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Gasoline Alley, 6/30/18

Every few years, Gasoline Alley teases us that supercentenarian Walt Wallet is headed for the Old Comics Home, a kind of heaven for discontinued comic-strip characters. But it was a lie and a cheat in 2006, and a cheat and a lie in 2013. Will no one rid us of this troublesome coot?

Maybe this time. Here, Team Alley promises to put Walt away for good, with a “roast and toast affair” that will cook, slice, and serve him up on open-face sandwiches. Farewell, honored patriarch, and bon appétit, everybody! Glue down those dentures, folks — there’s a-gonna be some chewin’!

Phantom, 6/30/18

Since its origins in 1936, Phantom has threaded the needle pretty tight on issues of colonialism and race. So it’s refreshing to see today’s unambiguous repudiation of “one drop of blood” racial classification. It’s also pretty savvy of Team Bandar to top up the Phantom with blood from warrior Babudan — Guran’s is basically donuts dissolved in palm wine. Which would make him a plugger, I guess?

Spider-Man, 6/30/18

Aw, look at these two, bickering with Fate when they were clearly Meant to Be. Soon, they will cover the ground together. So much ground!

Luann, 6/30/18

Grr, all right here is your precious Luann.

You know, for the pragmatic, hypercapable member of Team Tonad, Toni keeps getting basic mechanics wrong: using a torque wrench for disassembly, or setting up her pipe wrench to tighten that hose coupling. Seems to have the arm strength, though. And those mitts are the size of her head!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Crankshaft, 4/30/18

Man, Crankshaft sure drops a lot of pills, doesn’t he? Remember when he had to beg the doctor for more pills, because he keeps dropping them? I don’t know his specific medical situation, but I’m assuming he needs those pills to live, right. And he keeps dropping them. I think you see what I’m getting at, wink wink, nudge nudge (it’s Crankshaft dying of some preventable disease because he kept dropping pills, and nobody being sad because he’s a mean old jerk who everybody dislikes).

Six Chix, 4/30/18

I’ve got a lot swirling around my mind looking at this panel — like, what’s a robot’s “family”? is this supposed to be in a bar or a kitchen in someone’s house? since circuit boards are what robot brains are made of, is this cannibalism, or just the equivalent of eating meat, assuming the boards’ specs are lower than the ones inside the robot? — but I can’t get past the idea of the robot eating. Like, eating? Putting a circuit board in its mouth-slot and … eating it? Nah. Not working for me. Sorry, Six Chix, I’m gonna pass on this one.

The Phantom, 4/30/18

I know I normally don’t “get political” on this website, but I know that some of my followers are keenly interested in depictions of young, ripped, mustachioed Mitt Romney engaging in some recreational breath play, and who am I to fail to bring them the good news?

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The Phantom, 4/29/18

This Phantom Sunday plot, involving our hero breaking a prison snitch out Bangalla’s most hellish jail temporarily for crime-fighting purposes, has been happening since at least last October, and I’m definitely not going bring you up to date on everything that’s happened in it, because if it were actually interesting I probably would’ve talked about it here already, right? Mostly I wanted to point out that our jailbird’s faltering attempt to find common ground with the Phantom makes the hero recoil in disgust and think about his loving, supportive childhood where a man dressed in a purple gimp suit who never even let his own children see his face taught him to kill.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/28/18

Oh, right, Heather, last seen having succeeded in her plan to seduce her dying, demented husband, or at least procure some of his seed. Well, the baby’s born and the husband is dead, and now she’s going to have to deal with both the grief and her stepson Hugh, who failed to come to his father’s deathbed, probably because his father never liked him and he and Heather conspired to keep Hugh from taking control of the family company not once but twice. The new baby is named “Phoenix,” presumably to summon the image of a bird rising from its own ashes, which will help Heather make the case to the board of Avery International that the infant is in fact the reincarnated soul of Milton and therefore technically the company CEO.

Mary Worth, 4/28/18

I know it’s been a few days since we checked in with Wilbur, so here’s the update: Wilbur’s still depressed, and now he’s turning to drink. It’s sad that he has this whole liquor cabinet, including a bottle of decent scotch, and nobody to share it with. What about his neighbors? What about Ian? What do you think is keeping Wilbur from inviting Ian over and enjoying a pleasant nightcap? Probably the fact that they don’t really care for each other because they’re both pretty unlikeable, I imagine.