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Better Half, 1/4/13

Here’s a fun fact, if by “fun” you mean “soul-shattering”: there is a rare condition called the Capgras delusion, in which the sufferer suddenly becomes convinced that a loved one — often a spouse or parent — has been replaced by an impostor. I’ve always been irrationally fearful of developing this myself, and have wondered if just knowing that the condition exists is enough to keep it at bay or at least understand what’s happening if it occurs, or if the delusion is so powerful that all rational thoughts flee your mind and your life becomes an unending paranoid horror. Anyway, Harriet seems to have been seized with this terrible mental illness and is demanding desperate measures to try to hold onto some tiny shred of reality, or maybe she’s just being extremely sarcastic how Stanley has become such an unattractive loser.

Dick Tracy, 1/4/13

Oops, I forgot to catch up on Christmas-week developments in Dick Tracy’s “costumed vigilante” plot, but I guess I don’t need to now because today’s strip provides a wall of text that gets us all pretty much up to date. Thanks, wall of text! I’m more concerned about that shadow lurking behind Dick, though, which may presage how he’ll adapt to the costumed chaos in his fair city. Has the new Dick Tracy creative team spent month meticulously recreating the classic vibe of the original strip, just so that they can abruptly turn it into a Batman comic when their editors stop paying attention to them?

Mary Worth, 1/4/13

Yup, those cake pics you’re looking at sure reflect the beauty of nature, Mr. Dill! With their … pink and white frosting … and garlands … and such. Yeah. Nature cakes. Hoo boy. This guy’s screwed. You’ve shackled yourself to a loser, Mary, do you hear me? A loser!

Curtis, 1/4/13

I was going to complain that this year’s Curtis Kwanzaa tale wasn’t insane enough, but that was before an adorable tiny primate stone cold stabbed a lady in the neck.

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Crock, 12/22/12

Commandant Vermin P. Crock (haha, no, really, that’s his name) has been doing his evil dictatorial thing since this strip debuted 37 years ago, so I shudder to think that he still considers himself to be in the early days of his career. Has he stumbled upon some Maghrebi immortality elixir out there in the desert, and now knows he will rule the land around his fort for centuries to come? It would explain how the strip keeps appearing months after its creators supposedly quit.

Spider-Man, 12/22/12

I think a particularly cruel thing to do to people reading a terribly written narrative is to remind them that good writers exist, and that some characters in the terribly written narrative have just decided to opt out and read those good writers while lounging around in bed.

Better Half, 12/22/12

I take it back, Harriet’s friend isn’t too sleepy for sex, she’s just heard too many stories like this and now any mention of sex causes overwhelming nausea.

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Gasoline Alley, 12/21/12

As usual, I haven’t been keeping you up on Gasoline Alley’s desultory antics, so let me just do so now very quickly: li’l Boog has been persecuted by bullies, including one nicknamed “Bear,” and they lured him out to the woods to beat the crap out of him, but then an actual bear showed up, and now we get to today where, it is revealed, Boog speaks the secret language of bears, and can command them to do his bidding. Did he learn the ursine tongue when his neglectful grandfather let a bear carry him off, years ago? Probably! But rather than satisfyingly going all 2 Kings 2:23-25 on these kids, Boog the Bearomancer just urges this vicious grizzly to make nice with his “friends”, who have been nothing but mean to him. Unless a crippling sense of shame is a crueler punishment than bloody dismemberment?

Spider-Man, 12/21/12

Do I have an unreasoning hatred of Newspaper Spider-Man? Maaayyyybe. I was all set to go on an unhinged rant about this strip’s dastardly use of “heist” as a transitive verb — a usage I had never heard before — but fortunately I looked it up first. Turns out the use of the word as a verb actually predated its use as a noun, by about 10 years! It’s a variation of “hoist,” and was first used as a slang term for shoplifting in the 1920s. So even the world’s crappiest superhero comic can still teach me things about etymologies, which are among my favorite bits of language trivia. Thanks, Newspaper Spider-Man!

Better Half, 12/21/12

Harriet’s friend is way too sleepy for sex.

B.C., 12/21/12

Having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit? Here’s a cartoon about Santa having trouble not pooping his pants!