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Dick Tracy, 6/18/2008

OK, so Dick’s waiting for a robbery, and Shirl tells the crime boss to wait for Dick’s move. We’ll check back in six months or so: maybe a meteor will hit or something.

Gasoline Alley, 6/18/2008

Yeah, that meteor thing? Could totally happen! But this is just poor Rufus trying to navigate between his hallucinatory Messiah, celebrity cat-chef Meowrice, and the hellish pit of his own despair. Also, “. . . eat and drown our sorrows. . . ?” Rufus looks a tad old for Similac, and not quite ready for Ensure.

Gil Thorp, 6/18/2008

You know, not long ago this strip was flirting with linearity, coherence, and representational artwork. Sure dodged that bullet, didn’t they?

Pluggers, 6/18/2008

Clenching extra-hard on her cigar butt, our noble plugger vows that this time she won’t forget to ask Dr. S. for her Aricept® refill.

You know, all these comics are from the Tribune Media Service. If I were Chicago’s Department of Water Management, I’d be looking into that.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Gasoline Alley, 5/26/08

Can I confide to you that I actually find the concept of a heavily-accented, curly-mustachioed French pitchcat named “Chef Meowrice” pretty funny, if deranged? I’m guessing the name is supposed to be a pun on famous French-accent-haver Maurice Chevalier. However, I am firmly, firmly opposed to “Tabby Wynette,” mostly because she should be be belting out country tunes full of hard-earned sadness and loss, rather than just standing around in some kind of creepy cat S&M get-up and cozying up to some Frenchie for pulverized mouse bits.

Popeye, 5/26/08

In other news, Popeye has come ’round again to Olive Oyl’s suicide, as is its wont.

Apartment 3-G, 5/26/08

Meanwhile, across the world in Tibet, we’ve been given a respite from Alan’s zany drug antics. Eric and Tenzin have been making the long trudge to Lhasa on foot, apparently unaware that you can actually take the train there now. You can tell that they’ve been on a long journey because Eric has grown a neatly trimmed beard, while Tenzin has become a blond-haired Caucasian. Seeing the fabled city in the distance, Eric muses that it would have been better for the place to have been destroyed and all its people killed than to have any contact with modernity.

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Phantom, 5/3/08

Could the JUNGLE PATROL’s longstanding no-yucky-girls-allowed policy have been based on sound policy, not mere prejudice? The men of the Jungle Patrol have for centuries cheerfully taken orders without question from a mysterious figure that they never see and who may not even exist; but these two dames have been Jungle Patrolpersons for less than a week and they’re already determined to suss out his identity — not because they find the idea of a faceless, nameless superior officer creepy and weird, of course, but because they want to have sex with him. Kay and Hawa have been yammering on in this vein for several days now, and I’ve been wondering how their tight-knit friendship would survive when the Unknown Commander has to choose only one of them to be his Unknown Commandress, but today we learn that obviously the choice will be based on racial grounds. It’s too bad the real U.C. isn’t Chinese or something, just because it would be fun to watch that blow their minds.

Apartment 3-G, 5/3/08

Thanks to the glory and pageantry of NetFlix, my wife and I tore through all five seasons of The Wire a few months ago, but this Apartment 3-G makes me realize that I still don’t fully understand the economics of the drug trade. Will Jones be pleased when he realizes that Alan is redistributing his dope, happy to move up the ladder from street-level dealer to wholesaler? Or will he conclude that the profits Alan is reaping by selling smack to desperate floozies are rightfully his own, and decide to shoot the hapless artist in the back of the head and leave his body to rot in a vacant somewhere?

The stakes would be much higher if everyone involved weren’t morons. I love Jones’s rapt expression in panel two. “Whoah — that’ll buy a lotta dope! Now where I could I find some … oh, wait, I have some right here! Turns out I don’t need your money after all, Alan.”

Dick Tracy, 5/3/08

Dick Tracy’s contempt for Deformed-Americans has never been more obvious. Hey, Liz, your “knight in shining armor” lost his gun, then stood around aimlessly in that shining armor until somebody else shot the bad guy. Your real savior was Dab Stract, who has the added bonus of not being married (I’m assuming). Go on, plant a wet one his lumpy, malformed cheek. He’s earned it!

Gasoline Alley, 5/3/08

His two-timing having been revealed to the congregation, Sturdivant is about to be dragged out of the church by the bride’s hobo relatives and stabbed to death, or possibly sodomized. Score another one for good ol’ fashioned frontier justice!