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Dick Tracy, 8/5/18

Today’s Dick Tracy is brought to you by the tourism board of Minot, North Dakota: the Magic City! Sadly, this nickname is not a testament to its rich heritage of sleight-of-hand artistry, but rather is a reference to the fact that it sprung up almost overnight in the 1880s, as if someone had waved a wand and intoned “Abracadabra!” The real reason was not because of any dark sorcery, of course, but because it was at one point the last stop on the Great Northern Railway as that line was being built across the U.S. The town’s railroading history makes it an appropriate location for this adventure, since Sawtooth escaped from his botched attempt to kill Dick Tracy by hopping on a freight train. According to Wikipedia, another nickname for Minot is “Little Chicago,” which makes sense as well because it’s where Dick Tracy, a lawless cop from Regular Sized Chicago, is going to gun down Sawtooth while he’s “attempting to escape,” Chicago-style.

Pluggers, 8/5/18

The obvious thing to point and laugh at here is of course “pluggers wouldn’t be caught dead spending time in some foreign country where the people probably don’t even speak English,” but let’s not sleep on the fact that our plugger couple is making their vacation plans based on whatever happened to show up unsolicited in their mailbox this morning. You can have your fancy digital marketing campaign with your carefully cultivated Instagram influencers; the way to a plugger’s heart, and wallet, remains direct mail.

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Mark Trail, 8/4/18

Sorry I haven’t talked about Mark Trail for, like, three weeks, but the whole time has just been Mark and Doctor Carter doing lots of dumb in-jokes about Indiana Jones and Trilogy of Terror, which, snooooooze. That’s the “security system” they’re talking about, the dumb fake idol from the Trilogy of Terror movie. Anyway, the children have been separated from the adults now, which, uh, never presages bad things, not at all, but at least for the moment let’s enjoy these adorable tiny deer? things? I very much want a Sunday strip teaching me all the fun facts about these guys!

Mary Worth, 8/4/18

Oh, good, Tommy just “realized” that he totally fixed his various addictions by thinking of them as sins rather than psychological or medical problems! Everything’s going to go completely smoothly from now on!

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Guys, tonight is the second of two Internet Read Alouds in consecutive weeks, and, uh, I’m impressed by people who run actually weekly shows because turns out it’s hard! We’ll be back to our usual once-a-month schedule after this, but please reward my hard work and dedication by coming to The Internt Read Aloud: THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER at 8 pm, if you are in or near Los Angeles. I promise we’re all funny!

Is there a Facebook event? You better believe it!

And now: your COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“Kudos to the Rex Morgan colorists who can tell that guy and his weird kid apart well enough to give them different colored shirts. That’s more than I could handle.” –Roto13

And your very funny runners up!

“That guy we were chasing had no advance warning of the object which knocked him unconscious! If he wasn’t Spider-Man before, he is now! If he was Spider-Man before, he’s … Double Spider-Man?” –A Concerned Reader

“Can someone remind me how the hell did Buck manage to become a permanent character in this strip? I thought the whole premise of Rex Morgan was ‘rich, good-looking people without emotions doing what the want’, so why are we watching a family of bespectacled woodchucks plan a vacation for some point in the future when they might have saved up the money? We should be watching Rex buy a yacht with his pocket change on a whim, only to set it adrift in a week when he gets bored.” –pugfuggly

“I feel a more important question is exactly what did Gil use to make that ‘lemonade’? It can’t be water, the ice cubes have sunk to the bottom. 100% ethyl alcohol has a low enough density to let ice sink, so maybe he’s mixed himself a nice cocktail of Everclear, a hint of urine for color, and some ice.” –Dmsilev

“‘Did you pack any jorts, Corey?’ ‘Nine pairs, Dad.’ ‘Hmmm. That may be cutting it close, but it’ll have to do. TO THE AIRPORT!’” –Joe Blevins

“‘Don’t bother me with details.’ If ever there was a phrase that summarized Gil Thorp, this is it.” –TheDiva

“I think, based solely on my own prejudices, that Tommy was RAISED Catholic, lapsed into meth dealing, found the Evangelical Church of The Tiny Bible in prison, was saved from that cult when he got out and no longer had to swear fealty to Tiny to keep his teeth intact, and is now heading back to confession for the first time in a LONG time indeed. I hope that priest has all day.” –Sally

“It’s unsurprising that Marvin’s art would consist of brown excretions. I bet the crayon is scented.” –nescio

“I prefer to think that Jeffy is crying, knowing that he’s gone too far this time but — at the same time — admitting that he’s too far gone to really care. He’s hitting the bottle hard, damnit, and none of ‘Mommy’s Rules’ about appropriate syrup consumption matter any more.” –Richard

“We must first see if she wants him to disappear … we have a possible path to score Hamilton tickets, so let’s not screw this up.” –Foodar

“Meanwhile, at Timex, Inc., the Junior Vice President for Innovative Marketing is being escorted out of the building by security.” –Voshkod

“Hootin’ Holler Care Center: Come for the leeches, stay because of the secondary infections caused by 17th century hygiene practices.” –Dread

“I was going to joke ‘Leroy watches hentai lol’, but just look how traumatized he is. He’s living through an episode of monstrous bodily horror as his eyes burst out of the confines of their sockets, and even now at the worst moment of his life — one worse than any nightmare Leroy’s mind could ever have dreamed up — his wife turns away and mocks him. He knows there’s nothing he can do to stop the forcible reshaping of his skull by powers unknown, but even in his resignation, he still clearly feels a gnawing sorrow for the man he once was and fear at the monster he is becoming. Also, Leroy watches hentai lol” –Schroduck

“Kid, you’ll have to settle for a mango or something. We’re hundreds of miles from pawpaw territory, and they don’t ship well.” –Peanut Gallery

“I don’t think it’s ever been addressed but are the characters in Shoe normal bird size with adorably tiny furniture or are they human sized but the trees are absolutely gigantic? These are questions that keep me awake at night.” –Escape Zeppelin

“When Rex gets horny, his chin gets bigger.” –Ignatz

“Hey, way to suspiciously name-drop Doris the violent ex on the way to the wedding, Rex Morgan team! Seeing as how (1) there are way too many characters and storylines no one cares about in this strip, (2) all of said boring characters are going to Vegas, and (3) Rex hasn’t used his medical superpowers in a while, my hope that this strip can be saved through cast reduction via Game of Thrones-style wedding violence as provided by Doris is now in play! Rex can use his doctor skills to heroically save one of the characters. I’m thinking June.” –Drew Funk

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