and white tablecloths; in fact, that hasn’t been true for newer restaurants since the ’90s, and even the old timers have mostly transitioned to the new aesthetics, which are all about high ceilings and hard, industrial-style surfaces. A 2018 Atlantic article that I think about all the time chronicles this transition and points out that the result is a much louder dining experience, which restaurants like because it’s less conducive to sitting around pleasantly chatting and thus increases customer turnover and restaurant profits. Anyway, I was reminded of this today because another aspect of modern restaurant design is that it features large, open, continuous spaces instead of the warren of rooms you might have found in a traditional eatery, so there’s no longer any place to stash the Flagston family where the other, more desirable patrons can’t see or hear them.

Mary Worth, 8/26/24

I dunno, Ed, this seems like a great way to show up at your wedding and discover that the theme is “WHY WON’T MY NEW HUSBAND PAY ATTENTION TO ME????”