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Heathcliff, 5/21/25

Real heads who read Heathcliff daily know that most weeks have a theme of some sort — “dirt week”, “garbage week”, and so forth. This week is “sunflower week,” and the way it’s unfolded is a pretty good demonstration of how the current delightfully deranged iteration of Heathcliff works. Monday’s panel was pretty normal, all things considered: Heathcliff and a baseball manager are sitting in a dugout, Heathcliff is spitting sunflower seeds the way baseball players do, there are a bunch of very tall sunflowers (normal sunflowers without human faces, mind you) growing in the dugout, taking up most of the room, and the manager says “No more chewing sunflower seeds.” You could see a version of this as a New Yorker cartoon. But things have escalated: today Heathcliff is standing in the outfield, summoning a grinning, sunglasses-wearing spirit, the so-called “Genie of the Sunflower Seeds,” from his snack packet. And it’s only Wednesday! Imagine how much weirder this could potentially get!

Mary Worth, 5/21/25

Is it, Belle? Is it cute that Wilbur is admitting, right in front of Willa, that originally he liked Stellan better, and now considers Willa his “best little buddy” only because Stellan died? Because I don’t think that’s cute at all, actually. I think it’s pretty fucked up.

The Phantom, 5/21/25

Some might criticize the continuity strips for their glacial pacing, especially strips that are supposed to be about superheroic action. But if The Phantom were fast-paced, could it afford to spend an entire strip on Kit’s erotic reverie? That’s not a tradeoff I’m willing to make!

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The Phantom, 5/17/25

One of the key ongoing dramas of The Phantom is the question of what woman will contribute her genetic material to the ongoing Phantom bloodline by allowing Kit to sire the 24th Phantom on her, and so far the main competitors have been Kit’s local sweetheart in Tibet or his mother and sister’s choice, Kadia Sahara, the daughter of former Phantom archnemesis The Nomad. But … is there another? Savarna, of course, has mostly been interested in Kit’s dad, having flirted with him when he thought his wife was dead and proposed a superstar teamup that the Ghost Who Has Morals rejected because she’s violent and kind of insane. As a result, it seems that flirtation has cooled — sure, rescuing her from Gravelines Prison was the inciting incident behind the years-long “Death of the Phantom” arc, but that was a purely platonic jailbreak. Anyway, apparently somewhere along the line that I forgot about she met Kit back at the Skull Cave, and like many a young man, he fell under the spell of a worldly, sophisticated older woman. Like, look at her: she’s using a napkin! Ooh la la, fancy lady!

Gil Thorp, 5/17/15

There’s been some spring sports action in Gil Thorp over the past couple weeks that quite frankly has not risen to a level of “interesting” that would get me to comment on it. But Coach Martinez attempting to summon the ghost of Pop(s) right there in the athletic department storage room specifically to prove a point to Gil, to the obvious amusement of the other assistant coaches? You’d better believe I’m ready for multiple weeks of this.

Dennis the Menace, 5/17/25

Henry, wearing that checkered suit jacket/bow tie combo in public anywhere of course marks you as a true fashion moron. But specifically wearing it to a restaurant’s clearly labelled Western night? You dipshit. You absolute fool.

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Judge Parker, 4/22/25

Wow, Sophie, remember when one of your friends got mildly kidnapped back when you were a tween, and you got all revved up about the idea of the kidnappers getting killed by a CIA missile drone because wars interest you? Now you can’t even handle watching one little murder on some grainy footage from a commercial drone. College really has made you soft.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/22/25

Huh, I have vague memories of Rex seeing a patient a few months back and saying “Welp, looks like you’re dying, so I don’t see much point in drawing out your visit, my staff will give you the relevant paperwork,” but I don’t seem to have mentioned it on my blog, so, good subtle world-building, Rex Morgan, M.D.! Speaking of subtlety, I like the composition of this panel: Summer and Auggie standing, anxious at being in the presence of an admitted killer, while said killer was like “Say, that looks like a comfy chair to plop down into while I wait for the cops to come and take my terminally ill ass to prison … don’t mind if I do!”

The Phantom, 4/22/25

Wow, we really are still talking about the Mozz Prophecy/”Death of the Phantom” arc that’s been happening on and off but mostly on for eight years now, wild stuff. At least we’re carrying on the beloved Phantom tradition of the Ghost Who Bathes carrying on plot-important conversations with his wife while enjoying a steamy natural water feature while fully nude.

Dennis the Menace, 4/22/25

Not sure if either the traditional “Civilization was smashed and Europe was plunged into a thousand years of barbarian darkness” or the more nuanced “In Italy in particular, Roman civilization outlived the Roman state and was transformed in an evolutionary way rather than being snuffed out” answers are even slightly appropriate for kindergartners here, but that’s very clearly some kind of tourist guidebook the teacher is holding rather than anything educational, so maybe this lesson is about how there are cheap airfares to Italy during the winter and the weather is still fine for walking around the city most days, so that’s why you all had a substitute teacher for most of February.