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Dick Tracy, 7/15/22

Oh so it turns out that the Moon Ambassador (formerly the Moon Governor) has lured Dick to Moon Valley because some of the Moon People are plotting to use their anvil-melting powers to destroy all of the human governments and take over the earth. Can you imagine our human armies turning around and fleeing in terror as sexy Moon Women use their powers to melt the anvils upon which our military might depends? Truly chilling. Anyway, because the Moon People are so powerful anvil-wise, their society has never developed important jobs like detectives, so they’re not exactly sure who’s doing the plotting. Why figure out who committed a crime when you can melt an anvil, I always say! It seems like because they don’t have a lot of experience in this area, the Moon People don’t really know the difference between “policeman who tries to solve crimes” and “secret policeman who tries to track down political dissidents” and Dick is not going to do anything to clear this matter up, I’m quite willing to bet.

Hi and Lois, 7/15/22

Neutral Milk Hotel’s 1998 album In The Aeroplane Over The Sea was a transformational work of art for a generation of indie rock lovers, but its origins are remarkably prosaic.

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Hi and Lois, 7/12/22

Though I strongly believe in the comedy principle that specific things are funnier than vague things, I have kind of come to respect the fact that most comics dads have the same extremely ill-defined white-collar jobs they’ve had since the ’50s. Their wives got their jobs in the more specific ’80s and ’90s, so they’re in identifiable businesses like “real estate” or “catering,” but the husbands are still going to generic offices doing generic professional stuff in the year 2022. Today even Mr. Foofram looks utterly exhausted by this ruse, as he urges his employees to give 110% with an affect indicating that he’s giving about 35%, 40% tops.

Crankshaft, 7/12/22

On Sunday, America’s comics-reading public was “treated” to Ed Crankshaft — and this is no time for delicacy, so I’m just going to say it — fucking his girlfriend in a car less than three feet away from impressionable children. Today we learn that he likes to leave plates of rotting meat out to attract flies. I fear that this strip is beginning to realize that its main character will never experience any pushback or consequences for his actions, and that’s taking things to a very dark place.

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Crankshaft, 7/10/22

This week, Crankshaft already delivered some “fan service” to that portion of the reader base who, like me, are interested in seeing the title character stung by dozens of bees, so I guess I have to accept that they also have to cater to those who want to see Crankshaft having sex in a car, or at least blowing his nose so vigorously that the windows steam up.

Family Circus, 7/10/22

Speaking of hanky panky, some might see this strip as showing Big Daddy Keane imitating his worst son in an attempt to convince his wife to initiate sex, but check out how genuinely sad he looks in the last panel: I think it’s just about the affectionate physical touch he hasn’t received in years and will continue not receiving in the future.

Hi and Lois, 7/10/22

Man, this is a real bummer for me, because for a long time this has been one of my go-to Fun Facts to drop at parties or whatever but now that I see that a boring suburban dad like Hi is enthusiastic about explaining it I’m reevaluating my whole attitude about this! Although, one thing he leaves out is that people didn’t just do chores when they woke up in the middle of the night; that was also a popular time for religious devotion, and a lot of what we know about this whole sleeping schedule comes from prayer books written specifically for this contex[I AM PULLED OFF STAGE BY A GIANT VAUDVILLE-STYLE HOOK]