Archive: Phantom

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Mary Worth, 4/29/26

I was briefly excited that this Mary Worth storyline was going to end with Mary and Toby enjoying a self-congratulatory spa trip rather than Mary and Dr. Jeff enjoying a self-congratulatory dinner date and boat ride, but then I realized that probably we’re going to get a self-congratulatory spa trip followed by a self-congratulatory dinner date and boat ride during which Mary relays to Jeff an excruciatingly detailed recap of both the storyline that’s just wrapped up and the spa trip.

Dick Tracy, 4/29/26

Look, I’m open minded, I cheerfully accepted “Dick Tracy is canonically aware of the existence of furries,” but, hmm, “Mumbles, the iconic Dick Tracy villain who was first introduced in 1947 and was played by Dustin Hoffman in the 1990 Warren Beatty Dick Tracy movie, is canonically a furry, and told Dick this himself,” boy, I dunno. Anyway, the MCU is on the tail (haha, get it) of Mumbles and his pals after their dramatic prison breakout, so I guess we’re going to see the cops staking out [extremely heavy sigh] fursuit shops or something.

Hi and Lois, 4/29/26

I’m really enjoying Lois’s facial expression in the second panel here. “Ah shit ah fuck the 22-year-old realtor influencer on TikTok who won’t shut up about ‘boosting revenues with concierge services’ did not say anything about this,” she appears to be thinking.

The Phantom, 4/29/26

I’m also really enjoying the facial expressions on long-time Phantom antagonist Eric “The Infamous Nomad” Sahara and his Gitmo guard as they give Ignis Vindicta a once over. “Is this an … actual alien guy, or some dude in a mask from Spirit Halloween, or what?” they’re both trying to figure out, with varying degrees of confusion and contempt.

Crankshaft, 4/29/26

I’m really not enjoying the facial expression on this lady in panel two, but I accept that, for denizens of the Funkyverse, “I’ve awkwardly set up a truly terrible bit of wordplay and now I’m about to unleash it” is an all-too-common scenario, and they need a visual signal to let people know that it’s about to happen.

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Hagar the Horrible, 4/27/26

Big news, everyone! A new named character has been added to Hagar the Horrible, and he’s a servant/butler type named “Charles” with weird swoopy hair and a suit jacket but also a short unhemmed tunic/skirt situation going on. Probably we won’t ever see him again, but, I dunno, they gave him a name! Maybe we will! Who knows!

The Phantom, 4/27/26

Big news, everyone: There’s a new Phantom story starting that’s launching with a bang — a grey alien wearing a suit is flying in a private jet from Washington, D.C. to Guantanamo Bay — and while probably it won’t ever really live up to that opening image, you have to admit it’s the most incredible opening image any of the soap opera strips have given us in quite a while.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/27/26

Big news, everyone, and it’s not good: Grimm, the beloved title character from the syndicated newspaper comic strip Mother Goose and Grimm, hungers for human flesh.

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The Phantom, 2/20/26

Many years ago, the Jungle Patrol was all-male, until early 2008 when it got gender-integrated by a plucky lady cop/waitress duo. How’s that working out? Well, this young female officer is busy kicking a would-be warlord in the face, so that’s good, and the Patrol’s Unknown Commander is just kind of sitting there watching with a little smile on his face, which is a little unsettling. Is this sexual, for him? Is it even possible to understand what “sexual” means for a guy who’s the product of a 22-generation eugenic breeding program and who lives in Africa and wears a skintight spandex suit constantly?

Luann, 2/20/26

Speaking of sexual bits that newspaper comics have been doing since George W. Bush was president, Luann is doing a tale of ribaldry about Tiffany and Ox (he’s a new-ish character and his thing is he’s a gentle giant, don’t worry about it) washing Ox’s rescue puppy and getting deliciously wet in the process and I can’t believe I just typed that, gross. Anyway, I’m mostly posting this because I think the panel where Ox is sticking the hair dryer up his shirt is pretty funny. It’s just a weird angle! He’s warming his belly button specifically! Is this sexual, for him? Is it even possible to understand what “sexual” means for a guy who is a character in Luann, a realm beyond the sexuality event horizon where horniness is distorted by extreme levels of gravity into formations that scientists can’t even begin to describe?