Post Content

Gil Thorp, 8/31/20

Man, remember when I had cautious but high hopes for a wacky Gil Thorp summer storyline? Well, it’s pretty much the end of summer, and I haven’t talked about Gil Thorp at all, but I can summarize what went down like this: star quarterback of yesteryear True Standish came back, having graduated and been inexplicably drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays, which is a baseball team, and the sassy and vaguely beloved Corina Karenna, who played catcher on Mike “The Mayor”’s ragtag baseball team from the bad kid school, was recruited to help True work out his arm. If that sounds like it might’ve been vaguely wacky, keep in mind that most of the eight weeks was spent talking about True and Corina’s mothers, who have both battled depression, which was very serious and not wacky at all. But now Corina is attending Milford, it seems, which will … help her mom in some way I didn’t really follow, so I hope that the upcoming fall will feature less of her fiercely but tenderly caring for and defending her beloved family (SNOOZE) and more of her defying authority or at least sassing back at authority at a rate at least 10% higher than the usual Mudlark would.

Dustin, 8/31/20

The point of Dustin is, of course, to turn the battle between Dustin’s dad and Dustin into symbol of the Boomer-Millennial struggle. Of course, thanks to comic book time Dustin’s dad is now Gen X and Dustin is probably a Zoomer, but the point is that Dustin is lazy and can’t hold down a job or find a girlfriend so that’s evidence that young people in general suck. But here’s a young person who works at Dustin’s dad’s law firm and wears a suit and everything, but apparently he still sucks because, uh, phones? Anyway, since it’s clear that young people in general are fully capable of holding down a job, Dustin’s dad might want to consider that his kid sucks because he did a bad job raising him, just putting that out there.

Post Content

Funky Winkerbean, 7/13/20

Hey, remember how this is the second attempt to make a movie out of Lisa’s Story, and the first one actually got to the point where filming had started and everything, and Les somehow managed to both derail the production and get paid for doing so? And the only reason Mason managed to talk Les into signing off on another go-round was to promise to do it the “right way“? Well, now we know what “the right way” means, because unlike last time, Mason’s production has bothered to fit the actress playing Lisa with a Lisa-like wig, and it has utterly blown Les’s mind. I certainly hope he goes into a complete meltdown like Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo, becomes convinced that Marianne is Lisa, and begs her to come home with him, leading him to be ejected from the set, and, ultimately, committed to a mental hospital. The ensuing publicity makes Lisa’s Story an unexpected hit as everyone wants to see the movie that drove its own screenwriter mad, and Mason dedicates his Best Actor Oscar to Les, but he’s not allowed to watch the ceremony.

Gil Thorp, 7/13/20

You know what used to be a tradition around here is that Gil Thorp would do a completely bonkers summer storyline, but in recent years instead there’s just been boring bullshit about golf, so I certainly hope Gil is going to “shake things up” by ditching this new, dumb tradition in favor of the older, better one.

Dick Tracy, 7/13/20

Oh, he doesn’t have two heads? He’s just a guy whose shtick is that he likes ice cream cones, and his name is Coney? BOOOOOOOOO

Post Content

Gil Thorp, 7/11/20

Well folks, it looks like all’s well that end’s well, Mike “The Mayor”-wise! Sure, he had to endure half a semester at an “alternative” school for bad kids due to a draconian zero tolerance policy, but the important thing is that he used the opportunity to demonstrate leadership, responsibility, and perseverance, and also that he had a well-respected adult who works at a non-alternative school to write a letter of recommendation for him. Speaking of things and people that got used, what do you suppose is going to happen to all the bad kid pals Mike made and roped into his little baseball game? Probably menial jobs and/or prison, right?

Dick Tracy, 7/11/20

Neo-Dick Tracy hasn’t been quite as committed to physically freakish villains as past iterations of the strip have been, but I’m just going to say this now: the guy who just bought that ice cream cone better have two heads, or at least two faces.