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Dick Tracy, 12/15/19

Yesterday we learned that Splitface, who used to be Haf and Haf and who also used to work as a carny, also used to work at the zoo, and this alligator, to whom he intends to feed all of our heroes, is an old pal from the carny days. For a strip that generally rushes through things and doesn’t really supply a lot of motivation for what characters do, we’re getting, like, too much backstory on Splitface and his relationship with various reptile co-workers for my taste, honestly. Hey, did you know he used to be Haf and Haf? True story.

Mark Trail, 12/15/19

So it turns out that yeti do in fact whistle, so Mark probably heard one last night, which revelation has caused Dr. Camel’s mighty, braying laugh to echo off of the distant Himalayas! Anyway, I have fully forgotten what Genie’s deal is, since she first showed up spouting fun Kathmandu facts. Like is she Dr. Camel’s longtime assistant, who has finally come round to being sick of his shit, or is this expedition her first experience with him, in which case she’s gotten sick of his shit fairly quickly? I guess the important, and hilarious, thing is that she and Mark have become visibly sick of his shit more or less at the exact same time.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/15/19

God knows I would almost never take the side of a Funkyverse character doing wordplay, but I dearly wish Becky would say, “Hey, man, didn’t you go ironically deaf and quit as band director more than ten years ago? Pretty sure ‘music director’ was a make-work job they came up with to ease you into retirement and you’re supposed to be puttering around the Board of Education offices downtown, not sitting at a desk immediately behind me for no good fucking reason, right here, in the band room, during band practice, which, I can’t emphasize enough, you can’t hear well enough to be helpful.”

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Pluggers, 12/11/19

Some commenters here think that I overread smugness into Pluggers panels. For instance, my first instinct is to interpret this panel as saying that walking into a chain coffee shop and just ordering a coffee (which, for the record, is what I do, and is something that workers at said coffee chains are perfectly happy to hear, you’re not blowing their minds or anything) is a morally superior act that really sticks it to the big city liberal millennials with their damn frappuccino macchiatos and such. But maybe I’m wrong! Maybe this is just meant to be a value-neutral descriptor of plugger consumer habits, and stringing together a series of nonsense fauxtalian terms isn’t meant as a slight towards the people who actually do order those drinks, at all. If that’s the case, I would propose that the real plugger here, in a country where working-class people are more likely to be in retail than manufacturing jobs, is the slouched, middle-aged, minimum-wage-earning balding-with-a-ponytail dog-man behind the counter, and not Andy Bear, who presumably has a solid pension and set of benefits from his union construction job. Dog-man is probably thrilled to get a plain coffee order, since that’s much less complicated to make! Truly, Andy’s choice is an act of solidarity!

Dick Tracy, 12/11/19

Ahh, our sinister villains are going to stop at nothing to lure Mike Nomad and Steve Roper to their doom, keeping at it even after their exploding car gambit failed. I don’t know why but I find the claim to be “armored car driver” extremely funny. It’s like their logic was “What’s the most trustworthy job? Cop. Oh, but wait, they know all the cops already. What’s like a cop, but, you know, maybe in a truck of some kind?”

Dennis the Menace, 12/11/19

Wait, does the Dennis the Menace creative team think that men call each other up to talk about the internet porn they’re looking at, while they’re looking at it? Because that would be incredibly menacing. Fortunately, nobody actually does that, but still, it sends a real chill down your spine, you know?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/11/19

Good news, everyone! Mindy had her baby, and Mindy and her baby are both still alive! Bad news, though: Check out the expression on Buck’s face in panel three. That’s the look of a man who’s had a terrible girl’s name up his sleeve for months, just an absolute dogshit name, and has been eagerly awaiting the moment to unleash it.

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Mary Worth, 12/9/19

Say what you will about this “Wilbur & Estelle & Zak & Iris” storyline, but it keeps zagging when I expect it to zig, by which I mean I never in a million years would’ve guessed that Wilbur and Zak, both heartbroken because their ladyfriends dumped them for wholly baffling reasons (because they’re public embarrassments with serious alcohol problems who aren’t over their ex and menopause, respectively), would end up bellying up to Santa Royale’s one vaguely seedy bar together and engaging in some good old fashioned male bonding. Anyway, Zak is nursing what’s presumably a local craft beer and Wilbur’s obviously on day twelve of a scotch bender, so Wilbur having what’s Zak’s having will actually sober him up a bit, hopefully keeping him coherent enough so we hear every detail of the restraining order Estelle got against him post-boombox incident. “The Charterstone laundry room is less than 150 yards from her apartment so I haven’t been able to wash any of my clothes for weeks, Zak. Weeks!”

Gil Thorp, 12/9/19

Welp, we’ve wrapped up the Chance Macy/Chet Ballard/Charlie Roh story, and, uh, it seems the football team is not headed for the playdowns, despite the revival of the bonfire this year, because we’ve just rolled right into the winter storyline, which seems to be about … a girl named Alexa, like the popular electronic assistant from Amazon, and all the other kids are making jokes about it? This seems fairly realistic, as teens are generally pretty shitty and also much less funny than they think they are, but I’m not sure it’s actually that great a basis for a months-long comics plot.

Dick Tracy, 12/9/19

You know what is a great basis for a months-long comics plot? A washed-up narcissistic old actor, whose enormous office is decorated with larger-than-life posters of himself, following up his successful production of Our Town with a wildly ill-conceived plan for stage version of Metropolis starring a woman transformed via alien DNA. This is a million times better than Steve Roper and Mike Nomad tracking down rogue carnies or whatever.

Crock, 12/9/19

I’ve always understood “entertainment center” to mean a big piece of furniture that has spots for your TV, DVD player, stereo, etc., which more or less went out of fashion when flatscreen TVs came onto the scene in the mid-to-late ’00s, and never would’ve been much of a gift item anyway. But I guess I’m overthinking this strip, where the punchline is that the real entertainment center is an old man’s dick.