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Gasoline Alley, 6/11/24

So, the reason the electricity went out at Walt’s is that a big tree fell over and pulled down the power line running from the utility pole to the house, and now some guys from the power company have come out in the middle of the night to repair it. This is, obviously, annoying, and could easily be the most annoying thing that would happen to you in a given year, if your year was pretty good overall, but I do not think it could in any way be described as an “unbelievable ordeal.” It’s actually quite easy to believe! You think Walt and Gertie are going to describe it to other people and they’ll say “My God, you can’t be serious”? No, it’ll be more like “Oh wow, that sounds annoying. Nice that the power company came out to fix it in the middle of the night, though.”

Dick Tracy, 6/11/24

If we’re going to go through the trouble of continuing to make Dick Tracy comics, then I suppose part of that process has to be about exploring how Dick Tracy and his friends and foes would interact with modern-day stuff. I feel ambivalent about it, but I respect that they want to do it rather than just rehash golden age Dick Tracy stuff endlessly, and I have to say that I am marginally more intrigued to find out what Dick Tracy thinks about cryptocurrency than I was to find out what he thinks about furries.

Bizarro, 6/11/24

There are two things I love about this comic. The first is that the snowman outside the apartment has clearly spent a lot of time sculpting his snow-body into the flowing shape of a ethereal spectre, but is big enough to recognize that his friend’s cheap prop humor is more likely to win kudos than his own more subtle work. The second is that Bizarro has, in a bold refusal to adhere to conventions, chosen to do a joke about snowmen going to a Halloween party in the middle of the summer.

The Phantom, 6/11/24

A classic bit I do on my blog is to look at a day’s comic and say “Ha ha, surely the next development in this strip will be [something that is far too silly to ever happen in a comic strip]”, and a classic bit that the comics do in response is to produce a subsequent development that’s substantially sillier than I predicted. Anyway, I apologize for joking that “Space-Ox,” the private rocket company in the current Phantom storyline, is run by Elon Musk Ox (he’s just like Elon Musk, but also an ox). In fact, it’s run by Ian Mollusk (he’s just like Elon Musk, but also a snail).

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Blondie, 5/28/24

I think it’s very telling that Dagwood doesn’t seem to particularly care about getting to work on time using this new futuristic technology; instead, he’s mostly interested in taunting his supposed friends after he beats them in a competition they didn’t even realize they were part of.

Rhymes With Orange, 5/28/24

You know you’re of A Certain Age when you see this cartoon and don’t really care about the flat stomach aspect but instead think about your creaky, increasingly hunched back and say “Would this work on my BACK? Yes, please, just do it, smoosh me out, squish me flatter, I’m BEGGING YOU”

Dick Tracy, 5/28/24

The newspaper comics are a fundamentally great medium because there are days when you don’t know you want a whole panel of some guy with a comically archaic mustache seen from a weird angle, but then you get it and you think, “Yes, this is what I wanted. Thank you for this.”

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Mary Worth, 4/11/24

Uh, what’s that? We sent Wilbur on a solo karaoke journey where he sang Celine Dion and you felt nothing? Well, what if we, uh [sweating profusely at the thought that the Wilbur Weston narrative gold mine might finally be tapped out], what if we had him run into his ex, and she’s just like, festooned with pets, including the cat he lost a piss fight to and the dog that just wasn’t that into him? What about now, huh? Does that do it for you? Does Wilbur’s tight little smile as he dies inside give you that little hit of dopamine you crave?

Dick Tracy, 4/11/24

Man, Blowtop, if I were you I would’ve kept quiet about the fact that you’ve been robbing banks (since that’s illegal) and freely offered any information you had about Croptop’s release date (since that’s information that a police officer could easily obtain from the prison system anyway). Not my business I realize but that’s just my suggestion!