Post Content

Shoe, 5/18/25

You know I’m a fan of the depressing Shoe strips where either the Perfesser or Skyler is sitting in the living room chair and the other one has to just stand there awkwardly in order to have a conversation because they don’t have a second living room chair and have no plans to get one. A nice touch about these strips is that often, as in today’s, the person sitting in the chair has to uncomfortably crane their neck around to talk, just to emphasize that the house layout is incredibly hostile to the very idea of the two people living there interacting with one another for more than the briefest stretches of time.

Dick Tracy, 5/18/25

“…111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60603! That’s the Art Institute of Chicago, which bought the painting from Grant Wood directly after it took a bronze medal in a competition there. It was lent to a couple European museums in the mid ’10s but it’s back now. Anyway, not sure why Dick Tracy needs to get this information over the phone from a real cagey guy who probably just murdered someone instead of looking it up online like a normal person, but I don’t tell him how to do his business.”

Panel from The Lockhorns, 5/18/25

This is about … Loretta dying, right? Like definitely Leroy is musing, right in the middle of their therapy session, about how great it would be for him personally if Loretta died?

Post Content

Hi and Lois, 5/15/25

Sorry, Hi: today’s teens would never try to read something and listen to something else simultaneously. Instead, they focus all their attention on one thing at a time so they can truly be present in the moment with a text or song. They call it “monotasking” and it’s an explicit rejection of the brain-scattered, information-overload world that your generation (Xennials) created. Get with the times, old man!

Gearhead Gertie, 5/15/25

The ironic thing here is that Gertie obviously owns the NASCAR Official Collector’s Edition of Monopoly that Parker Brothers put out in 1997, but she refuses to open the shrink wrap because she thinks it will lose its value. Gertie, you can buy that game on eBay for $12! You gain nothing by annoying your grandson like this.

Shoe, 5/15/25

I really enjoy the dynamic here where the Perfesser announces that he wants to do something fun that might be a little outside his comfort zone, and his boss, who he hates but is nevertheless spending his precious free time with, shits all over the idea. I assume that in panel two the Perfesser is getting a big whiff of Shoe’s cigar, which also must be pretty unpleasant for him.

The Lockhorns, 5/15/25

I like how downcast Leroy looks here. He knows this terrible pun is a subpar effort, but it’s all he can come up with, and what’s he going to do, not say something vaguely critical of his wife while she’s doing something she enjoys?

Post Content

Heathcliff, 5/7/25

The thing about Heathcliff is that he should be dominant in any situation in which he finds himself, either having established himself as being on top of the hierarchy or doing something that ignores other people’s dominant positions and makes them nervous. Garfield is usually dominant in his strip but sometimes this is reversed for comical effect, but I don’t think that works with Heathcliff. Heathcliff should not be “in deep” with his bookie and currying favor with him by laughing too hard at his jokes! He should be at the top of an attack parabola, ready to descend claws extended onto the face of the starting pitcher of whatever team he’s just bet against.

The Lockhorns, 5/7/25

I really respect that Leroy has absorbed just enough Harry Potter knowledge to know that witches send letters with owls but doesn’t really know or care that many witches and wizards are good guys, they aren’t the kind of comical evil crone-witches he associates with Loretta’s mother, etc. I also respect The Lockhorns for getting the U.S. Postal Service’s logo correct on this letter carrier’s bag, which is more than Blondie, a strip with a recurring mailman character, can say.

Dick Tracy, 5/7/25

The mostly empty tumbler of brown liquor on the desk in the final panel is a nice touch. “Ahh, I shan’t leave this evidence behind!” he thinks, smugly and drunkly, right before whatever electrified net contraption Sam has talked the MCU’s favorite judge into letting them use descends upon him.