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Spider-Man, 10/5/18

Though I’m usually defiantly proud of my general ignorance of superhero funnybooks, one thing I do know, having watched season one of Daredevil, is that Kingpin is a real estate-themed criminal, so I appreciate his “evicted” wordplay here. I want more real estate catchphrases out of him! You know, “This plan is trickier than assembling financing for a major construction project in Midtown Manhattan while trying to get your permits in order in time to begin construction,” that sort of thing. As a punchline for this bit, I was going to say “the actual plan he’s talking about is assembling financing for a major construction project in Midtown Manhattan while trying to get your permits in order in time to begin construction, but for evil,” but that honestly seemed redundant.

Mark Trail, 10/5/18

“Wait, isn’t that those two meddling kids who’ve been following me around? Oh, never mind, they’re reading. It can’t possibly be them. The kids I’m thinking of are definitely too dumb to know how to read.”

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Mark Trail, 9/26/18

OK, wait, what? Are these guys not in league with artifact-napping Becky? Are they actually a rival gang, working at cross-purposes with her? Or are they part of Mexican law enforcement, investigating in plain clothes to try to break up an artifact smuggling ring? When Rusty and Mara confront Jo(s)e and his associates, they’ll say “Kids, you’ve got it all wrong! We’re federales! You know, the Policía Federal, the institutional successor to the former mounted police!” And then Rusty and Mara will say, “If you’re the police, where are your badges?” And they’ll say, “Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We’re working deep undercover and can’t afford exposure. Showing you any stinkin’ badges would risk all of our lives!”

Mary Worth, 9/26/18

Oh, man, Mr. Wynter is an old grouch because he was forced to marry a woman he didn’t love! I certainly hope that we get smash cut from Bella’s lovingly tended grave in the pet cemetery to the overgrown potter’s field into which his hatèd wife was tossed without ceremony when Mr. Wynter was finally, blessedly, free of her.

Dick Tracy, 9/26/18

I’m reasonably sure that’s been well established that Honeymoon and Crystal are social outcasts at school, what with them both being mutant freaks and all. Still, I have to give props to this drug gang for trying to map out the social networks of the schools where they’re trying to sell their wares in order to maximize brand awareness rather than just having someone stand outside and say “Hey, kid, wanna get high?” to everyone indiscriminately like some half-assed dealers we could mention. It’s like the time the illicit tattoo parlor in Gil Thorp tried to woo twentysomethings by getting high school-aged customers: wildly misguided, but at least you’re putting in some effort to come up with something clever.

Hi and Lois 9/26/18

Hey, kids, it’s 2018! Why not try to get your fairly specific fetish into an extremely square syndicated newspaper comic strip? Nothing matters anymore!

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Spider-Man, 9/25/18

The thing about the super-hero genre is that it features lots of high-stakes combat but also (sorry, Mopey Pete) is mostly marketed to children, so there’s a bit of tension about exactly how far we should go in depicting the consequences of said high-stakes combat, and specifically the consequences on human bodies. Usually the way they get around this is by having a lot of the battling taking the form of just people punching each other, in a super fashion, and we can kind of gloss over that because punching someone out doesn’t really hurt them, shattered organs and traumatized brains aside. But Colleen Wing is wading into this mass of bad guys swinging around a god-damned sword, which by right ought to be leaving behind a trail of severed limbs and thugs writhing on the floor as they die from massive blood loss. Maybe she’s just … bad at swords? Despite swords being her whole thing? Truly, a worthy partner to Spider-Man!

Mark Trail, 9/25/18

Wow, I had assumed that this artifact-smuggling ring was full of dweebuses and losers like sleepy, drooly Jo(s)e and glasses-and-polo-shirt-tucked-into-jeans dude, who I guess is named “Pablo.” But now we finally get to meet the extremely cool member of their criminal gang: a bad-ass, motorcycle-riding, headband-and-skull-belt wearing dude who gets called in when the scheme finally gets to the point where they have to … murder some children? I just want to emphasize to everyone reading at home that murdering children isn’t cool. It’s just that, if your gang has to kill a couple of kids, that’s something you’re going to want your coolest member to do.

Shoe, 9/25/18

The only corrupt politician we’ve ever seen in Shoe is Senator Belfrey, who, despite what I assume have been the best efforts of the Treetop Tribune and its crusading staff of investigative reporters, has remained in office since the strip began running in 1977. No wonder Shoe always seems so uptight!

Beetle Bailey, 9/25/18

“I want this locker full of severed human feet by 0900 tomorrow! Get it together, soldier!”