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Gil Thorp, 7/26/23

Oh, wow, when I called for a wacky summer storyline, I didn’t expect a dystopian plot where a flamboyantly dressed warden named “Reno Harwood” forces criminal-teens to battle it out in his JailDome, with quadrocopter drone cameras streaming the whole thing out for the entertainment of bloodthirsty Twitch viewers everywhere. Marty Moon will enthusiastically do the play by play, and the stakes are high: the winners will earn their freedom, while the losers are condemned to death. Unfortunately, Gil’s decision to prepare his team for an indoor game by making them practice in the pouring rain may prove counterproductive.

Bizarro, 7/26/23

Like Mickey Mouse, Ronald McDonald is theoretically the most important character in his weird little world but is also the most boring one; why would you spend time thinking about this vaguely off-putting clown when you could be following the adventures of the mayor with a cheeseburger for a head, or a criminal who steals burgers, or a bird who is also Amelia Earhart, or whatever the hell Grimace is? But from now on I’ll spending a lot of energy contemplating Ronald McDonald — specifically, wondering if his partner is a hamurger or if he has latent hamburger DNA or if his partner is a normal human woman who gave birth to a hamburger and just started screaming and screaming while the doctor came out and told Ronald and he was just like “Heh heh, exactly as I expected.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/26/23

“You also keep sending us your bill, and we keep telling you that just because you commandeered one of our rooms and did surgery in it without asking anyone about it doesn’t mean we owe you money.”

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Crock, 7/25/23

Say what you will about the newspaper comic strips, but each one is a rich world filled with details that even dedicated daily readers might go for years without discovering. For instance, did you know that Quench, the beloved (?) camel character in Crock, got his name because his thirst for sweet, soul-numbing alcohol can never be “quenched”?

Marvin, 7/25/23

How many times has this happened to you: You’re in the bathroom at a friend’s house, reading a book of Weird Trivia they keep on the back of the toilet, and you stumble upon a factoid and think “Ha, I can imagine how the syndicated newspaper comic strip character Marvin would react to this!” Well, if you’re on the Marvin creative team, you can easily use that little epiphany to meet your daily joke quota. (This is honestly the best case scenario for a Marvin strip inspired by time spent in a bathroom.)

Family Circus, 7/25/23

Loving everyone’s facial expressions here as they try, each in their own way, to deal with Jeffy’s bullshit. Look at Dolly, she’s having to go into some sort of centered deep breathing wellness exercise in order to not have a meltdown at him.

Dennis the Menace, 7/25/23

Dennis the Menace is obviously the much more menacing “child says darndest thing at a restaurant” panel today, in the sense that he seems to be going out of his way to solicit a wellness check from CPS.

Hi and Lois, 7/25/23

I find Hi’s expression in the second panel extremely wholesome here. He didn’t think it was possible for him to respect the troops any more — but thanks to his garbage man, he’s found a way!

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Dick Tracy, 7/24/23

I think, over the years that I’ve done this blog, that my brain has developed a protective layer that stops truly terrible (in a boring way, not a fun way) soap opera plots from taking root. I choose to believe that this, and not some kind of incipient dementia, is why I can not tell you a single thing about what is going on in Dick Tracy, despite diligently reading it every day. Who is Madsen? I mean, I know he’s this ska guy, but what is his relationship to Audie and Sabrina, exactly? What’s the deal with Anders? Is “Argos” a place or a person or Odysseus’s dog or what? I neither know the answer to any of these questions nor do I plan to go back through the Dick Tracy archives to discover them, but that won’t stop me from enjoying today’s strip, in which Audie spills his dang pills, then calmly and meticulously drops them back into the pill bottle.

Gil Thorp, 7/24/23

“What kind of town is Milford anyway?” you might rightfully ask. Well, it’s the kind of town where the craze for high school athletics completely dominates all local media, but it’s also the kind of town where a hardened teenage criminal in the middle of playing punishment football might say something like “Coach Thorp, it’s raining. Shall we adjourn?” It’s a rich tapestry and I respect that so much.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/24/23

I’m sorry, “didn’t mean to make a joke” is possibly the most unnecessary thing Rex Morgan has ever said. “If that came across as a joke, please know that I didn’t mean it, and I only did it accidentally because I have no idea what a joke is or how they work. I definitely don’t enjoy them and would never make one on purpose.”