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The Lockhorns, 3/18/19

OK, so I’m actively angry that, somewhere in the conceptual murk of the Lockhornsverse, Loretta and Leroy went to a rock concert (side note: “rock concert,” lol) and all we got out of it was this dumb joke about how concerts are loud and can affect your hearing in both the short and long term, which could’ve involved any generic set of characters? I have so many questions, about the genesis of this scenario, and specifically how it played out for the characters in this strip who we know and love. Why didn’t we get to see the escalating series of mutual passive-aggressive dares that led Leroy and Loretta, whose cultural consumption generally doesn’t go beyond movies or, very occasionally, the opera, to get outside their comfort zone? Was each of them hoping the other would hate it so they could feel smug about it? Did they see some big-name arena act, or did they go a little club to see some indie band so they could make fun of hipsters together? Deep in my heart, I hope they went and saw The Mountain Goats, and during the double-encore performance of “No Children,” Loretta reached out for Leroy’s hand without looking at him, and Leroy took it.

Spider-Man, 3/18/19

You know, it’s a common sentiment to say that each of us only has a limited time on this earth, and so we should live every moment of it to the fullest; but for me, I think that some of the banal, everyday experiences that many would call a waste of time are the true, quiet core of a life well lived. That’s why I respect that Newspaper Spider-Man, whose creative team presumably got more than a week’s notice that they were being cancelled, is resisting the urge to go out with a big, splashy, dramatic ending; instead, we’re apparently going to get several days of “Peter Parker vs. the TSA,” which is not only boring as shit, but has been done in this strip at least three times already. In one of his previous run-ins with airport security, Peter got bailed out by Obama; I feel like the current administration will be significantly … less forgiving.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/18/19

Rex Morgan really is hitting those classic Rex Morgan tropes: first someone gave Rex stuff for free for no good reason, and now he’s just gonna lounge around mostly naked, giving readers the occasional taste of beefcake they’ve come to enjoy. I assume the news report will be about how Annoying Hawaiian Shirt Man, who we last saw getting arrested after he made an abortive attempt to steal the ham radio operator’s jeep, was technically still under sky marshall jurisdiction when he committed his crime and will thus be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay to be held without trial indefinitely. The towel well fall away as Rex becomes aroused when learning about this tough but fair comeuppance; nevertheless, he will not smile.

Mary Worth, 3/18/19

“OK, I’ll go first! You’ve told me all about Libby; what was your first pet named? I loved all the stories about your mother — what’s was her maiden name? What street did you grow up on? What are the last four digits of your Social Security number?”

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Spider-Man, 3/16/19

I’ve finally recovered emotionally enough to share some terrible news with you, which is that the current run of Newspaper Spider-Man is ending a week from today. Apparently King Features will be running some “classic” Newspaper Spider-Man strips from the ’70s, which I will definitely cover here because from what I’ve seen of them Spidey is even more of a dick than he is in his current incarnation, but I will definitely mourn the end of my beloved feeble, whiny superhero.

The note from King and Marvel said “We’ll be back soon with great new stories and art to explore even more corners of the Marvel Universe for you and your readers to enjoy. We’ll be announcing more about these new adventures in the very near future, so keep your Spidey senses tuned in!” It absolutely makes sense that Marvel wants to use the toehold they have in newspapers to further promote their various intellectual properties, although how anyone could possibly miss the MCU without literally blinding themselves and living in a cave is beyond me. It will be interesting to see how they do that in newspaper form; my only request is that it be laughably bad.

Meanwhile, how will this iteration of the Spiderverse be wrapped up next week? My hope is that the Parkers travel to Australia, where Peter is bitten by one of the non-radioactive but extremely large and very poisonous spiders they have down there, and then dies. We’ll all drop a brick in his honor!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/16/19

Apparently Rex Morgan, M.D, is considered more likable than Spider-Man, because his strip got a new creative team and new lease on life a couple of years ago. One thing I miss from the Woody Wilson days is how people would just give the Morgans stuff for doing relatively basic stuff like telling an unnaturally calm tween that probably the pilot knows what he’s doing during an emergency landing. So I’m pretty jazzed about this upcoming clothes gifting sequence, which I hope takes the form of a montage like the one from Pretty Woman, or maybe ZZ Top will magically appear to guide his sartorial choices.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/14/19

For a long time, one of my literary pet peeves was when someone spells “trooper” the way panel one does here; in the sense of the phrase as Rex means it, it’s supposed to be “trouper,” as in an acting troupe, and the implication is supposed to be more of an actor’s “the show must go on come what may” than soldierly doggedness. But it’s something I’ve eased up on of late, given that troupe and troop are doublets, the same French word borrowed into English twice three centuries apart, and anyway it’s not like the two senses are that far apart. Anyway, I think we can all agree that throughout this process, Brayden has shown neither a warrior’s courage nor a performer’s flair, so he deserves neither spelling.

Six Chix, 3/14/19

Do you suppose the diagonal squiggly line down the middle of this is supposed to be a panel marker, indicating that our protagonist is devouring all of this stale candy minutes after her dialogue, or the edge of a thought bubble, indicating that she fantasizes doing the same? Either way, I think I think it falls short of the set-up’s potential: we should see her dumping all this chocolate down her gullet right in front of her interlocutors, and we would rightly laud her as a hero for it.

Dennis the Menace, 3/14/19

Mr. Wilson alone dares to speak the shocking truth of the comic-strip reality all of these characters share: no matter how much time passes, they will never age or change, their essential Dennis-ness and Alice-ness and Mr. Wilson-ness and so on set in stone forever. Notice that they don’t even bother putting candles on Dennis’s cake. Dennis … will always be Dennis.