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Mary Worth and The Phantom, 11/9/15

Oh, dear, it looks like Mary Worth and Heloise, far from embarking on a grand adventure together, are just going to briefly chat in a cab and then go their separate ways. The Phantom strip can’t even bother to spend a whole strip on its own version of Mary and Heloise’s bland pleasantries, cutting away to two panels of the Ghost Who Walks’s elaborate and sadistic gamesmanship. Anyway, it’s good to know that the Phantom, who has a whole room full of priceless treasure and runs an actual diamond monopoly, encourages his daughter to benefit from the kindess of old ladies on fixed incomes.

Spider-Man, 11/9/15

Meanwhile, also in Manhattan, Spider-Man and Namor got into a fistfight and fell into the ocean, and MJ has decided that she’s going to save poor li’l Pharus? Somehow? Without his consent, or the consent of his guardians? I look forward to her bringing him to a doctor, who will say “Young woman, I’m not qualified to cure some kind of pointy-eared … fish … boy!” Or maybe he’ll just bust out the free samples of the new anti-pollution pills that the Pfizer rep brought over and the kid will be fine, and then Namor will feel sheepish and the conflict will be over.

You know who’s not going to be fine, though? The poor Atlantean who’s just had his life-preserving water-helmet shattered by White Lab Coat Lady over there! Sorry dude, I know you were just protecting this poor youth from the surface-monsters, but now you’re going to air-drown after being dispatched with a truly inscrutable witticism.

Dennis the Menace, 11/9/15

The year is 2047. Adult Dennis strips out of his Amazon-issued jumpsuit after completing his 19-hour shift in the vast Amazon Fulfillment Warehouse that occupies most of what was once known as “Ohio.” He nestles into his sleeping-shelf within the 100-square foot Dorm Pod that is his home; as he dims the lights, the last things he sees are the vast, mandatory portraits of Jeff Bezos that dominate each windowless wall. He thinks back to that day long ago, when he made that flippant remark to his mother about shopping — his mother had been reassigned to the Box Assembly Division somewhere in the Dakotas when he was a teenager, he hadn’t heard from her since. He began to think that maybe he had been the true menace, that day.

Gil Thorp, 11/9/15

Yeah, sure, OK, Gil wears a Milford sweatshirt to work pretty much every day, and you might think they all look the same, but he can tell them apart, OK? Mostly by the stains.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/9/15

[48 hours earlier, at the Morgans]

“Look, Rex, I’ve already signed mine. Will you just sign yours?”

“Ugh, will you stop talking if I do?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. What is this about again?”

“Do you really care?”

“I suppose not.”

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/8/15

Fun news! The current creative team behind Barney Google and Snuffy Smith has decided to dip into the strip’s long history and bring us a long-forgotten character: Granny Creeps, a black-clad crone who lives in a cave and performs mountain folk magic for community residents. This might give rise to intriguing plotlines about the very deep persistence of pre-Christian belief systems in rural, isolated communities, but as the punchline of today’s strip makes clear, Granny Creeps is as much a grifter and fraud as Hootin’ Holler’s supposed champion of monotheism.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/8/15

Hooray! Milton Avery, who is in fact ill, with debilitating dementia, of the sort that would prevent him from running a company, has managed to hold it together for the length of a board meeting, so he and his wife, who has no professional background in aerospace or spy satellites or lenses or whatever it is this company does, will continue to run it, rather than this nice Indian man who probably has some interesting ideas about new directions for the company and would at least carry on the tradition of cricket fandom in the corporate boardroom. Along the way, Milton has publicly humiliated his son, who has done nothing throughout this process but tell the truth about his father’s increasing incapacity and look out for the best interest of the company’s shareholders. Haha, remember Hugh’s last storyline, when everyone tried to gaslight him when he realized they were, in actuality, conspiring against him? Remember how his dad has been a monster to him for his entire life? Remember how he’s the bad guy in this storyline, for some reason?

Six Chix, 11/8/15

hey lady

EVERYONE CAN SEE AND HEAR YOU, NOT JUST THE DRONE

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Crankshaft, 11/7/15

Ha, so not only did the mayoral election end in a tie because Crankshaft forgot to vote, but the tie was broken by a coin toss (a real thing that happens!) and Ralph let Crankshaft call it, which he did incorrectly, so Crankshaft lost the election for Ralph twice. Anyway, I skipped over these action-packed strips and instead chose to share with you today’s end-of-week installment, in which Crankshaft and Ralph huddle miserably under a too-small umbrella in a driving rain, their dreams crushed, because I’m cruel like that.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/7/15

Speaking of cruelty, it seems that Holly is OK with her son using her carefully collected comics as exchange for a bride-price trinket. But don’t worry, something terrible has to come of all this (other than Cory and Rocky’s inevitable divorce), and that something is the ultimate victory of the Chiseler, who was presented as the villain in the long-running Holly Carefully Collects Comics storyline. Remember, this is the Funkyverse, where even the joy is bad.

Dennis the Menace, 11/7/15

“Isn’t that cool? Isn’t it neat how all of humanity, all of biological life, is linked in a great chain of being? With each link more and more important until the chain reaches its logical conclusion: me? But the chain stops here. I am the end of everything you know, and the beginning of something you can’t possibly imagine. I am Dennis. I am the menace.”