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Crankshaft, 5/5/20

So yesterday’s Crankshaft featured our protagonist hitting his head on an airplane overheard compartment and making a bit of wordplay about it, and obviously it wasn’t nearly interesting enough to talk about it here. Today’s Crankshaft, however, involves Ed continuing to churn out sub-puns as a result of the same incident, and that has my attention. Can this strip keep up this pace all week? If anyone can make six distinct malaprops about an extremely minor irritation, Ed Crankshaft can!

Dick Tracy, 5/5/20

Wow, Dennis DeYoung seems very certain that any threat from Mr. Roboto is gone forever, doesn’t he? New theory of why he’s in this strip: Dick Tracy’s Neo-Chicago is, of course, a cryptofascist state in which brutal punishments are mandated for any and all crimes. For instance, if you violate someone’s intellectual property, the rights holder gets to kill you with their bare hands.

Funky Winkerbean, 5/5/20

It’s funny because America’s health care system, which tightly connects insurance coverage with one’s employer, does a poor job of accommodating gig workers and those in industries where continuous employment isn’t the norm, forcing people to make choices they wouldn’t under other systems! Ha … ha?

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Dick Tracy, 5/4/20

Fresh off from being traumatized by being kidnapped by her ex-cellmate and by being kidnapped by a weird bank robber/robot fetishist not long before that, Mysta is about to be traumatized by the unannounced appearance of Styx vocalist Dennis DeYoung! I am dying to know the backstory of his appearance here; I’m hoping it arose because that earlier storyline used Mr. Roboto imagery without permission and he demanded an in-strip appearance as compensation. Anyway, Mysta should not use her moon powers to harm this aging rocker, though she might want to keep the threat at the ready in case he starts nattering on about his legal battles with his ex-bandmates.

Mary Worth, 5/4/20

“Dawn … do you still feel like I do? That this whole thing was a mistake and you’d be better off with Hugo? I sure hope so!”

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Blondie, 5/3/20

Well, it’s not surprising that the Bumsteads’ suburb, where packs of semi-feral dogs roam the streets at night, has been a little laissez-faire in the public health front, but it looks like it’s finally under enforced social distancing rules. And much as I enjoy Mr. Dithers’s trademark dollar-sign PJs, I really respect Cora’s decision to maintain some shred of civilization and put on her pearls for a day — week? month? — when she’s definitely not going anywhere.

Daddy Daze, 5/3/20

Years ago, my wife and brother-in-law and I were discussing the possibility of training monkeys to work in retail establishments, and I said one of the downsides would be the pooping, for which diapers would be only a temporary solution, and he replied with a sentence that has been burned into my brain ever since: “Once we teach a monkey how to change another monkey’s diapers, it’ll be all monkeys up in here.” In truth, isn’t that the story of the human race? Aren’t we the monkeys who have learned to change each other’s diapers? What I’m trying to say is these children will soon eliminate the last thing they need the Daddy Daze Daddy for, which will blessedly remove any justification for his continued presence in their lives.