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Hey all, just a head’s up: I’ve updated the posting and discussion policies for the site, mostly to reflect and explain how I already run things around here anyway. If you’ve never read this, read it, and even if you have, check out the updates, particularly the new FAQ/Socratic dialogue I’ve added that will hopefully be illuminating about how not to get banned/yelled at!

And now, on to comics.

Dick Tracy, 9/30/10

Is it possible to construct a more delightful phrase than “Dick Tracy, undercover hobo”? I believe the answer to that question to be a firm “no,” but only because no English word-sequence can truly convey the awesomeness of panel one, where Dick’s eyes glow hypnotically out of his shadowy, bearded face. Dick’s gone undercover among the scruffy unhoused set to track down a bum who’s handing out thousand-dollar bills. As a homeless man handing out thousand-dollar bills would in all likelihood be almost immediately robbed and murdered, but just in case that isn’t in process, Dick makes sure to shout out his location as loudly as possible, for no good reason.

Mary Worth, 9/30/10

Desperate for some way to enliven this offensively smug scene, the Mary Worth artist distracts us with wacky perspective shifts. Panel two, for instance, caters to every reader’s fantasy by showing what it would look like to be a master assassin lurking in the bushes across the street, watching Mary and Jeff through the scope of a high-powered rifle, and waiting for the perfect moment to pull the trigger.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/30/10

Oh, Elviney (if that is your name — I’m pretty sure it is but I don’t feel like looking it up), why do you sigh so? Is it a sigh like “Oh, that tired old chestnut?” A sigh like, “Darn, I was hoping for some effective weight-loss tips from my portly friend?” Or a sigh like, “Good lord, all of us in this blighted hamlet are so very poor and hungry?”

Wizard of Id, 9/30/10

Ha ha! It’s funny because Floyd died terribly, for no good reason!

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Wizard of Id, 7/24/10

If you need an enormous interpanel onomatopoeia representing an action that is essentially silent in order to make your joke clear, perhaps you should just start over from scratch.

Crock, 7/24/10

The new edgier Crock is also experimenting with narrative forms: today we see the waiter who is enraging Grossie by flirting with her friend instead of taking their order, while behind him we can already see the the blood that will soon festoon the walls when Grossie acts on her anger.

Dick Tracy, 7/24/10

Dick Tracy is tired of his little bon mots going unappreciated by his wife, and so is just going to thought-balloon his gnomic tough-guyisms from now on.

Marmaduke, 7/24/10

Do you really want to draw attention to what’s going on here, Mr. Lifeguard? “Four local children eaten by shark” would be an awful headline, but at least it falls into a realm that people can understand. “Four local children eaten by nightmarish demon-hound pretending to be shark” would be so incomprehensibly terrifying that it would be certain to set off a total panic.

Ziggy, 7/24/10

Ziggy’s dog has been aggressively stalking Jim Davis, for some reason.

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Apartment 3-G, 6/12/10

OMG GASP WHO’S THAT AT THE DOOR! IT’S … IT’S … damn it, I’m not actually sure who that it is. This is a major problem in a strip where everyone but the three main characters looks more or less alike! I suppose it’s supposed to be late 2006-early 2007 beloved ancillary character Gina, who had similar short hair flips; Gina left to find fame and fortune in Hollywood, which may explain why she’s looking somewhat older and wiser, as presumably that terrible town chewed her up and spat her back to New York in short order (“short order” in soap opera strips being three years or so). Anyway, most of her time in the strip was spent in two main pursuits: insulting Tommie, which means that Tommie’s pleased-to-see-you smile is just another sign of her deeply ingrained self-loathing, and bedding the Professor. This explains why Ari was so excited by the new arrival on Monday, I guess. Ha ha, isn’t it convenient when, right after one of your lovers has been bundled off to a crooked mental hospital, another one shows up, her dreams broken and her heart vulnerable? Yup, being the Professor is pretty sweet.

Wizard of Id, 6/12/10

Wow, the Wiz is a kind of funny-looking bearded old man, so I guess Id’s aesthetic standards for rentboys are quite different from those that hold in early 21st century America. Of course, you know, magic powers and all that; he could be supernaturally sexy.

Pluggers, 6/12/10

You’re a plugger if you once, entirely by accident, got a gift to which your wife reacted positively, and you just keep buying the same thing for her, over and over again, because that’s so much easier than trying to figure what sort of things she likes and dislikes, or even just asking her what she wants, and anyway you can get birdhouses for cheap, sure enough.

You’re married to a plugger if your fantasies veer wildly between divorce and murder.