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Dick Tracy, 7/15/11

I hate to criticize the new Dick Tracy team, who I think do a great job in terms of art and tone, and are clearly huge fans of the Dick Tracy mythos; however, much of their early work has consisted of endless callbacks to what I assume are beloved characters from the past, making the whole thing kind of baffling to the uninitiated. At least I feel confident in guessing that this so-called “Mr. Crime” is a criminal of some sort; I’m also reasonably certain that he’s a lizard-man.

Mary Worth, 7/15/11

Oh ho ho, it looks like Dr. Jeff hasn’t given up in his continued quest to make Mary the next Mrs. Dr. Jeff, and he knows there’s nobody more marriageable as a tuxedo’d gent who’s just raised a lot of money for charity. Be warned, sir: you know what happens when people put on bow ties to win Mary’s heart? They end up dead.

Gil Thorp, 7/15/11

Gil Thorp’s summer golf storyline has been as dull as you might expect, featuring teens flirting as they learn about our most boring summer sport. So you can imagine the relief I felt when I arrived at panel three and discovered that some cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers are about to make an appearance.

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Baldo, 7/9/11

Does anyone remember a series of PSAs that ran during children’s programming in the late ’70s and early ’80s that tried to convince kids not to scarf down all the delicious-looking prescription medications their parents had in the medicine cabinet? They featured some vaguely Sid-and-Marty-Kroft-esque blue spherical felt puppets with little beady eyes that I guess were supposed to represent pills, and they sang a weird, warbling little tune called “We’re Not Candy,” the only lyrics to which I can remember are the end of the rhyming couplet, “fine and dandy.” They were of course horrifying and made you not want to take drugs, or even eat candy; I don’t watch a lot of kid’s TV anymore, but I’m assuming they’ve long gone off the air. At any rate, this is my roundabout way of getting to the fact that Gracie and her little friend are well on their way to becoming pill fiends.

Crankshaft, 7/9/11

I hate myself for having become even accidentally aware of the Funkyverse’s dark spiritual pantheon, but isn’t Le Chat Blue the talking cat-demon who appears to taunt Les when he’s hitting a low point of suicidal depression? I didn’t know that this monster had a band, but I’m guessing it didn’t take a lot of data mining for Amazon to suggest its brand of mope-jazz to everyone with a Westview address.

Herb and Jamaal, 7/9/11

Speaking of suicidal depression, based on Herb And Jamaal’s Nameless White Customer’s thousand-yard stare in the last panel, I’m guessing he’s confused “being haunted by one’s own mortality” with “a mature philosophy.”

Gil Thorp, 7/9/11

“As you can tell by my fashionable attire, I’m a caddie! It’s the summer job to have, if you’re a fan of staring at teenage boy ass.”

Dennis the Menace, 7/9/11

Ha ha, it’s funny because Dennis is taking joy in spending the day with his father, but all his dad cares about is his dumb golf score!

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Mark Trail, 6/27/11

When is it time to start paying attention to Mark Trail? When the violence starts, obviously! Young John Thrasher suddenly shows the benefits of his military training and steely nerves by announcing his refusal to cooperate with law enforcement authorities, rapidly covering several feet, and then kicking the sheriff in the solar plexus, all while he has a rifle pointed right at him. He shows the benefits of his good breeding and essentially gentle nature by apologizing for this act of derring-do while he’s still in the process of perpetrating it.

There’s been a slight but noticeable uptick lately of Trailian good guys physically assaulting law enforcement officers. To be sure, it’s all to forward the cause of good in the long run, but can this “ends justify the means” philosophy really co-exist with this feature’s traditional straight-arrow morals? Eventually, the strip’s whole universe might devolve into chaos; fortunately, the strip moves slowly enough that by “eventually” I mean “millions of years hence, long after the Earth’s sun becomes a red giant star, wiping out all human life.”

Gil Thorp, 6/27/11

When is it time to start paying attention to Gil Thorp? It certainly isn’t when Gil has some long, rambling confrontation with a school board member at an open meeting, so let’s continue not paying attention to it.

Momma, 6/27/11

The idea of a man’s mother casually asking him about his infidelities is both grotesque and par for the course in Momma, where Mother Hobbes will go to any length to break up the seemingly happy marriage of her eldest son. Still, we can sympathize with her exasperated expression in the final panel, as Thomas is apparently so lame that he can’t think of any way to stray that doesn’t involve the Internet.

Dennis the Menace, 6/27/11

And so began Alice Mitchell’s tragic addiction to prescription stimulants.

Spider-Man, 6/27/11

Ha ha, jokes on you, mysterious “Big Boss”! You can’t humiliate someone who is incapable of experiencing shame!

Ziggy, 6/27/11

Hey, everybody, are you going to enter the Ziggy 40th anniversary contest? Here’s my caption: OH MY GOD ZIGGY IS EATING A CAKE SHAPED LIKE HIS OWN FACE OH MY GOD