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Crankshaft, 8/8/14

Good news, everybody! Despite the grim foreboding, this week’s Crankshaft food truck storyline has ended with smiles all around. Weird, blissed out smiles from everyone emerging from a fenced off zone in which the fully tricked out food trucks, each of which contains expensive kitchen equipment and represents somebody’s entire small business, rammed into each other repeatedly for the crowd’s amusement, until only one was still (barely) functional. “Pure carnage,” says Crankshaft, as if that were a … joke, or bit of wordplay, or something? Maybe one of the trucks was full of meat, meat that could have fed dozens of happy customers, meat that instead was ground into the muddy, oily earth. Or maybe just lots of drivers died in the conflagration. Who knows? Everyone sure seems happy, though!

Shoe, 8/8/14

Man, for someone who literally reads the comics every day for a living, there sure is some stuff I don’t pick up on. When I read today’s Shoe, for instance, I immediately thought, “Hey, how long has Shoe’s desk just been an overturned trashcan? Is that some commentary on the poor financial state of print newspapers?” Well, jokes on me, because Shoe’s trashcan-desk has been around for at least seven years. And really, how badly can the The Treetops Tattler-Tribune be doing, considering it operates in a market where people still call into the newspaper to find out what the weather is going to be like?

Six Chix, 8/8/14

Well, I guess you could have asked! Or maybe going to a restaurant so dedicated to meat consumption that they trot out live cows to your table is something noteworthy enough to be brought up in advance, I dunno. Certainly if your relationship has advanced to the point where you’re basically sitting in each other’s lap at dinner, you’d think the topic of dietary preferences would’ve come up.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/7/14

When Snuffy goes to play cards, we usually see aces sicking out of his hat or various other parts of his clothing, and I’ve always assumed that we aren’t supposed to take this literally — that is, these cards aren’t actually visible to the other characters; rather, it’s a symbolic tip-off to the reader that Snuffy is a swindler. I certainly hope that’s the case, anyway, because otherwise Snuffy is laughing in his best friend’s face about looming domestic discord, and not even hiding the very large and dishonest role he played in precipitating the crisis.

Dick Tracy, 8/7/14

Sure, Dick is on a mysterious island that’s only a day or so drive away from Neo-Chicago and may have been mysteriously sent back into the past, and that’s all totally realistic, but there’s an obvious plot hole here, which is: wouldn’t he have sent an email to his wife at some point? Well, she couldn’t get email because their ISP had a virus, OK? Problem: solved.

Gil Thorp, 8/7/14

Just last year Gil Thorp made a delightful return to its usual insane summer storylines with a tale of Gil’s creative collaboration with a senile pro wrestler, which makes this summer’s plot all the most depressingly banal by comparison. There’s a star quarterback who might be considering coming to Milford? That’s it, that’s literally it, and today, in what’s definitely a shocking twist, he falls down and twists his ankle while trying to fish his phone out of his pocket. Can you taste the thrills? Still, let it be a lesson to you: cargo jorts aren’t just hideous, they’re actively dangerous.

Herb and Jamaal, 8/7/14

Herb’s pal Ernie is trying to open up and give some real talk about tough time’s he’s having in his life! Herb replies with a mean, corny joke, because he’s terrified of intimacy, and is also kind of a dick.

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Mark Trail, 8/6/14

Wow, you guys, in a totally shocking development that nobody could’ve predicted, Chris Dyer is totally in on this rhino-poaching business! Anyway, it’s kind of sad that nobody in the poacher camp is calling Chris “Dirty.” If you can’t count on your drunk, loutish, hirsute criminal associates to use the ridiculous attempt at a badass nickname you’ve picked out for yourself, who can you count on?

Judge Parker, 8/6/14

Sam may be grossed out by Gloria’s emotions, but now that she’s revealed her intention to raise human livestock, his lips are parting in excitement! Whether her helpless victims are grown in pens and fed a diet of high-fat slurry before being cooked and served as a delicacy to a very wealthy and discrete clientele or we’re talking about a free-range Most Dangerous Game-type scenario, he wants in.

Pluggers, 8/6/14

Pluggers can no longer keep up with cultural change, and also all their friends are dying.

Family Circus, 8/6/14

Noooooo Jeffy, He can hear you, He will punish us with terrible, scorching heat for your blasphemy