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Six Chix, 6/24/14

Hey guys, here’s a comic that … I’m pretty sure is supposed to have a joke in it? Except it doesn’t seem to have a joke in it. Just a lady who feels that, due to her educational status and cultural position, she’s supposed to be better acquainted with the canon of Western literature than she is. And she feels bad enough about it that she’s willing to pay a therapist to listen to her talk about it. Which isn’t funny? It seems to not be funny. Maybe the way her therapist is looking at her with open contempt is the joke? It’s not very funny either, but it’s moderately funnier than the other thing.

Mark Trail, 6/24/14

TRUE FACT: Despite being adorable-looking and the subject of a popular and condescending tabletop game, hippos are actually super aggressive and dangerous and will just straight-up attack people for no reason at all. So I dub this Mark Trail depiction of wanton hippo violence accurate! I’m more dubious on the question of whether any African humans are actually named “Taurus,” however.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/24/14

Future rich dowager Sarah Morgan just heard the two most important sentences of her young life so far: “You’re allowed to do anything I want” and “If the museum wants my million bucks, we do it my way!” Mrs. Pierpont is writing on her little pad of paper, but Sarah is the one who should be taking notes.

Herb and Jamaal, 6/24/14

In order for the extremely mild “punchline” of this strip to work, it needs to be vaguely surprising when Jamaal compares his feelings for a jar of sourdough starter to the romantic attraction one would expect him to feel for a human woman. However, any such surprise is completely precluded by the frank and shocking scene of man-on-glassware intimacy depicted in panel three.

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Herb and Jamaal, 6/14/14

I’m honestly curious about what the backstory is on today’s Herb and Jamaal, in which Herb has charged into Rev. Croom’s office to angrily challenge his entire belief system. Is this happening after yet another Sunday service that Herb’s family dragged him to, and something in the sermon finally pushed him over the edge until he couldn’t stay quiet anymore? Or was he just sitting at work, stewing over Croom’s unshakeable faith in the unprovable, until eventually he just barged into the Reverend’s office hours (do clergy have office hours? seems like a thing they’d have) demanding that he make room in his mental universe for doubt? At any rate, the final panel proves that Herb is helpless before the power of wordplay.

Apartment 3-G, 6/14/14

Jack’s been going on forever about dealing with some ghosts, and I guess I always assumed he was being metaphorical, but now I’m not so sure? If he comes riding back with the ghost of his dead wife captured in some kind of Ghostbusters-style spectral containment unit, I’ll be willing to forgive a lot about this storyline.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/14/14

Oh, sorry, the God of the Funkyverse isn’t actually trying to stop Wally and Rachel’s wedding, just drive it into Montoni’s, where by immutable law all economic and social activity in Westview must take place. They don’t call Montoni’s “The Wedding Chapel of Love” for nothing! Actually, nobody calls it that, but Funky refuses to stop trying to make it a thing.

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Dick Tracy, 6/11/14

Well, Dick Tracy is going to fully commit to this crossover with the defunct Little Orphan Annie, with added hint-references to, I guess, Alley Oop? Maybe? It’s a series of nesting nods to comics history that maybe a few dozen people are going to fully appreciate, and you know, you keep doing you, Dick Tracy creative team. I’m more interested in the idea that Annie has been kidnapped by/is hanging out with “The Butcher of the Balkans,” whoever that may be. According to Wikipedia, there are at least five people who have been graced with that nickname (and, side note, sucks to be your region if it merits that kind of Wikipedia disambiguation page); two of them are in jail for war crimes and three are dead, one of whom was subjected to some extreme measures to make sure he stayed that way. Is there another one waiting in the wings? What relationship does he have with the Warbucks family? Will uncomfortable questions come up about who made bucks selling weapons to both sides in the wars that killed tens of thousands when Yugoslavia broke up in the ’90s? Is someone going to have to write a lot more checks?

Gasoline Alley, 6/11/14

I wonder if we’re being asked to believe that (a) “awk” is a thing the Kids Today say when they mean “awkward” (do they? maybe! I try to avoid contact with the Kids Today whenever possible) and (b) that children who who have been depicted casually throwing around the word “fellers” would talk like the Kids Today? Either way, I’m much more unsettled by the parrot, who seems fully sapient and increasingly outraged that nobody seems to notice or care. “No! Not the blanket again … I can’t stand any more darkness! Why won’t you listen to me? Why can’t anyone understand what I say?”

Herb and Jamaal, 6/11/14

Looks like Rev. Croom is in some financial difficulty and is dodging his creditors! Fortunately, he’s found some biblical backing for his strategies.