Post Content

Mary Worth, 12/13/16

So Iris has gone off to explore her sexual destiny with young Zak, with Mary’s blessing. And though Mary’s had an adventure or three in recent years, we do need to remember that the most of the action in this strip happens to the people around Mary, and her own life is fairly quiet. Take today, for example: things are so dull she has to make her own fun by pausing in the middle of reading a sentence just to gin up a little drama, just for an instant, just in her mind.

Dick Tracy, 12/13/16

Sure, rabbi, God listens to prayer, even in a police questioning room … from everyone? I mean, it’s great if He listens to the prayers of an upstanding policeman for the health of his sick wife. But what about when some no-good hood prays for the strength to resist Dick Tracy’s brutal interrogation techniques? What about when a career criminal beseeches the Almighty to keep his rookie accomplice’s mouth shut as he’s being questioned in the next room? You’ve got to think this stuff through before you tell everybody!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/13/16

You know, I assumed that the Rex Morgan, M.D., gangster plot came to an abrupt end because the new writer wasn’t a fan of it. Now I know that it was just being held in reserve for this perfect moment. The dude who hit Sarah with his car because he was on his cell phone had better hope the police catch him, because Bugsy and Mrs. P. do not play.

Post Content

Six Chix, 12/9/16

You know I’m in favor of any nationally syndicated newspaper comic strip that includes the caption “GALLERY OF HORROR,” but this is pretty shoddy work right here no matter how you look at it. I mean, climate change will melt snowpersons, I guess, although so would the good old fashioned change of the seasons. And holding a lit cigarette up to a snowbeing might cause them to melt around the point of contact, or, if we’re assuming some sort of advanced snownatomical structures, maybe they’d melt from the inside out as they drew hot air into their snow-lungs, in particularly gruesome fashion. But waiting in line? Waiting in line? This is … relevant because … I mean it’s supposed to mean … damn it! All I wanted was a comic where snowpeople recoiled in horror from an avant-garde art exposition called “GALLERY OF HORROR” that depicted gruesome ways they might die, and I can’t even enjoy it because the deaths don’t make any damn sense! Damn you, Six Chix! I believed in you!

Dick Tracy, 12/9/16

I’ve already proclaimed my love for this storyline, but I need to go on the record as heartily endorsing the ending, hearkening back to “classic” (i.e., pre-2011) Dick Tracy with a truly ironic death. Selfy’s selfie obsession wasn’t as played up over the course of his story as perhaps it should’ve been, but him getting trampled mid-selfie by a water buffalo who presumably enraged by reading one too many dumb thinkpieces about millennials and their participation trophies was a nice touch.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/9/16

Wait, so … are cell phones good or bad??? I need clarity on this point, guys!

Post Content

Crankshaft, 12/3/16

One of the ongoing Crankshaft plots that I find particularly unpleasant is “Crankshaft’s elderly neighbor has joy brought into her life by tween twins who alternately are baffled by her and condescend to her, which she ignores because she’s very lonely and figures this is as good as it’s going to get.” Anyway, like most old people, Ms. McKenzie is great at providing some backstory! Today, for instance, we learn that the present-day Montoni is not just some huckster who slapped his appropriately ethnic name on a storefront to help sell deeply mediocre pizza; in fact, he inherited his business from his immigrant parents, who ran it as a genuine Italian restaurant before he took over and cut costs by rebuilding the menu around deeply mediocre pizza. As you can see, Montoni still keeps some single-serving pasta Lean Cuisines in the freezer in the back, to placate the few customers who still remember the what the place was like before he ruined it.

Mark Trail, 12/3/16

Mark and Abbey: Still fleeing from a paroxysm of volcanic destruction, in case you’re wondering! It’s good to know that even in moments of high tension, the strip still sticks to its core values: our heroes may be fleeing from an unstoppable river of deadly, fast-flowing molten rock, but doesn’t mean that Abbey needs to cut corners by contracting “we are” to “we’re”.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/3/16

OH MY GOD REX AND JUNE DECIDED IT WAS “FINE” FOR THEIR PRECIOUS LITTLE SARAH TO TAKE THE BUS TO SCHOOL WITH THE NORMAL CHILDREN AND THEN SHE WAS IMMEDIATELY HIT BY A CAR

THE LESSON IS: THE WORLD IS FULL OF DANGERS YOUR CHILD MUST BE PROTECTED FROM BY A MOB CHAUFFEUR

AND IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD A MOB CHAUFFEUR THAT’S PROBABLY BECAUSE OF A MORAL FAILING ON YOUR PART AND MAYBE YOUR CHILD DESERVES TO BE HIT BY A CAR, A CAR SAFELY TRANSPORTING OTHER, MORE WORTHY CHILDREN TO THEIR DESTINATION