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Judge Parker, 8/8/19

Ooh, it looks like Judge Parker is dipping deep into its lore for this latest plot twist! Who is it just off-panel addressing Sam as “Samuel” so unctuously? Is it Rocky Ledge, Godiva’s on-again, off-again husband and Europa Aerospace’s CEO, who used to be an aw-shucks country music star (in addition to being the CEO of an aerospace company/green power colossos) but maybe is evil now? Is it Avery the Hollywood agent, who Sam accidentally helped become a drug lord? Is it … just April’s dad Norton, again? It’s probably Norton, isn’t it.

Dick Tracy, 8/8/19

God, look how angrily Dick is pursing his lips in panel three. “Yes, while the temptation is almost overwhelming to simply arrest the person adjacent to this crime whose family has criminals in it and throw them in jail forever without trial on account of their tainted blood, I suppose we must find … or perhaps manufacture … proof, because of the liberal Supreme Court’s meddling.”

The Phantom, 8/8/19

I know I haven’t really been keeping you up to date on the weekday Phantom, so, real quick: in his quest to rescue Imara Sahara, wife of the Nomad (the Phantom’s archnemesis!) and mother of Kadia (the Phantom’s daughter’s best friend!) from the Nomad’s seaside villa/heavily guarded terrorist compound, our hero has had to stay one step ahead of both American drone strikes and various Nomad henchmen trying to ensure his wife never escapes to spill her guts about his operations. Anyway, I particularly approve of the Ghost Who Walks’ technique to keep her calm during this ordeal: distract her with Wikipedia facts about the country where her daughter is staying. “Mawitaan is the third largest city in sub-Saharan Africa! It’s the center of a major sheep-herding region and sits atop valuable copper deposits!”

Funky Winkerbean, 8/8/19

In addition to being a very bad English teacher, Les is also the advisor to the school newspaper. Today we’re learning that many of the kids who work for the school newspaper are unfamiliar with the vocabulary of journalism, and this is … proof that young people are dumb and bad, and not an indictment of the man who’s supposed to be teaching them about journalism, somehow?

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Gil Thorp, 8/5/19

“Here’s what I’m thinking, Mr. Ballard. Why don’t you stop thinking of your job as determining the best and fairest set of rules for your school district and then making sure everyone follows those rules regardless of their status, and instead realizing what it really is: a means to grease the skids for people with enough power and influence to make life unpleasant for you if you don’t let them do what they want? Don’t worry, you won’t have to actually let anyone else bend the rules like this in the future, unless they also have a friend who’s a bored high-powered lawyer. Just do this one thing this one time and all your problems go away, probably!”

Hi and Lois, 8/5/19

Ha ha, it’s funny because Trixie views her place in the Flagston household as perpetually contingent, and worries she could be thrown in the trash at any time! Her parents do just ignore her for hours out of the day while she crawls around the house unsupervised, which might have something to do with it.

Dick Tracy, 8/5/19

Theater people??? Doing drugs???? UNHEARD OF

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Marvin, 7/31/19

I guess i’s a step forward that today’s Marvin absolutely infuriated me for entirely non-poop related reasons. No, I’m just furious about how badly this punchline is botched! There are actually two perfectly good ways this basic joke could be done:

JOKE STRUCTURE #1 (kinda basic, but still very effective)

PANEL ONE:
BERNIE: Remember that old TV show Cheers, where everybody at the bar knows your name?
ROY: Yeah

PANEL TWO:
BERNIE: Well, it’s like that when I go to the medical building

PANEL THREE:
THERE IS NO PANEL THREE BECAUSE THE FIRST TWO PANELS ACTUALLY CONVEY EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW! THE MEDICAL BUILDING IS WHERE EVERYONE KNOWS BERNIE’S NAME, BECAUSE HE’S OLD AND SICK A LOT! JOKE OVER!

JOKE STRUCTURE #2 (maybe a little daring for a comic strip, but I think it would work)

PANEL ONE:
BERNIE: Remember that old TV show Cheers, where everybody at the bar knows your name?
ROY: Yeah

PANEL TWO:
BERNIE: Well, it’s like that when I go to the medical building

PANEL THREE:
BERNIE: Everyone there is a drunk!

But no, instead, we just get a third panel that doesn’t add any more twists to the punchline, but rather just explains what the punchline was. It doesn’t work! It doesn’t work at all! I almost wish Marvin had shit his pants, to distract us!

Dick Tracy, 7/31/19

Don’t worry yourself, Vitamin: I’m sure that the theater, which you literally own, felt absolutely free to make a decision as to whether to cast you in the role you so transparently and desperately want based entirely on artistic criteria. If you don’t believe me, believe the adoring, much younger woman you knocked up!

Six Chix, 7/31/19

I’ve been staring at this for a long time and trying to figure out why all the action is a circle in the middle of the panel surrounded by blackness. I guess it’s supposed to be like we’re looking at the scene through a camera, with the implication being “Sure, we live in a society where in order to afford the most basic necessities we might need to leverage our ability to inspire pity on social media, but at least we’re also under continuous surveillance”?

Dennis the Menace, 7/31/19

I accept that Dennis’s menacing levels have waxed and waned over the years, but I have to draw the line at this sort of wide-eyed sub-Family Circus-ism delivered while cradling a teddy bear. The only way this is at all appropriate if it’s part of a larger plan to send Joey spiraling down a dark path experimenting with hallucinogens too young and too often.