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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!

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Mary Worth, 11/25/16

Wow, too bad Mary Worth chose the Friday after Thanksgiving, traditionally a day of extremely low readership, for this extremely sexy strip where we finally have confirmed that Zak is standard-college-student age and also on the prowl for fortysomething babes. Look at that line he just laid down here! Like, just moments ago he had to have it explained to him what an iris was and already he’s busting out “oh, late blooming flowers are definitely the ones I want to fuck the most.” I’m kidding, of course, what he actually said was “Late blooming flowers are just as beautiful… if not more so!”, which, just as beautiful as what, Zak? You might think your sentence is more “respectful” than mine, but mine at least respects the rules of English syntax.

Six Chix, 11/25/16

Yeah, man, I don’t even know what to say about this one. Like, is this supposed to be the thing from old Warner Brothers cartoons where a very hungry person hallucinates that his friend’s head has become a rotisserie chicken or whatever? So the cow on the left is very hungry? And also a cannibal? I guess?

Dennis the Menace, 11/25/16

By emphasizing his parents’ marital relationship to one another, Dennis is trying to be a menace by derailing the three-way they have planned with this woman. But the joke’s on him! She’s a highly sought after call girl who knows exactly what she’s getting into. The prim-and-proper outfit, along with a certain amount of feigned reluctance, is just part of the specific fantasy scenario the Mitchells submitted via her web site.

Family Circus, 11/25/16

“There’s never any daytime left over after dinner! Instead the flow of time abruptly stops and the universe outside is replaced by an infinite, featureless blackness. It stinks!”

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Six Chix, 11/12/16

FUN FACT: did you know that the Andrew Lloyd Weber Phantom of the Opera has made more money over the years than any other work of entertainment in the history of the human race? I learned this on the musical’s Wikipedia page, where I also learned that the 30th anniversary of its premiere performance in London wasn’t today but actually about five weeks ago, which is suspiciously close to the lead time for getting a newspaper comic published. The lesson is that you’ll never go broke overestimating humanity’s appetite for schmaltz (as someone who had to play multiple Andrew Lloyd Weber medleys in high school band, I feel I earned the right to make this artistic assessment), and that if you really care about memorializing something, maybe plan it in advance?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/12/16

Look, I get it, BG&SS creative team, making a joke about Miss Prunelly and Uriah fucking is just too tempting. And it’s also obviously tempting to run it more than once, since what’s the point of having years of archives and an audience that reads three days a week on average and retains very little if not to cut corners once in a while? But it does seem weird to use the same joke twice in two years but redraw the art. Like, the art is the hard part? At least now Uriah has given up his sex-shame and wears his lover’s Goth Kiss with a smile.

Mary Worth, 11/12/16

Oh, also, Wilbur’s basically spent this entire week getting dumped? I always thought I’d feel something in this situation. A little more joy, I dunno. What’s wrong with me that I can’t take delight in Wilbur’s pain?

Mark Trail, 11/12/16

NNNggghgh, maybe it’s because my system’s too oversaturated with all the literal fiery death in Mark Trail! The chopper explosions might be over, but at least we have chunks of volcanic debris falling from the sky. Just hook it up to my veins!!!!!