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Mary Worth, 4/15/16

Harlan dropped the “my dead wife” bomb on Dawn, confessed he’s remained single for the past five years because nobody could possible compare to his beloved, departed Sharon, and then lobbed “enough about me” back at Dawn, which admittedly seems to call for a really emotionally present response. Still, I’m not sure if this is the way to go. “Oh yeah, I’m not dating right now either! Because, uh, I need to focus on myself, you know, but I’m definitely gonna have sex! Again! Definitely not for the first time! And, uh, soon, probably!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/15/16

Dolly Pierpont has up till this point almost always appeared in widow’s weeds, mourning for the husband who died and left her alone (and also in charge of his sprawling, brutal mob kingdom). Today, though, the mourning has ended, and she’s gotten herself all glammed up. Is she seeking a new consort for her empire of crime? Her chauffer/enforcer seems to think so, but he’s out of luck.

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Beetle Bailey, 4/14/16

You might not believe it based on the nonstop stream of cruel vitriol I heap upon comics creators daily, but writing this blog over the years has actually given me a lot of sympathy for the people who write these things. Coming up with a joke a day within the same little world, every day, for years and years is hard, man, even for the team of people they have down at ol’ Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC. I mean, I get it. Some days you’re just staring at a blank panel and are trying to figure out how you can wring a few laughs out of it, and clearly, as the deadline loomed, today’s jokesmith could think of nothing except for falling off a cliff into the sweet embrace of death, which might be something they should talk to a trained therapist about. But anyway, I’d argue that the second panel here is wholly unnecessary. Beetle and Killer dully contemplating the fact that their fellow soldiers just can’t stop falling off cliffs, while staring at a handwritten note on a bulletin board that, in a plea for sanity that will surely go unheeded, urges everyone to “AVOID CLIFF”, is the funniest thing in the comics today, and probably the funniest thing to happen in Beetle Bailey ever.

Gil Thorp, 4/14/16

Boy, the softball action in Gil Thorp sure is a lot more exciting when it’s drawn like an German expressionist film, right? Pitcher and catcher stand at opposite ends of some long corridor, then suddenly are practically on top of one another, representing the way the emotional space between us can sometimes collapse into sudden moments of terrifying intimacy.

Pluggers, 4/14/16

The look of profound shame on those he-pluggers’ faces makes me think that the caption to this panel should actually be “plugger moms seem to be the only ones in the house who actually use toilet paper.”

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Dick Tracy, 4/13/16

If there’s one thing we associate with Dick Tracy, it’s gruesome, authoritarian violence, but if there’s one other thing we associate with Dick Tracy, it’s oddly-shaped criminals with really on-the-nose names. But generally those names have at least a bit of fun wordplay involved. Like Professor Glitch! See, because he works with computers, and computers have glitches, sometimes! Or Matty Squared, who appears to be some kind of artificial intelligence housed in a basically square casing! That’s why I’m actively offended by the current boss of the strip’s bad guy hierarchy, Mr. Bribery. See, they call him that because he … bribes people? I assume? I actually don’t think we’ve ever seen him bribe anybody. Is supposed to be … ironic? Maybe?

Lockhorns, 4/13/16

I’m pretty sure that this joke would work better if Leroy were actually smiling. But then, this may just be a case where Loretta’s long experience with Leroy’s misery blinds her to what others see. She can parse where Leroy is on his emotional spectrum, which ranges from “suicidally miserable” to “briefly capable of seeing how a third party might enjoy my life as an ironic farce,” but to everyone else, a crumplefrown is just a crumplefrown.

Judge Parker, 4/13/16

This whole is-Rocky-cheating-on-Godiva-or-isn’t-he plot has been super boring, mostly because it’s all taken place off panel while our heroes endlessly rehash their limited information on the subject. I would argue that the way to jazz it up would be to actually show us what Rocky’s up to, and not, in the direction that we appear to be going here, to have the characters endlessly rehash their limited information on the subject while casually taking off their shirts.

Mary Worth, 4/13/16

WHEW, FALSE ALARM EVERYBODY

HARLAN JONES IS HETEROSEXUAL, BEREAVED, AND OWNS AN ADORABLE DOG

STUDENT-TEACHER MACKING MAY COMMENCE

(the less said about this strip’s first-ever attempt to depict Dawn’s boobs, and to do so from a “dog’s-eye view,” the better)