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Dick Tracy, 4/20/22

One thing that’s been bothering me about this Dick Tracy storyline is the name of the character who dated the dead real Tonsils and is now dating the live fake one: “Dot View.” Is this … wordplay? Is it a pun? Is it referring to something? There was a gimmicky cell phone accessory by that name in 2015 but since the Dot View character was first introduced in 1952, I assume they’re unrelated. Her whole thing is that she hosts a local TV show, which I guess was enough of a novelty in 1952 that you could get a name out of it. “Get it? Dot View? And you view her? On the television, which you only bought 18 months ago? Makes you think, huh?”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/20/22

I certainly hope all these superhero images we’re seeing are flitting Rex’s mind as Buck describes these pathetic do-gooders to him. “Heh heh, some guy in a latex costume that’s doing him no favors shoving a sign that says ‘VOTE’ in my face, eh? I wasn’t going to vote anyway, but I’d tell that guy that he made me turn my back on my civic duties.”

Dennis the Menace, 4/20/22

An innocent child, unaware that the youthful vigor and energy he takes for granted will one day be washed away by a flood of grown-up responsibilities, leaving him in a state of perpetual near-exhaustion? Menace level high … and increasing.

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Mary Worth, 4/19/22

Oh ho ho, our man Ian has finally found out what’s troubling his young-ish bride and isn’t going to fly into one of his trademark rages at all! No, he’s had enough red wine to be positively mellow about this whole Cal situation, though it’s not entirely clear what kind of mellow he is: the kind where he’s ruefully amused by the hilarious predicament his dim wife has gotten herself into, or the kind where he’s hoping that his wife and her new boyfriend will be open to letting him discreetly watch.

Dick Tracy, 4/19/22

The current Dick Tracy storyline involves a guy named “Matt” who is pretending to be a dead Dick Tracy villain named Tonsils, and also dating the real Tonsils’s former girlfriend, who knows he’s not the real Tonsils but is still into it? It’s not as sick as a guy getting eaten by rats, but, real talk: it’s not not sick, either. Anyway, Dick is trying to tell Matt about how Tonsils came to a bad end and he needs to stay on the straight and narrow, but I’m sorry, are you painting a word-picture of a guy waving a bottle of GASO[LINE?] around while terrified people shove money at him and you expect us to not think he’s awesome? Please.

Dustin, 4/19/22

This joke depends on the structure of the comics delivering us instantly from panel two to panel three and it works more or less fine on that level, but I’m still trying to visualize how this would play out in real life. I don’t care how fast you work, it’d take at least 30 seconds to wolf down each of these two full-sized donuts, and I’d like to imagine Dustin’s dad’s discomfited coworker staring at him silently the whole time, waiting for him to blurt out this punchline along with a shower of crumbs.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/18/22

We talk a lot about Rex’s permanent state of misanthropy, but we don’t really talk about the damage his refusal to engage with his fellow human beings more than absolutely necessary does to his psyche. For instance, can you imagine seeing some truly surprising item on the evening news and the only person you can think of to reach out to about it is Buck? Who you know is going to go deep into comic book bullshit about it? Truly harrowing.

Crankshaft, 4/18/22

Wow, when Crankshaft’s marijuana grow operation causes a massive fire, I bet all those firefighters who have to come out for his grill explosions twelve times a summer are going to be thrilled to see him arrested.