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Six Chix, 4/18/24

I’ll freely admit that I find floating Poseidon here very charming, with his cheery attitude and his whole … diaper? situation and a single eye perched right on his dick, perhaps in loving memory of his son Polyphemus, cut down in his prime by Odysseus. Anyway, much as it pains me to be pedantic (haha, just kidding, I love pedantry more than I love my own family), Poseidon is specifically the god of the sea, along with earthquakes and, uh, horses, so the water in that glass is very salty and won’t help this poor woman hydrate at all. The guy you’re looking for is Achelous, the river god who is the father of all the freshwater springs.

Hagar the Horrible, 4/18/24

Insurance exists as a risk-pooling technique, and from the perspective of the insurer, the point is to exclude riskier customers from the pool as much as possible, or at least to price that risk appropriately. Normally you’d do this via actuarial science, but if you had the power to scry into the future, you would obviously just exclude future disaster victims from your insurance plan altogether rather than marketing to them. Clearly Hagar is being scammed here, possibly because he already used this lady’s one true crystal ball in battle, and she needs to make up the revenue somehow.

Gearhead Gertie, 4/18/24

Lotta questions about what today’s Gearhead Gertie tells us about this strip’s universe. Are we meant to understand that Gertie is fielding questions at, like, a press conference or something, because her monomania has made her something of a local celebrity? Or is she just breaking the fourth wall and addressing us readers personally? Also, would an internal combustion engine really improve blender performance in any noticeable way? Or is she willing to destroy appliance after appliance just to make a point?

Mary Worth, 4/18/24

All right, fine, I’ve been complaining about yet another Wilbur storyline, but … I gotta give it up for panel two here, where Wilbur’s ex and her new boytoy natter on about how, thanks to their fitness regimen, they’re only getting sexier, while Wilbur stares at them in numb silence. I’m hooked! They got me! They always get me!

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Six Chix, 3/17/24

I caused a bit controversy last year when I said that I found the idea of eternal punishment morally objectionable. Still, no matter what your take on that opinion, I think we can all agree nobody deserves to suffer an infinite afterlife of physical torture just because they didn’t live up to some heavenly dress code that isn’t documented anywhere. Do you enjoy sleeping in the nude? Did you have a fatal heart attack in your sleep? Sorry, hope you enjoy having your guts pulled out by demons every day forever, because that’s what you’re getting!

Blondie, 3/17/24

Speaking of eternal torment, you have to assume Dagwood is trying to get fired at this point, right? There’s no way you change “$5,000,000” to “$4,999,500” on accident. Sorry Dagwood, you are still going have to keep working for DithersCo forever, for your various crimes!

Family Circus, 3/17/24

Each of the scenarios everyone is visualizing is something realistic that almost certainly happened to them, so I’m going to assume that at some point, PJ was abandoned in the woods by his parents. I guess they didn’t drive far enough and he made it back? Anyway, the implication is that Jeffy, who’s imagining nothing, isn’t allowed outside the house at all, which is probably for the best.

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Crock, 2/11/24

You know, some days I open up the ol’ comics in my newspaper web browser and think, “After all these years on this blog, do I truly have anything new to say?” But then I realize that Crock contains one of the many Crockian elements that annoy me — the tendency to generically call all the enlisted men under Crock’s command “trooper” — and I finally take the initiative go look up the names of the ranks in the French Foreign Legion and discover that, in fact, their equivalent of a private is given the rank of “légionnaire.” Why wouldn’t they be calling them this in this strip? You’re the only newspaper comic strip set in the French Foreign Legion, please lean into it! Why else do you think people are even reading you? Trust me, it’s not for the jokes.

Six Chix, 2/11/24

“Wait, why is this guy green?” you’re probably asking, like a simpleton. Uh, hello? Some sicko in San Francisco just removed his head from his neck, and then removed his neck entirely, and then affixed his head directly to his shoulders? My dude definitely died during that process, which is why, just like the classic Universal Pictures design of Frankenstein’s Monster, he’s green, because that’s what color a shambling collection of rotting corpse parts is. Can’t believe I still have to explain this to you people.

Panels from Beetle Bailey, 2/11/24

Something extremely sinister is happening in the throwaway panels of Beetle Bailey. “I’m so close to convincing the platoon that the world is slowly dying and the only solution is mass suicide. Hopefully they won’t notice — ah, damn it! Curse Zero’s eternal optimism and functioning clock!”

Dick Tracy, 2/11/24

Aw, looks like Sam’s gone back to visit his old popski at the family diner. And just in time to keep his dad from poisoning yet another one of his customers!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/11/24

“I never could’ve imagined this outcome. It’s wild, huh? Surprises? Arbitrary revelations for which no groundwork has been laid? This is what people enjoy in narrative, right? They find this satisfying?”

Mary Worth, 2/11/24

Oh, no! Sonia isn’t Keith’s daughter after all! Who could’ve possibly predicted? Oh, right, all of us. Obviously what’s going to happen is that Keith isn’t going to tell anybody this and will just continue to treat Sonia as the daughter he never knew because That’s What A Hero He Is, but I think it would be very funny if today’s quote is a hint that his emotional devastation is going to lead to a mescaline binge.