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Blondie, 10/30/23

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about those haunted houses you can go to at amusement parks and such for Halloween, and she drew a distinction that really stuck with me: some stuff you encounter at these things, like decor with skulls and bats and other goth business, is spooky, and other stuff, like people jumping out of the dark and grabbing you, is scary, and not everyone is into both! Anyway, what Blondie experienced — a couple weird cosplayers coming up with a series of ever-dumber Halloween puns — is spooky, whereas Dagwood’s day, in which he once again had to weigh his emotional health against his family’s finances when dealing with his abusive boss, is scary. Here to help!

Crock, 10/30/23

Big news! After 48 years of doing a dumb comics riff on P. C. Wren’s 1924 novel Beaut Geste, as of today Crock will start doing a dumb comics riff on Albert Camus’s 1947 novel The Plague.

Dennis the Menace, 10/30/23

Is it just me or does the perspective in this panel make Dennis look like he’s about seven feet tall, but with the bodily proportions of a child, making him a truly nightmarish figure? Anyway, if I could change one thing about him, it’d be that. I’d like him to be a normal size again.

Mary Worth, 10/30/23

“Ugh, it used to be we would have sex, but now it turns out that people you have sex with sometimes have opinions? That are different from yours??? What the heck!”

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and Family Circus, 10/29/23

You know, I was about to go on a whole rant here about how the fact that Hootin’ Holler’s only clergyman is a grifter and fraud has resulted in Snuffy holding to some kind of folk syncretism, since he’s freely combining a pagan ritual in which humans take on the guise of evil spirits with a celebration of the risen Christ. But then I was humbled when I got to today’s Family Circus, a strip whose theology I have always assumed is impeccable. We see the Saints themselves rejoice at seeing children dressing up as gangsters or literal witches! I am, as the kids say, sitting my ass down and learning.

Dick Tracy, 10/29/23

Hey, let’s not forget, this Dick Tracy plot isn’t just about the elevated world of rare book crime, it’s also about stabbing, and since Xaviera here has a knife, she probably did the murders, case closed! I do sincerely appreciate the cinematic composition here; presumably Xaviera keeps talking over the last few panels, but from Dick’s perspective her voice fades away as he catches the glint of the blade and all he can think is knife knife knife KNIFE KNIFE STAB STAB STAB KNIFESTAB

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Blondie, 10/28/23

Over the years, the syndicated comic strip Blondie shifted from the story of a carefree flapper and the dissolute failson who gave up his comfortable life to be with her to a story about a suburban dad who makes being hungry his whole personality, to the extent that he redefines the calendar itself so that each holiday primarily exists to provide an opportunity for a new and subtly different form of food monomania. For me, the thing that’s oddest about Blondie is that the universe around Dagwood is seemingly warped by the intensity of his own appetites, making him something of an outlier but by no means an aberration in his own world. Anyway, what do you make of the combo of “smiling and sweating” in the final panel here, as he enjoys this bird’s third weird holiday food ode? Does it represent “horny”? It has to, right? Very dark, in my opinion.

Gasoline Alley, 10/28/23

I hate to praise Rufus and Joel, but their proposal to capture this monstrous talking bear and display him to an amazed and horrified public for their own profit is frankly the most sensible one we’ve heard so far for dealing with this beast.

Six Chix, 10/28/23

Hey, wouldn’t it be interesting if pumpkins, like the ones you gut in order to make jack-o-lanterns, could experience fear, and sadness, and probably physical pain, too? Have a fun Halloween, everybody!