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Mother Goose and Grimm, 1/15/22

One of the last pure pleasures of social media is when some bizarre bit of pop culture ephemera from decades past gets surfaced and passed around, and last summer many of us had some good fun with “Inhalants,” a song from McGruff the Crime Dog’s 1987 anti-drug album that, as a viral tweet put it, “sounds like New Order.”

So, I have one note on this otherwise amazing song, which is that “inhalants” is a pretty technical term and probably most kids don’t know that it means, like, huffing paint or sniffing glue, but otherwise this a banger of a track that manages to pack a lot of emotions in to the gimmicky McGruff voice, and I immediately thought of it when I saw today’s Mother Goose and Grimm. This McGruff? The one with the thousand-yard stare and a barful of empty shot glasses in front of him? That’s the guy who sings “they can break you in two” about inhalants and you can tell he knows exactly what he’s talking about.

Family Circus, 1/15/22

Guys, I’ve been spending a lot of time staring at this Family Circus, in which Billy eagerly stares at his mother in a low-cut dress and talks about people getting their eyes knocked out, and trying to come up with an Oedipus joke and I just can’t quite make the pieces fit together. I feel like I’ve let you all down on this one and promise to do better in the future.

Dennis the Menace, 1/15/22

A child amazed by the number of screens in a multiplex but angry that no Western films are on offer? The only menace he represents is one to the integrity of the space-time continuum if he ever returns to his native year of 1953 with knowledge of the future!

Mary Worth, 1/15/22

“Well, he didn’t jump, exactly … here, let me show you the video, but hold on a second while I queue up ‘Yakety Sax.’”

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Folks, do you want to spend seventy-two American dollars for a framed print of the strip where Wilbur Weston may have fallen off a cruise ship to his death? Or, perhaps slightly more likely, do you want to spend ten bucks on a mug with Wilbur’s face on it that says “Where there’s a Wilbur, there a way…bur”? Well, the official Comics Kingdom RIP Wilbur Weston store is for you, my friends!

For the rest of you, there’s this comment of the week:

“Wilbur still reciting his ‘King of the World’ speech is how we should remember him. Unchanging even in the face of the dark and inevitable, generally dense, and most importantly: committed to the bit. The hero we didn’t deserve.” –Black Drazon

And these runners up are also hilarious!

“You either die a Wilbur or you live long enough to see yourself become the Aldo.” –Ettorre

“I just appreciate the quaintness of a world where you can sell expensive blouses from the kind of crude outdoor stand a child might use to sell lemonade.” –Joe Blevins

“[Smacking Max’s hand away] We’ve discussed this, no shirts.” –Dan

“All the ‘why am I getting these calls, I don’t even have a car!’ complaints I’ve heard have been from NYC residents. Snuffy will be so disheartened to learn he’s playing to the city slickers in the audience.” –TheDiva

“Nice to see Dick Tracy pay tribute to Krak, Blam, Bash, and Wham, the long-forgotten mascots of Kellogg’s Rice Kicksies, the only cereal that fought back when you ate it.” –Voshkod

“Wilbur’s head can float but let’s hope his body sinks.” –nescio

“You know who’s really responsible for creating the Doggo twins, Sarah? A Xerox machine. Because there are two of them. And you only drew one. And if there’s only one dog, well then there aren’t twins, duh. Have fun suing a Xerox machine, you adorable little guttersnipe.” –made of wince

“You’re a plugger if you’ve ever experienced a moment of joy. But learning that you’re a plugger guarantees that you’ll never be happy again, so congratulations, you’re no longer a plugger! But that news is likely to make you happy, so bad news, you’re a plugger after all. There is no escape. THERE IS NO ESCAPE.” –Doctor Moreau

“Let’s face it, this Wilbur’s Arc (not a bad name for a comic) has gone on since I think the Love Boat was on television. Why not have this mustachioed version of Captain Steuben whisk Estelle away on a course for adventure and with a mind on a new romance? There’s plenty of fish in the sea — so to speak. Some of them quite large.” –Joe Momma

“While the crew ‘look for Wilbur’ (could he be in this six-inch locker for a flare pistol? Unlock, open, search, close, lock. How about this one?) he is getting steadily further away, both horizontally and (if we’re lucky) vertically. ” –RogerBW

“The only difference that matters between these two panels is the baby’s eyes. Baby #2 is definitely making hard eye contact. He knows what he did.” –pugfuggly

“You might be a plugger if you make terrible wordplay about your bowel movements as you crawl back into bed with Mama Bear at ten of nine.” –pastordan

“That punctuation mark after ‘Well’ needs to accept that it’s a comma, and stop trying to jump up into the apostrophe zone. Learn to love yourself, little comma! You’re beautiful just the way you are!” –Mr. A

“Finally — my 10,000 steps! And now my reward…” –Dennis Jimenez

“What is this guy’s special power, the inability to sense heat? You have a read hot chunk of metal on your wrist and you need Dick to tell you it’s hot? Maybe that explains his limp screaming. Intellectually, he understands he’s burning to death, but to his brain it feels like he’s in a cold shower, so he can’t really get that excited about it.” –jerp+jump

“I know it’s disappointing that they’re turning back for Wilbur while still within a time window that makes a rescue very unlikely, but still dramatically plausible. But cheer up, everybody. Maybe he’ll be run over.” –AndyL

“It’s funny because Wilbur was trying to reenact a scene from a movie that won eleven Oscars.” –Anonymous

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Dick Tracy, 1/14/22

When Apple rolled out the Apple Watch in 2015, probably a lot of comics nerds out there were like “Oh, a watch computer that helps you make phone calls? Just like the wrist wizards from Dick Tracy?” But there are important differences! For instance, thanks to Apple’s legendary quality standards, Apple Watches very rarely overhead and explode, and when they do, they definitely don’t instantly consume the wearer in a vortex of flame, as appears to have happened here.

In other news, if Dick Tracy is contemplating a return to its storied tradition of killing off its villains in cartoonishly horrific ways, I for one am interested, very interested! I’m also interested in hearing Dick tell the paramedics that “I told him to stand still, but he insisted on screaming and writhing around in agony, like a coward.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/14/22

Ha ha, yes, Sarah’s going to crack like an egg when they put her on the stand! I certainly hope that Rene manages to secure the services of his erstwhile mob family’s slick attorney, who will run rings around the Morgans’ bargain basement lawyer.

Mary Worth, 1/14/22

“A Code Oscar is what we call it when a gross, obnoxious slob falls off the boat to his death! If an uptight, prissy neat freak does it, that’s a Code Felix.”