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Six Chix, 8/11/24

Honestly, to me, this didn’t seem like a very desperate measure at all! It seems like she just mentally recited a nursery rhyme and that allowed her to exercise superhuman power over the weather. Who knows, though, maybe she’s exhausted herself from the effort. Maybe she won’t be able to move out of her chair for hours. Maybe she won’t have the powers to deal with some truly catastrophic climactic event down the road and thousands will die because she wanted to read outside for an afternoon! Lots of world-building possibilities here.

Marvin, 8/11/24

“Ah, so you say the constant shit and piss jokes are wearing you down. Well, uh. What if a dog had fleas. What if you told a dog not to take its flea collar off, but it did anyway, and now it has fleas. That’s a joke, right. Like, structurally, you definitely would look at that and say ‘That’s a joke,’ right? Legally speaking, if anyone tries to not pay you because you’re being paid to write jokes, I mean.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/11/24

So Parker decided to not file charges against Randy after learning the latter had been brutally beaten by his own father. I guess we have a long and emotionally fraught but ultimately fascinating journey ahead of us as we explore the limits of forgiveness and restorative justice and learn whether the cycle of violence can ever be truly broken. Oh, wait, what’s that? You’re saying that Randy mysteriously left town and we’ll never have to deal with him again? Huh. Well, that’s a lot tidier, for sure! I guess all our problems are solved, once again!

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Dick Tracy, 8/10/24

It looks like Dick Tracy is finally getting back to the “How is B-tier villain Silver Nitrate doing in the joint?” plot they teased us with last year, and the answer is, uh, not good, I guess! You know, there’s lots of questions that I think would be fun to see Dick Tracy explore, like “How would cryptocurrency work in the heightened world of Dick Tracy,” but there are others that I don’t think would be fun at all and would actually be pretty depressing instead, like examining how someone who doesn’t seem like a hardened, violent criminal would do in the traumatizing hellscape of the U.S. prison system. Still, I have to admit that once I squinted enough to read all these scary prison whispers, “Dude, stop farting!” made me laugh.

Gasoline Alley, 8/10/24

“Wait, what? Comics readers like it when a beloved character starts hoarding small animal corpses? Gross, but these numbers don’t lie. I guess that’s our next storyline, if we want to stay relevant!” –the Gasoline Alley creative team, probably

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Apologies again for, in my COVID-addled haze, posting so many posts on the wrong days this week! Rest assured, however, that I followed the twisting timeline throughout the week and collected your comments, as appropriate. Here’s #1!

“The cable guy’s air of contentment is about more than just the opportunity to set down his tool box, put his feet up, and sit a spell. The naysayers and gloomcasters have been telling him for so many years that nobody keeps a live-in cable repairman anymore; this isn’t the glittering, prosperous 1980s, when enthusiasm for the exciting new medium of cable television was sky high and limitlessly coke-fueled. He’s fought to hold on to the era-appropriate wisdom of Flashdance and most other movies: when you give up your dream, you die.” –Violet

And here are the hilarious runners up!

“Lois strolls the Triangle d’Or en fleek in the hottest new Givenchy galoshes.” –Cleveland Mocks

“Wait, didn’t Lois put her magazine and glasses away and go to sleep? Hence the dreaming? Why is she suddenly awake and wearing glasses again in the … oh no. She’s being incepted! Wake up, Lois! None of this is real! Wake up before they make you deport yourself!” –jroggs

“I feel personally insulted by the fact that Marvin has seven panels that look completely identical, but upon close examination have clearly been completely redrawn for each one, with Megan looking slightly different even while being in the exact same pose (watch the mouth in particular). How do you create a strip that’s boring and repetitive to look at, yet still takes as much work as if you hadn’t resorted to talking heads? Own your laziness dammit!” –Morgan Wick

“I wanted to do a bit on internet searches that somehow reveal that a person is lazy and self-centered but I was too distracted by the way Megan is making eye contact with the reader. I know this is a problem for some child actors but I didn’t think child cartoons would stare at the camera.” –Victor Von

“What’s funny in this is that Dennis is delivering a pretty stock Mr Wilson punchline there. Which makes you wonder, is he destined to become his elderly neighbor in time, and get his own ‘brat noir’? [takes a drag of a cigarette] Time is a flat circle, man…” –pugfuggly

“Magical bagpipes that set the ears ablaze would explain how the king has managed to survive for as long as he has in a castle with walls so low that invaders could just lift each other over them.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“I’m not sure how one could visually depict a screeching noise, but a bunch of eighth notes flying around is not it.” –Flipper

“You know what? I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna say something nice about Bizarro, and that something is this: I want that art on the wall. Bigfoot job-hunting, whatever, that’s fine, I give it a C-, but upside-down hat-birdie is pretty great and I’d happily hang that in my office. Then again, if I did that, I’d be constantly thinking ‘That’s a piece of art I somehow sourced from Bizarro, of all things,’ and my life would be about 5% worse than it would be otherwise, so maybe it’s better this way. Godspeed, upside-down hat-birdie. I hope the [squints] lit stick of dynamite hanging next to you spares your upside-down life.” –els

“In the broader comics category of ‘children hear but don’t understand adult concepts’ and apply them in hilariously cute ways, Curtis has completely misunderstood the two’s compliment method for representing signed integers in digital computations.” –Hibbleton

“‘Window?’ ‘Sign?’ Do you think this idea is good to convince rational people to walk in? No, it’s too stupid! It’s for social media!” –Ettorre

“You all are making jokes, but this is the unfortunate reality for those among us who adopt the furry lifestyle.” –Tom T.

“Mr. Wilson has a Dennis-sized tumor. Menace level: Stage 4.” –taig

“Trixie will be among the first generation with early-onset ‘YouTube Face.’” –Philip

“Pluggers aren’t just romantically smiling at each other, they’re predatorial carnivores and showing their teeth is a sign of aggression.” –Rex Thrillho, on Twitter

“livedtotellaboutit.com points to an unconfigured Shopify site, which is significantly more menacing than whatever wisecrack Dennis used to break down his last three sitters. Commodify your trauma, sisters!” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“You’re a plugger if smiling hurts … because everything hurts. Life is a series of endless pain and suffering now as entropy is slowly killing you and it won’t stop until you die. Now, who’s ready for romance?” –OId Man Shadow

“Given that food is like sex for the Bumsteads, what we’re seeing in panel 3 is some kind of sick exhibitionism, and Herb’s wistful ‘You’ve got a gold medal wife’ takes on a whole new meaning. Do you think they ever swing together (i.e. eat meals cooked by each other’s wives)?” –Schroduck

“Olympic Logo Eggs! Or, as they call it at down at the diner, Five Eggs!” –RoofPig

“I love that Billy and Jeffy are just staring at the Olympics crowd scenes, presumably changing the channel when the camera stops panning the stands and focuses on the boring actual sports.” –Thelonious_Nick

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