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Spider-Man, 1/3/18

Oh, hey, I didn’t really discuss what happened in Newspaper Spider-Man while I was gone, did I? Well, it turns out that Dr. Connors lost a lot of blood due to that gator bite, and also that the whole reason Bruce Banner was in town the swamp in the first place was because he and Dr. Connors have the same rare blood type and Bruce was looking to do some kind of blood exchange thing to de-Hulk himself, but now maybe the transfusion is going to go the other way, which would be bad news for a guy who already has a problem with turning into a large, violent green thing? Also, Peter Parker revealed his secret identity to Bruce Banner, which was a shocking development to everyone who had taken for granted that he didn’t already know about this in the Newspaper Spider-Man continuity, which is to say nobody. Anyway, none of this is as important as panel two here, in which Spider-Man uses his famous and beloved jumping power (the relative jumping of a spider) to leap from boat to dock. I expect to see several more days of him hopping through the marina area, until he finally gets to an area with tall buildings where he can web-sling through, at which point he’ll raise up a hand to shoot a web and accidentally drop Dr. Connors’ head onto the pavement.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/3/18

Look, I get that this is a side-splittingly hilarious visual gag. But was it worth the terrible disruption to nearly a century of accumulated Barney Google and Snuffy Smith lore? Are we just supposed to [sarcastic nerd chuckle] believe that Elviney has had this [increasingly angry sarcastic nerd chuckle] [finger quotes] “twin sister” all along? Obviously if she lived in the tiny community of Hootin’ Holler we’d have met her by now, but just as obviously if she were visiting from another holler Elviney would have said as much, ugh, I’m starting a petition to get this strip stricken from the canon

Gil Thorp, 1/3/18

Notice how all the panes seem to vanish from Gil’s surprisingly large office window at some point between panels one and three? That’s because right around the middle of panel two is where Gil allows himself to indulge his usual middle-of-a-Marty-Moon-interview fantasy: that he could just lean back in his chair and tumble out into the welcoming arms of the forest below.

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Spider-Man, 12/20/17

Let’s ignore the super-fisticuffs here for a moment and marvel at the moment where real serendipitous scientific progress is being made! When we last got a good look at the number that gator did on Dr. Connors, his pants had a huge hole in the leg, revealing his gashed thigh-flesh. But now it appears his pants have healed themselves, leaving just a fading scar where the material has somehow knitted itself back together. Could it be that Dr. Connors has been wasting his time with bioengineering potions and should instead focus on the “smart clothing” that can merge with and cybernetically enhance the human body?

Meanwhile, I know that playing around with the borders of comics panels for visual effect has a long and honorable history, but I’m pretty sure what’s going on between panels two and three isn’t so much “Let’s tweak longstanding visual storytelling conventions to create striking imagery that changes how readers perceive the narrative” as “oh crap I drew that guy’s body too far to the right and his head isn’t going to fit here, uh, uh, uh”

Mary Worth, 12/20/17

Holy shit, Wilbur really is going into a full-on paranoid breakdown in regards to Iris’s wealthy new boytoy. “My ex-girlfriend, whom I hold in high regard and desperately want to reconnect with, has a filthy drug-addict son and her new boyfriend is probably a criminal because she’s got no morals or loyalty. What a bitch! God I love her, the traitor!”

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Spider-Man, 12/17/17

So I guess it’s true, Dr. Connors really doesn’t know Peter Parker is Spider-man! Fortunately, he’s been savagely RRONGK?ed on the leg and so can’t pay attention to whatever’s going on around him. I personally have never been subject to a leg-RRONGK?ing, but I find this slightly unbelievable! Maybe I’m overestimating my own stamina and ability to focus, but I feel like even if I had some mid-level lacerations in my lower extremities, I’d notice if a guy three feet away from me loudly announced he was Spider-Man and then took off his shirt and it turned out he was wearing the Spider-Man outfit and then he fought the Hulk, proving he was Spider-Man!

Also, I get that Newspaper Spider-Man is trying to capture some of the magic the Hulk brought to Thor: Ragnarok as a super-powered sidekick to the title character, but why call him an “abomination” in the narration box? That’s just disrespectful to your guest star.

Pluggers, 12/17/17

Pluggers live their lives surrounded by increasingly nonfunctional garbage.

Hi and Lois, 12/17/17

Is Christmas about the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ? Or is it about elaborate sexual roleplay? The culture war around the holidays continues unabated.