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Dick Tracy, 6/16/22

Oh, right, I guess I never mentioned that the owl guy had, pre-owl-stuff, been seen using hypnosis (?) to convince people to hand over money they were taking out of ATMs, and is also a classic member of Dick’s rogues gallery named “Mr. Memory.” ATM-hypnosis is in the same bank-robbing ballpark as the stuff our heroes are investigating, but I appreciate Sam pointing out that it’s not the same thing as draining bank accounts via computer hacking, at all. I suppose he could’ve just used his hypnosis powers to convince a bank employee to do the bank account draining for him. Dick, however, is very set on this computer business being at the center of things, to the extent that he’s defensively claiming that Mr. Memory needs computers to “plan” his crimes, but while the flashback scene in panel two today is completely wild on a number of levels, at its heart it’s fairly standard tying-people-up-and-holding-cops at gunpoint stuff that doesn’t need, like, an advanced AI to pull off. Maybe Mr. Memory and his gang had a shared Google Doc that they used for brainstorming ambassador-kidnapping ideas, I dunno.

Dennis the Menace, 6/16/22

The thing about this panel is that what Dennis is saying is nonsense. What’s menacing is his attitude. Just standing six inches behind his dad while his father tries to do a little fixy stuff for once, casually sipping his soda from a straw, letting loose with some pointless advice. “You’re a dipshit, dad” is just kind of his whole vibe, you know?

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Gil Thorp, 6/15/22

“Look, I’m only asking this because one of my dumb students put me up to it, but: were you guys in the mob or what? It’s ok, you can tell me. I’m not in the mob. I asked to join, but they said no. I didn’t want to do crimes or anything, they just seemed like cool guys to hang out with, from all the movies and everything.”

Mary Worth, 6/15/22

Folks, you know — you know — that I am Mary Worth lifer at this point. Even before the day I first brought the phrase “Wilbur makes an overture” to the world’s attention (the overture, FYI, was to Iris, a romance storyline that began in the year of our lord 2004), I was all in, and remain entirely tangled with this strip on a personal, emotional, and frankly professional level. But the thing is, when they know you need them, they can go to some pretty out-there places, because they know you have no choice to go there with them. Like “Dawn’s boyfriend is going to dump her for a domestic violence victim he met while he was one of her caregivers at the hospital, because they both named their cats after Star Wars characters, also Dawn is out clubbing with random dudes but he doesn’t know and that doesn’t figure into his calculus.” Pretty grim stuff, man! But I’ve got no other options now. I’ve gotta ride this one as far down as it goes.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/15/22

“Oh, and I also did a bunch of extremely illegal things that they’re gonna put me in prison for. That’s gonna put a crimp in my whole crime-fighting career as well, I guess.”

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Blondie, 6/14/22

The first panel of today’s strip sent me into an emotional state that, if you’re a frequent reader of this blog, you know I experience far too often: indignation that a comic character’s whole longstanding deal is being ignored for the sake of a joke! OK, sure, Blondie started her catering business in 1991, which was a full 61 years after this strip was started, but it was also 31 years ago, so I think it counts as pretty well-established, and the lore is that Blondie and Tootsie run a full-on catering business, not a “sandwich shop.” But by the time I got to the end of this strip, I realized what was happening: this guy is one of Dagwood’s buddies from the online forums for real sandwich sickos hosted on the dark web. Anonymity on those sites is the rule of the day so that people can post their innermost desires without fear, but Dagwood managed to dox this guy and told Blondie just to say “the s word,” as the sandwich community puts, and she’d get a loan in no time. And people say Dagwood’s lazy! He’d do anything for his wife, even betray the most sacred trust among sandwichlads.

Dennis the Menace, 6/14/22

Dennis at age 6 realizing that sating one’s appetites to excess can rob those appetites of their pleasure, yet pressing on with mindless consumption nonetheless: reaching a new threshold of personal self-menacing. Or he’s just disgusting and covered with bits of food, one or the other.

Dick Tracy, 6/14/22

Look, Dick Tracy, none of us are interested in playing “the long game” with you and filing these little clues away for payoffs months or years in the future, OK? We want one thing out of you, and it’s murders, murders, murders.