Post Content

Family Circus, 12/6/12

Meanwhile, at the North Pole: “Hmm, what’s this? Why, I see … a little boy who’s drawn a bell at school. Let’s take a closer look! Hmmm that … that’s the crappiest bell I’ve ever seen. Look at how weird and lumpy it is on the right side! And it’s colored a boring silver, not a festive gold. This little brat has desecrated the very concept of a bell, and bells are of course the 17th most important symbol of my holiday, Christmas. Nothing but socks and books under the tree for you this year, young man!”

Spider-Man, 12/6/12

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to our irregular series, How To Be An Unlikeable Douchebag Nobody Wants To Spend Time With! Today’s lesson: “Celebrate with grotesque theatricality whenever you’re right about anything.” To keep your technique up, it’s important to do this even if nobody else is around!

Blondie, 12/6/12

I give the people who color the daily strips crap all the time for ignoring explicit in-strip cues when picking what colors to dump in via the Photoshop paintcan tool, so I have to give minor props for someone’s slightly on-the-nose decision to slather Dagwood in pine-tree green for this.

Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/5/12

Kudos to Rex Morgan, M.D., for having the main player in its breast cancer plot be not some chipper, beatific saint, but someone who is actually cranky and exhausted the way someone going through chemo actually would be. Today’s strip makes me hope that we’ll be getting a medical marijuana subplot in our California locale; after all, one of the reasons pot is prescribed to cancer patients is to boost their appetite (the munchies used for good, not evil!). Which side of this issue will Rex come down on? He’s actually a notorious medical-issues pinko, what with his support of single-payer health insurance and all, but on the other hand he loves feeling smug and superior to people he thinks he’s better than, which includes all nonconformists and hippies and potheads, so this should make for a hilarious internal struggle.

Mark Trail, 12/5/12

Uh oh, looks like Otto tried to kill Mark but then accidentally killed himself! No, just kidding, Mark will rescue him, of course. The real drama here: Will he immediately be converted to goodness thanks to Mark’s selfless rescue, or will he continue to plot? Will Mark eventually have to punch him, more in sorrow than in anger?

Gil Thorp, 12/5/12

In the last panel, with the bolding and the question mark, the narration box seems to have passed from disinterested observer to outraged Mudlark partisan. Or maybe it’s literally baffled by the ill-drawn tangle of limbs in panel two? “Pass interference? Wait, is Gallagher wrapping his arm around #81, or just kind of whacking at him? What’s going on?”

Dick Tracy, 12/5/12

Dick Tracy is doing some kind of “costumed vigilantes/superheroes” plot, though today it turns out that the whole thing may be a misunderstanding caused by this nice young couple’s eccentric and public sexual roleplay.

Spider-Man, 12/5/12

Over course of this plot, newspaper Spider-Man trufans have been saying, “OK, fine, we’ve had lots and lots of Peter Parker being publicly humiliated by his boss and by his rival, and he’s been literally forced to ‘pretend’ to work as a janitor in order to spy on Kraven. He’s done virtually no Web-slinging and absolutely no successful crime-fighting to speak of. But when do we get to the part of the story where he just yells at the television?” Well, today’s your lucky day, my friends.

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 11/27/12

There’s trouble in paradise, if by “paradise” you mean the weird workplace romance between Margo and Evan. Evan thinks that he can be cold to our gal Magee just because he’s used her sexual jealousy to steal away her clients for his aunt’s agency and has thus achieved all his goals. He’s about to learn that Margo only makes time with betas when they provide sexy massages and other benefits, and when they decide to withhold those benefits, Margo decides to withhold their paychecks and/or oxygen.

Spider-Man, 11/27/12

Spider-Man, meanwhile, is undercover in Las Vegas, trying to figure out what crimes Kraven the Hunter is plotting. His patented detective technique has mostly consisted of lurking around Kraven and sulking while Kraven practices his animal act, foils purse-nappers, and does other non-criminal things. It’s not particularly sophisticated! Thus, even though Kraven has introduced two monkey with names that make it so obvious that a third will appear soon that he might as well just call them “Monkey 1” and “Monkey 3”, we need Peter to thought-balloon this information, because otherwise we readers might worry that he’s failing to pick up on it, as he fails to pick up on most things.

One aspect of Peter being sullen about Kraven’s fantastic life in Las Vegas has been Peter being sullen about Kraven’s success with the ladies. This is kind of ironic because the very first Spider-Man storyline covered on this blog featured Kraven trying and failing to woo the one lady dumb enough to marry Peter Parker! They’re like an ourobouros of loserdom, these two. (Note from the commentary on that old post that I was still trying to grapple with just what Newspaper Spider-Man was all about back in those days.)

Dennis the Menace, 11/27/12

SUSPECT IN CHILD DISMEMBERMENT CASE ‘DEFINITELY GUILTY’ SAY NEIGHBORS

Retired Postal Worker Was A ‘Ticking Time Bomb’