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Shoe, 5/3/19

Here’s a question that I genuinely don’t know the answer to, and I ask with no particular malice: do you think Shoe strips like this, which consist entirely of two characters in a well-established Shoe locale talking to each other in vaguely joke-like ways, are drawn to order? Or are there like tons of templates on file where an intern at the Brookins-MacNelly Foundation For Laffs can match up the number of word balloons with the joke assigned for the day and just let ‘er rip? This is, again, not meant to be a criticism of the latter strategy — it’s the only logical and efficient way to approach it, after all. But I’m asking because in today’s trip, there seems to be even less of a connection between the joke and the visuals than usual. In panel two in particular, Roz and her customer are narrowing their eyes and leaning towards each other, almost as if they’re about to launch into a physical fight, which would definitely be more interesting than a “death and taxes” gag.

Dick Tracy, 5/3/19

Anyone who’s ever read a single entry on this blog knows that I can very easily achieve a state of “Oh no, I thought too much about this thing that hate and now I accidentally love it,” and this insanely wordy Minit Mystery is now one of those things. I still refuse to attempt to “solve” the mystery or even get a firm grasp of what the hell is happening, but am I going to lie back and enjoy the sensation of letting this tsunami of backstory wash over me. This plot has it all! Authors Pat Culhane and Austin Black! Suburban slashers! Farm gals who are racist against Italians but marry Italians anyway! Can’t wait to sort of understand whatever happens next!

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Six Chix, 5/2/19

Hey guys, remember the Smurfs? I do! Sort of! In the sense that I know I watched the show obsessively as a kid and was super into it but honestly couldn’t really recount the plot of a single episode, but I do distinctly remember that Gargamel, the show’s primary antagonist, wants to eat the Smurfs, which I found fairly shocking as a child but honestly Gargamel was a pretty incompetent villain so he never got particularly close to achieving this goal. But these random children sure have, as part of their campfire fun! I’m not sure if that smurf in the s’murf the orange-shirted lad is proudly holding is already dead and nobody’s had the decency to close his eyes, or if he’s alive and trapped between the graham crackers, his screams muffled by the marshmallow goo holding him in place. And what about the guy just sitting there at the lower right, looking stunned? Is he drugged? Is he too frozen in terror to flee? Did he betray his friend, thinking, incorrectly, that the children would let him live? This is without question the most horrifying thing Six Chix has ever presented us with, and this is a strip that once did a joke about having sex with bigfoot.

Mary Worth, 5/2/19

Oh my goodness, “Arthur” has a dog! This changes everything. Maybe Arthur isn’t a bad man, he just needed money for his dog’s expensive operation! That fancy hotel he was staying at was just the equivalent of a Ronald McDonald House for people who need to come in from out of town to go to a high-end vet!

OK, fine, we all know this isn’t true and that Arthur is a bad man, and the way we know is by his dog’s expression of profound ennui. He’s heard all this before, man, and too many times. Sure, it pays for the kibble, but at what spiritual cost?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/2/19

I was going to make a joke along the lines of “Ha ha, Snuffy’s being left alone in his cell to starve to death!” but honestly, look at how rickety that jail is. The door Sheriff Tait is walking out of isn’t even on a hinge! He’s just kind of moving it out of the way! I’m reasonably sure Snuffy will be out chicken thievin’ again before you know it.

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Funky Winkerbean, 5/1/19

Hey, remember last year in Crankshaft when a poor little girl was buying a book on “layaway,” a few pennies at a time, from Lilian’s unlicensed bookstore, so Crankshaft bought it for her, but she turned out to be a little grifter running a scam? I guess “people will respond to basic acts of human decency by attempting to profit off your kindness” is a Funkyverse thing now, which has a different kind of depressing valence than “the universe will snuff out your happiness with arbitrary tragedy.” Not sure where the obvious anger simmering under today’s strip is coming from, unless it’s based on the belief that there’s some kind of lucrative secondary market for signed Funky Winkerbean art, which I can assure you there is not.

Dick Tracy, 5/1/19

Ugh, the whole point of Minit Mysteries is that there supposed to be quick and simple and not … full of just endless text about small town administrative terminology and the minutia of the local criminal syndicate’s org chart. I’m not going to read this, you hear me? I’m not. I’m getting older, I only have a limited amount of brain space anymore, and I need to focus it on what brings me joy.

Gil Thorp, 5/1/19

See, I accidentally learned that the town in Dick Tracy has a “president” instead of a mayor and it made me forget the name of the the reporter who isn’t adversarial towards the Thorps and all they stand for. I want to say it’s … Marcie? Is that right? Anyway, I mostly am here to point out that Marty Moon would never let Coach Mrs. Coach Thorp go off the record to say “Yeah, I’m definitely surprised this team isn’t doing as badly as I 100% expected them to do.” Of course, she also went off the record to say “There’s a swagger and spirit to this team that’s infectious,” which is like a perfect coach sound bite, so really Mimi’s whole media relations strategy is pretty muddled.

The Phantom, 5/1/19

The Phantom is not exactly known for its verisimilitude, but I do absolutely believe that the shadowy guerilla warriors guarding terrorist compounds deep in the African desert spend more time than you’d think dicking around on their phones.