Comment of the Week

My little friend is not so little anymore, Toby! In fact, she's quite large! Enormous, in fact! Nine foot six and getting taller by the day! It's actually quite alarming! We're getting into I'm a Virgo territory here! Did you watch that miniseries, by the way? It was on Amazon Prime a couple of years ago! Jharrel Jerome is a treasure! Some great performances by Elijah Wood and Walton Goggins as well, which reminds me that I need to start my Justified rewatch. Oh, Margo Martindale is another treasure, especially as a voice in BoJack Horseman. Anyway, Olive is a giant, is the point I'm trying to make.

els

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Dick Tracy, 2/1/19

Obviously Dick Tracy’s rogues gallery skews more towards “seedy underworld” than “powerful supervillains,” but this current plot, involving Splitface, who used to be Haf and Haf, is testing the limits of reader interest in seediness. A couple of hobos in an abandoned factory, arguing over who did more work in ordering a pizza? “I scraped up the money … I called the pizza delivery. Made the arrangements!” bellows Splitface, as if there are any more “arrangements” involved in ordering pizza than scraping up the money and calling in your order. This guy will definitely be a challenging opponent for Dick Tracy, whose only defense consists of dozens of cops, space-age gadgets, lots of guns, and a judiciary system that’s pretty cool about him killing suspects.

Gasoline Alley, 2/1/19

Desperate to keep up with the times and relate to the kids today, Gasoline Alley today reveals that Rufus and Joel’s omnipresent jugs are no longer filled with moonshine, but rather with moonshine’s modern equivalent, purple drank.

Mary Worth, 2/1/19

Is that the slightest hint of a smile Ian’s showing us in panel two? While being complimented by his students (or, really, anyone) is flustering and confusing for him, the position he finds himself in today — being cruelly berated for no good reason — is his comfort zone.

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Crankshaft, 1/31/19

Ha ha, this very serious story about Ralph’s life-threatening cardiovascular condition sure is giving Crankshaft a lot of chances to think about Ralph pissing and shitting!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/31/19

I have to say I’m almost in awe of this strip, which is clearly the result of a thought process like, “‘Conscratchulations’? Is that anything? What do these hillbillies congratulate each other over? Checkers, I guess? Done.” Like, you could imagine a setup where Lukey is pleased he’s finally dispatched a hard-to-reach itch, but nope, that would detract from the pure, unadulterated, who-gives-a-shit that today’s strip exudes.

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The Phantom, 1/30/19

As an 83-year-old adventure comic set mostly in Africa, The Phantom has some, let’s say, confusing baggage in its world-building that gets papered over to varying degrees. Like, The Nomad, a longstanding Phantom nemesis and antagonist in the current storyline is a sinister terrorist whose real name is “Eric Sahara” and who looks like Mitt Romney, which is of course absurd, but they’ve tried to sort of make him more realistic by situating him in [squints at where Walker’s finger is pointing] North Africa; they also gave him a daughter named Kadia (not an Arabic name) and a wife named Imara (an Arabic name, but for men), and also … an Uncle Dave? Which is the funniest thing in the newspaper comics today by a mile. Dave Sahara, the terrorist’s uncle! Not a terrorist himself, but he knows a thing or two, that Dave.

Gil Thorp, 1/30/19

I don’t know if there’s a hard syndicate rule that prevents any teens in Gil Thorp from actually doing anything illegal or if the sacred responsibility to keep the strip pure is more of an unwritten thing, but it is funny to me how the teen antics mimic the sort of things that get actual teens in trouble, but don’t actually involve crimes. Like the time a sexting panic got triggered by a girl getting her picture taken wearing an extremely non-revealing cardboard bikini. Or, I guess, like the time that B/Robby Howry was dealing adderall, but it wasn’t actually adderall. Anyhoo, enjoy this posse of Milford teens almost but not quite getting involved in serious vandalism!