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Gil Thorp, 12/21/20

Ahh, one of my favorite occasional Gil Thorp bits is when they introduce a nerd character, to balance out the jocks, although because of this strip’s relentless focus on jocks, the plot is always that the nerd must enter the jock realm! Like Remember Bobby, the stats nerd who weaseled his way into an unpaid quasi-assistant coaching gig but gave fake adderall to one of the basketball players and got fired, only to come back a few years later to attempt to humiliate Gil via billboards, except that he was ultimately humiliated himself by Marty Moon? Or remember Steve Luhm, who was technically a jock because he played basketball but also was a nerd because he was a feminist and couldn’t use street slang appropriately, and then he came back a few years later to work as a janitor at Milford High? If you’re detecting a pattern here, it’s that, despite what pencil-neck English teachers might tell you, nerds don’t actually do better than jocks after graduation, so suck it, nerds, an while it’s true that some nerd characters didn’t get a post-Milford comeuppance but just saddled with hilarious nerd dialogue instead, my point is: how will poor Vic Doucette’s hubristic desire to replace Mr. Staley as the basketball P.A. announcer (?) result in his inevitable, and justly deserved, fall from grace?

Dick Tracy, 12/21/20

A friend of mine is the daughter of a vineyard owner, and once I was talking to her dad about how the Napa wine industry survived prohibition, and he told me that one thing some vineyards did was to ship all the raw materials needed for winemaking to customers along with a very detailed instruction set that began with “Now that you have received these innocent items, no matter what you do, don’t take the following steps or else you’ll have created wine, and that would be illegal.” What I’m trying to say is that Dick Tracy, a comic strip that I feel safe in saying been historically anti-crime, seems with this storyline very eager to offer us plenty of nuts and bolts tips on how to run a narcotics distribution ring.

Dennis the Menace, 12/21/20

You know what we can all agree is extremely menacing? Munchausen syndrome by proxy!

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Today I’m doing something a little different, but for important reasons! I need to talk about today’s Phantom, but I need to go back to earlier Phantoms from this week to fully explain what I need to talk about and why I neglected to prepare you for today’s amazing strip. Let’s start on Monday!

The Phantom, 12/14/20

The only background you need is that the Phantom and a friend are infiltrating a compound in Rhodia using lucha libre fighting techniques; no further explanation or context is necessary and none will be supplied. On Monday, they breached the compound’s walls and began their assault. Notice the rhino head at top right in the first panel. I don’t remember this registering with me at all; if I noticed it at the time, I probably assumed it was just a decorative statue of some sort, since it appears to be in the middle of a planter in a courtyard.

The Phantom, 12/15/20

On Tuesday, the rhino’s head is looming behind our heroes. I missed it on that day as well, presumably because I was so taken by the villains hanging around a the bar, watching Scarface and eating Mary Worth-style oblong ecru appetizers. And it’s just a head! It could still theoretically be part of the decor, I guess?

The Phantom, 12/16/20

This is clearly the Phantom reassuringly patting a living, full-sized rhino, who’s just hanging out next to him. I have no excuse on this one, none at all. But like … nobody’s mentioned the rhino, in strip dialogue? It’s just kind of … there? These strips are not usually subtle! That’s the only excuse I have.

The Phantom, 12/17/20

Today, finally, I cannot ignore this magnificent rhino as it bursts through the glass, joining our hero in his bid to free his friend and defeat the sinister Rhodian warlord. I assume said warlord keeps this rhino captive in his compound as an ostentatious display of wealth, and the Phantom won the beast’s massive heart by displaying simple human kindness and decency. Now the behornèd behemoth will help dispatch the villains, and — we hope — will be freed once the adventure is concluded.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/17/20

Oh man, video chatting is a great platform for Rex to really superciliously glower at one of his pathetic patients. “Buck, have you gone and developed the diabeetus? I’m disappointed, but not even slightly surprised.”

Gil Thorp, 12/17/20

HELL YEAH, DOUG GUTHRIE HAS A BITCHIN’ CAR

THERE IS LITERALLY NO REASON HE NEEDS TO PAY ATTENTION TO HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL, HE ALREADY RULES

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Mary Worth, 12/15/20

Mary’s advice to Tommy was basically just to keep doing the good stuff he was doing and not give up on himself, and that positive things would come of that. She didn’t promise that Brandy would take him back as a result, but now that Tommy’s come bearing good news and the raw material for salmon squares, Mary wants all the specifics. She has advice-giving metrics she needs to hit, and she needs hard data on relationship re-engagement for the Q4’20 PowerPoint she’s putting together for her presentation to the board.

Gil Thorp, 12/15/20

Ah yes, it’s the most sacred moment in any Gil Thorp storyline: the Ceremonial Rattling Off Of The Names. Sometimes this is just an excuse for the strip to later on be like “we did too tell you who all these people are, you can’t complain just because our sports action is wholly baffling,” but sometimes it’s an opportunity to set up the important characters for the coming storylines. Like this Doug Guthrie fella! Turns out that he’s good at basketball but won’t fully pay attention to Coaches Gil and Kaz just because they’re “boring” and “spend all day in their office yelling names at each other.” Hopefully this twerp will get his priorities in order, and soon!

Dick Tracy, 12/15/20

This is an honestly very educational strip about what happens in an underground marketplace where there’s no set of shared best practices for industry professionals and no universally trusted third-party regulatory body with jurisdiction over product labelling. Anyway, when it comes to people who probably won’t notice or react badly if they do notice when you sell them a somewhat smaller amount of merchandise than what you originally promised for a set price, definitely cocaine addicts are the first group that I think of.