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Blondie, 1/17/19

To me, the best part of this comic, which posits that Dagwood is an animal test subject in some vast, mysterious laboratory, is that he’s failing to validate whatever experiment is being conducted. Blondie might imagine him fulfilling some higher being’s expectations for coffee’s effect on human motivation, but in real life there he is in bed, stubbornly refusing to be chemically motivated. It’s beautiful to me, though surely like all experimental subjects he’ll be disposed of soon enough.

Dick Tracy, 1/17/19

One of the people working on a Dick Tracy-derived performance that involves multiple layers of nostalgia, each resonating with a smaller and smaller audience, feels so unfulfilled by the exercise that he needs to drink himself stupid in order to carry on with it! Hopefully this is not a disturbing look behind the scenes at the strip.

Mary Worth, 1/17/19

MICHAEL [to himself]: “Oh, snap, this chick doesn’t need my help with the assignment, she must really be good at English lit. But how am I gonna get her to sleep with me then? I know, I’ll bust out some big words. Chicks who love English lit love big words!”

MICHAEL [aloud]: “Are you an English literature aficionado?”

Dustin, 1/17/19

Maybe I’m wrong about Dustin not adequately covering both sides of the Boomer-Millennial divide. Sure, the comic makes fun of today’s youths and their habit of just dozing off in the middle of the work day, but it also points out that today’s old people hate their families so much that it’s literally killing them.

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Dustin, 1/8/19

It may not have been obvious from the Dustins I’ve showcased here but the gimmick of Dustin is that Dustin is a 23-year-old college graduate who has moved back in with his parents and is having Failure To Launch problems. As a Gen-Xer, I am a neutral party in the raging war between Baby Boomers and Millennials, and I hereby declare that Dustin is really shitty in its treatment of young people! Like surely there is humor to be mined from this conflict of worldviews but instead we get things like today, “Ha ha, youths can’t hold down a job because they just spontaneously fall asleep all the time! Meanwhile, the ADULTS who MADE THIS COUNTRY WHAT IT IS TODAY are going to enjoy some LEGITIMATE HIGHBROW CULTURE.”

Gil Thorp, 1/8/19

I appreciate it when bit players in the comics really give it their all in the one or two panels they appear. It’s subtle, but I’m particularly enjoying the “ain’t I a stinker?” realness being served up by the employee of [squints] S-Kybomi Outdoor Media Solutions here. This may be the Best Performance By A Working-Class Guest Character In A Continuity Comic since 2014’s iconic “Man In Hat Who Doesn’t Care About Doc Ock’s Runaway Tentacles Enjoys Sandwich.”

Six Chix, 1/8/19

As we all know, you can take an expensive vacation to Paris, go to the Louvre, get lost in the Louvre, get annoyed by the Louvre, realize that you could do a comic about your experience at the Louvre, get paid to do that comic, and then write the entire cost of your trip off on your taxes. But can you write the cost of a trip to Paris off on your taxes if you just make fun a comic doing that? We’ll see what my accountant says! Fingers crossed!

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Mary Worth, 12/21/18

Oh man, it just now occurs to me that I’m not entirely sure what Ian’s voice is supposed to sound like! Ever since I stumbled upon these amazing videos years ago, I’ve heard this Ian in my head as the canonical Ian voice:

(I don’t think I’ve posted this in years and if you haven’t watched it yet you really owe it to yourself, it’s a couple weeks of Mary Worth strips acted out panel by panel, and I only found out long after first seeing it that it was made in Baltimore by friends and friends of friends of mine!)

BUT ANYWAY, while I enjoy the thought of Ian drawwwwing out his vowels pommmpously like the actor in the video, there are other alternatives. All we know is that this inexplicably besotted young woman thinks it’s “powerful”! He could have a very deep and stentorian voice! Or maybe gruff, scratchy, and bear-like! Also, we know he’s proud of his Scottish heritage, but have ever established whether or not he was actually born in Scotland? Does he have a Scots accent? Does he sound like Sean Connery, but drunker and angrier??? I will be thinking of nothing else for weeks!

Dustin, 12/21/18

You know what I always thought of as an “unspoken covenant”? Not to just start a conversation with a total stranger with “Good lord, there’s shit everywhere in there.” Maybe it’s just me though!