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Mary Worth, 10/6/16

Ever since Mary implied to Iris that maybe her adult son spiraled down into unemployment and pill addiction because she was going to school and not mothering him 24/7, Iris has been very involved in Tommy’s life! Some might say … too involved, like that time she sat through a whole therapy session with him. Anyway, Iris, you should not be going to Narcotics Anonymous with him, because that pretty much breaks all the rules. Why not check out Nar-Anon instead, if you’re so keen on going to a meeting? That organization is specifically for the families and friends of those dealing with drug addiction. That name again is Nar-Anon. Not Narconon. Under no circumstances should you go to Narconon. No, wait, actually, it would be pretty hilarious if you went to Narconon. “Tommy, I know you’ve gotten a lot out of the Bible, so here are some more books with even more helpful tips!” [Hands him Dianetics, Battlefield Earth, and all ten volumes of the Misson Earth dekology]

Dick Tracy, 10/6/16

Probably “bare the marks of an addict” is just a garden-variety typo, but I’m hoping it’s a look into Dick’s attitude towards the public he ostensibly serves: whenever he encounters someone he suspects might be polluting his mind and body with illicit substances, he uses his will to power to force them to bare the marks that reveal their crimes against society and themselves, so he can arrest them with maximum contempt.

Spider-Man, 10/6/16

Like many 42-year-olds, my eyesight has been in decline in a couple different ways for at least three years, and last month I finally bit the bullet and got bifocals, with lenses for both reading and computer use, and it literally felt like I had gone to Lourdes and gotten faith-healed. What I’m saying is, as a guy who can suddenly read laundry care labels with ease and sits a normal distance away from his monitor again, I understand Egghead’s urge to talk about his “magnifying goggles” as if he’s dealing with some piece of high-tech supervillainry equipment, but, Egghead, my man: those are clearly just glasses.

Mark Trail, 10/6/16

You know, if Mark freakin’ Trail interrupts you and redirects the conversation when in you’re the middle of spouting a bunch of nature facts, maybe you should think long and hard about how to work those nature facts into conversations more organically.

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Mary Worth, 10/1/16

OH MY GOD (literally): Iris is going to cure Tommy from his pill addiction, through Jesus. Remember when Tommy was in prison, and Iris went to visit him, and he waved a tiny, tiny bible at her? It seemed unlikely to me at the time that Tommy had truly turned to God for forgiveness of his various meth-dealing sins, and while his bible was far too small to hide weed or a shiv in, I assumed he was using it to distract Iris while a confederate picked her pocket or something. But no, apparently he had turned to it for “help,” but once he got deep into the endless laws about diet and ritual purity in Exodus, he “couldn’t keep up with it.” Thanks to his more studious mother carefully marking all of the passages in scripture that deal with opioid abuse, Tommy will soon be on the road to recovery and won’t further burden our tax-funded SAMHSA facilities, unlike some atheist pill fiends we could mention.

Mark Trail, 10/1/16

Meanwhile, our heroes in Mark Trail are about to solve their problems by recourse to a much more ancient deity. This ruined temple to a long-forgotten Polynesian fire god is now infested with ants that are foreign to the island and must be removed. The god can only be awoken with a sacrifice, though. A virgin sacrifice. We now know why Abbey was so keen to get Mark over here.

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Mary Worth, 9/29/16

I’m not shy about my longtime affection for Joe Giella’s decade-plus at Mary Worth, I’ve been fans of June Brigman and Roy Richardson so far as well. Like Giella, they too come from the superhero world; as a result, despite the big shift in style they’ve brought to the strip, they carry on the tradition of the art feeling a little too jazzy for the banality of life in Charterstone. Anyway, one of my favorite little details of the Giella era was the weird food blobs. The Brigman/Richardson era may have opened with some lovingly detailed sandwiches, but they’re clearly aware of strip traditions, so shoutout to the meal of weird brownish chunks of Chinese food Iris and Tommy are sharing off of a single plate, washed down with chocolate milk.

Spider-Man, 9/29/16

“At last! I, Egghead, have captured Ant-Man — and Spider-Man to boot! And now all I have to do is scoop them up and — what’s this? Blast! I knew this shag carpeting was a terrible mistake! ‘It’ll be so comfy on your bare feet,’ they said! My plans are ruined!”

Blondie, 9/29/16

“Plus, you’re definitely going to be killing people — only this time without any lame-o ‘Geneva Conventions’ to cramp your style!”