Post Content

Dick Tracy, 1/8/23

The current Dick Tracy plot takes a look at the age old battle between labor (the master forger who made a fake Da Vinci based on some recently discovered sketches) and capital (the underworld mastermind who connected him with the sketches and provided him with the resources he needed to create the fake). Marx teaches us that this kind of struggle is always a political one, but since this political instance takes place outside the bounds of state-sanctioned law, the politics are going to get pretty violent pretty quickly. I like that Art Dekko is calling in an (I assume) hired killer named “Kriptonite,” whose name implies that he uses otherworldly energies to kill superheroes in particular, but since Dick Tracy world is somewhat closer to our own than Superman’s, I assume he’s going to just shoot the forger guy with a gun, maybe a green gun.

Marvin, 1/8/23

Not sure what Grandma’s final panel shocked expression is supposed to convey: her realization that they’re trapped in their apartment building after a massive snowfall, and now face death from starvation or hypothermia, or that she had completely forgotten that they moved from their single-family home into an apartment building, indicating that her dementia is progressing rapidly.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/8/23

Oh, is Rex Morgan gonna throw minor ailment after minor ailment at us until we beg for more Truck Tyler bullshit? Well, forget it! I can watch June half-assedly advise people on sprained ankles and low blood suger all day! I’ll never ask for more Truck Tyler bullshit, you hear me? Never!

Post Content

Marvin, 12/18/22

OK, today’s Marvin is dumb and bad and revolves around a terrible “women be shopping!!!!” premise, but I still found it very funny, mostly because of the fact that Jeff has brought in a big stack of cash as a visual aid for his “no gifts” pitch. Not sure if he genuinely thought this would help drive the point home and it terribly backfired or if he just doesn’t trust the banking system and all the family’s assets are in piles of bills around the house, but either way, I love it, and I love how Jenny demonstrates one of the major downsides of physical currency in the next to last panel.

Dennis the Menace, 12/18/22

I feel bad for Margaret, who probably has a lot of intelligent things to say about a healthy diet but who has been reduced to a voiceless prop in Dennis’s eternal war with his mother. She deserves better! Like, today she deserves better, but also all other days. Maybe I’m just a resentful redhead who’s been called “carrot top” one too many times but I feel strongly about this.

Post Content

Folks, today is what would’ve been Peanuts creator Charles Schulz’s 100th birthday! I feel pretty strongly that he was the best who ever did it in the newspaper comics world, and one of the great things he did was not hand off the strip to a child or assistant and create one more zombie lurching across the funny pages.

Anyway, most of the strips (zombie or otherwise) are celebrating Peanuts today, and most of those celebrations and great and heartfelt. But this website isn’t called the Comics Respecter, so for this Thanksgiving Saturday I’m going to bring you the two worst ones. Enjoy!

Marvin, 11/26/22

Feel like this is the very worst of the bunch. Ha ha, Marvin is talking about the comic strip Peanuts, but his friend has never heard of it and thinks he’s talking about peanuts, the food! And why would he have heard of the comic strip, anyway? It stopped running in papers years ago and these guys are literal babies. Honestly it’s pretty weird that Marvin knows about it. Anyway, that’s it, the third panel is just wasted, and we assume these two babies move onto some other conversational topic that they can both engage with on equal terms. Couldn’t even be bothered to wedge a poop joke in there. Sad!

Beetle Bailey, 11/26/22

Speaking of sad, before they did this strip, the team over at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC probably briefly contemplated what their lives would be like if all comics artists were as protective of their creations as Charles Schulz was. Or maybe they didn’t! Honestly, nothing that’s ever appeared in this strip implies that they’re real introspective over there. Either way, their vision for this assignment was “What the town where the entire Peanuts gang lives was washed away in a flood, with a terrified Snoopy the only survivor?”