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Judge Parker, 12/6/24

Oh, yeah, my prediction that Judge Parker Senior has his fugitive daughter Anne living in his basement turned out to be correct, much to Randy’s disgust. You see, by now being let onto this secret, Randy must, according to the Laws of Nuptials, inform his wife of his father’s misdeed. His wife. You know, the amoral CIA assassin who loves to kill? I think she’ll be fine with a little fugitive-hiding, actually. Anyway we also learned earlier this week that Anne has to sneak upstairs at night to go pee, which I think is the most problematic thing going on here quite frankly.

The Phantom, 12/6/24

Oh, also, it turns out that Diana has stumbled upon not just one guy who got punched out by the Phantom, but a whole subculture of guys who got punched out by the Phantom, and a new getting-punched-out-by-The-Phantom pub that’s opening up to celebrate the Phantom-punchee lifestyle. Her husband’s flown in to enjoy the proceedings incognito, and honestly, I think that’s great for him. All these having-been-punched guys seem like real delights now, and the Ghost-Who-Punches-And-Who-Punched-These-Guys-Specifically deserves to see how his particular brand of restorative justice punching transforms lives.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/6/24

Oh, also also, Merle is continuing to bleed out on the sidewalk of his suburban subdivision. Maybe the ambulance is going to get there in time, maybe not! Just thought you’d like to know what’s going on (what’s going on is bleeding).

Hi and Lois, 12/6/24

Your parents telling you no is supposed to give you something to aspire to or rebel against; but to Chip, it’s just a sign that he’s destined to be a non-motorcyclist forever due to family law, or possibly genetics. True loser behavior!

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Rex Morgan, M.D, 11/29/24

Oh, hey, it turns out that Rex’s cranky old patient is Merle Lewton, who we met a few years ago after he got scammed by Miss Galexia, the Rene Beluso-backed new age healer. Merle’s current complaints are more down to Earth, mostly consisting of him being tired and in pain all the time, and Rex’s advice was “I dunno, try going for a walk instead of sitting on the couch and watching TV all day?” Merle tried to “beat the system” by getting a treadmill so he could go for a walk and watch TV all day, but that was nixed by his wife who claimed treadmills were “expensive” and “ugly”; she assigned him dog-walking duties instead. But now — whoops! — it turns out that taking your dog for a walk is just an open invitation to harassment by local punks, thugs, and ruffians. The lesson here: don’t listen to your killjoy wife and snooty doctor! Leaving the house is not worth the trouble!

Beetle Bailey, 11/29/24

What I love most about the Beetle Bailey strips that look at the Halftracks’ awful marriage are Mrs. Halftrack’s facial expressions. She always looks either furiously angry or crushingly depressed. They’re not doing a bit! Their married life really is a constant punishment, especially for her!

The Phantom, 11/29/24

Speaking of punishment, there’s a new Phantom plot getting started, and Diana, on a work trip in London, appears to have by chance met a guy who was once involved in some kind of BDSM relationship with her husband. We’re probably not supposed to imagine him talking like Austin Powers in that last word balloon, but I’m doing it anyway.

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Crock and The Phantom, 10/21/24

One of my longest-running bits on this blog is pointing out strips where the colorists have very clearly not read the comic before doing their work on it. I feel like this doesn’t happen as often as it used to, but it does still happen, like in this Crock, where that “golden” shovel is glowing and yet is still clearly made of wood and steel.

I assume that this happens in part because the strips aren’t sent to the colorists with any explicit instructions on what colors should go where. That’s an even bigger problem in cases where the color is important but you can’t necessary get it from context. Like, is this being emerging from the Avarice rover in today’s Phantom, who bears an uncanny similarity to Elon Musk, supposed to be Ian Mollusk himself? Or is it a robot that looks like Ian Mollusk, one made in the mad annoying inventor’s image, and therefore the human-like flesh coloring he’s been given is actually in error?

Bizarro, 10/21/24

A quick recap of some Josh Deep Lore: did I get a college degree in classics, and then get a subsequent master’s degree as part of an abortive attempt to become an historian of ancient Rome? Yes! Was this a mistake? It was! Do I regret having done it? Sometimes! Did they even cover Greek mythology in my coursework? Not really! Nevertheless, I feel qualified to say that this panel has the Medusa thing all wrong. This dumb hippie should be turned to stone! He’s looking right at her! She turns people to stone because she’s so hideous looking; it’s not a superpower she can just turn and off. Are you telling me that this won’t work on hippies, because they reject society’s rules about who’s beautiful and who’s ugly, or because they’re very, very high?

Zits, 10/21/24

A thing about getting old is that you do get to see mores change, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill, but it always creates a little mental dissonance. For instance, a Zits anthology published a full five years after I started doing this blog noted that the comic got pushback from the syndicate whenever it used the word “sucks” in dialogue. And now here it is using the word “horny,” in front of God and everybody! Hopefully I don’t sound like an “old fuddy duddy,” but I think everyone involved in creating a Zits strip with the word “horny” in it should go to prison.