Post Content

Pluggers, 7/29/19

What is the facial expression on this plugger supposed to be conveying? Is it a sly smile? Is this plugger thinking about how he “accidentally” left the house without his suspenders today? How his pants might just “accidentally” fall down, and there would be no way for him to stop it? Oops! How embarrassing! How naughty! Everyone will be able to see! It’s not his fault, he just forgot, but I suppose sometimes we need to be punished for our mistakes.

Gil Thorp, 7/29/18

Welp, it looks like Hadley has figured out what she’s doing with her summer, which is idly threatening to personally sue school board members for preventing Tiki Jansen from attending school in a district he doesn’t live in. Hey, you ever hear about poor parents who fudge their address so their kids can go to school in a better, wealthier school district and up getting sent to jail? Really too bad that none of those kids were on a varsity team with a coach who could connect them with a bored, unethical lawyer, huh?

Hi and Lois, 7/29/18

Look, Lois, Hi doesn’t give a shit about his dumb job or his mediocre salary. You know what Hi cares about? Golf. Winning at golf makes him horny as hell, and you’re clearly pretty pleased about the result, so let’s not quibble about the motivations.

Shoe, 7/29/19

Ha ha, it’s funny because Skyler, much like his uncle, is terribly depressed! Also a bird? A bird that, like all modern birds, doesn’t have teeth? And thus would have no use for orthodontia?

Post Content

Mark Trail, 7/22/19

Wow, hmm, Mark Trail sure has some … interesting and nuanced ideas about property rights! Like, it’s bad to hold people at gunpoint in order to get access to gold mines, but it’s totally ok to plunder treasure chests despite the presence of locks that clearly indicate that those chests are private? Anyway, I think it’s particularly cruel of Mark to theatrically break open this lock with a stone and then tell Doc “this is your show.”

Shoe, 7/22/19

There’s definitely an argument to be made that, especially in an age of extremely focused and specific streaming platforms, Saturday Night Live has become bland, middle-of-the-road entertainment. I’m just not sure that message is best delivered by [checks note] the legacy newspaper comic strip Shoe.

Post Content

Dick Tracy, 6/27/19

Hey, remember last summer when Sawtooth took in a midnight showing of Rocky Horror in order to bite a guy to death and Sam Catchem happened to be there? I guess Rocky Horror is one of Dick Tracy’s “things” now and you know what Dick Tracy does with its “things”: gives a villain a really on-the-nose name related to them and a corresponding facial deformity. Looking forward to seeing how Tony Rocky Horror’s skull shape somehow coveys the concept of unintentional camp!

Gil Thorp, 6/27/19

OH MY GOD I immediately take back everything bad I said about Gil Thorp yesterday because today we learn that this summer’s real Beloved Character From The Past is in fact Hadley V. Baxendale! Hadley was the star of the very first Gil Thorp storyline covered on this site, which involved her and her boyfriend and fellow feminist agitator Steve Luhm fighting for full-sized lockers and equal cheer squad support for the girls’ teams. I’ve always wondered what happened to her over the last fifteen years, and since she partnered up with a pro basketball player/intellectual while her ex became a teve dropped out of college and became a bitter janitor, I’d say she’s doing pretty well for herself!

My only complaint is that the comics colorists don’t know what to do with the front of her hair, which is supposed to be a Sontag-esque grey streak, which she’s had since high school. Also I’m not really sure what “you were” is supposed to mean in the final panel. Like, did Coach Thorp remember “Oh, Hadley’s like super political, she probably isn’t going to change her name after marriage, which I guess means … she’s going to change her name … before marriage? That’s how it works, right? I mean, she’s gotta change her name sometime.”

Shoe, 6/27/19

The thing I like best about this strip is that Skyler is sitting in this chair, inches away from the TV, his eyes heavy with ennui, just like we’ve seen his uncle again and again and again. It’s as if he’s daring the Perfesser to make some snide remark about millennials and their darn screens.

Marvin, 6/27/19

Remember when Vince Neil, at the height of his Mötley Crüe decadence, did an incredibly insincere anti-drug PSA? That’s pretty much the vibe I’m getting from today’s Marvin. “Kids, you might think from the usual jokes in this strip that sitting around in a diaperful of your own piss is fun. But what if I told you about, uh, butt mold? Pretty gross, huh?” [goes back to making jokes about how sitting around in a diaperful of your own piss is fun three times a week for the next six years]