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Dick Tracy, 12/15/18

Oh, hey, we’re back to the plot about Vitamin Flintheart and his heavily pregnant bride-to-be. In today’s installment, a stagehand at the play Vitamin is in (where he’s playing himself, natch, this is a strip that never misses a chance to collapse into meta-narrative in an attempt to impress you with how famous its characters are), makes a crass advance on Kandikane, leading Vitamin to loom over him with implied violence. In case you were tired of the extremely not sexy storyline about faxing and invoices, he’s a storyline that’s extremely not sexy but in, like, an entirely different way.

Gil Thorp, 12/15/18

Oh wow, I know panel one is supposed be a “cinematic,” foreshortened look down on our mysterious billboard renter, but it … doesn’t really work well, at all. He looks like a gibbon. A gibbon in glasses. It’s bad, man. Somebody should’ve stopped this.

Also, since the question is “Is Mediocre Good Enough,” to really knock ’em over with the answer, the answer has to be “yes!” Which will allow Gil and this year’s wacky crew of basketball players (seen in panel two engaging in extremely inscrutable antics) to muddle through yet another .550 season unmolested.

Six Chix, 12/15/18

The point of a strip like this is to contrast the wholesome book-acquisition in panel two with what we initially assumed to be her much darker quest, but I’m not really buying it. C’mon lady, you gotta sell it. What are you willing to do to get what you need? Are you willing to kill?

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It is time …. for the comment … of the week!

“What I like about today’s Crankshaft is that the words have the form of light-hearted banter, but the utterly rage-filled facial expressions give the promise of these two assholes beating each other to death.” –matt w

It’s also time for your hilarious runners up!

“We’re about 30 seconds away from that owl snatching up Max Mouse, 24 hours away from the owl coughing up a pellet that includes a hat, scarf, and shorts.” –nescio

“Why does Slylock Fox believe that Harry is hiding nearby? Because he is … because he can see him … because he’s about twelve feet away, plainly visible, and presumably also still unfrozen. Though, I gotta say, his color ain’t looking good. Perhaps the sleuth actually suspects that Harry is dying nearby, and figures sandbagging long enough will make apprehending him a heck of a lot easier.” –Anonymous

“It seems weird to give up a loving daily companion for a man you only see twice a year and who can presumably prescribe himself a long series of unpleasant allergy shots to perhaps adapt himself to the changes you’ve made in your lifestyle that he wasn’t even aware of because phone calls are for suckers.” –Naked Bunny with a Whip

“This exciting plotline will be of an early onset glaucoma patient fighting the scholastic athletic association’s marijuana ban. Or ugly billboards upset Gil’s players. Either way I’m sure it will be forgettable.” –Zerowolf

“I never thought I’d ask this, but here goes. Hey, I wonder what Les is up to these days?” –Joe Blevins

“Actually the fact that energy-efficient light bulb technology has progressed to the point where just 25 watts is enough to light a tunnel is one of the few signs that things can get better. Can’t wait for Sam & Silo to discover techno-utopianism.” –Schroduck

“I was just doing my job. My incredibly important and difficult job, bringing health to the afflicted, bringing hope to the sorrowful, bringing light into darkness, wresting the dying from the icy cold grasp of Death himself, and saving your son’s life. But go ahead, give all the credit to Jordan. The guy who referred you to me so I could do my job. My job of saving your son’s life, of bitch-slapping the Reaper. But Jordan’s important, too.” –Voshkod

“Wrong question, Dennis. The right question is ‘what planet?’ See, George here is what we call a ‘replicant,’ and well, he’s seen things you could not imagine.” –Dmsilev

“By the way, I couldn’t help but notice the alarming rate at which you’re losing your hair. That’s why I use a lacquer so protective that thousands of years from now, when archaeologists dig up my tomb, they’ll still be able to see my intact, ultra-high-gloss hair helmet!” –JJ48

“A plugger’s bucket list is a list of companies that still produce reliable, all-American buckets for real men, not hipster Chinese buckets.” –Ettorre

“If I were a dog, there’s no way I would take shit from a chicken. A bear, sure, but a chicken? No way.” –Mysterious Shirtless Lawyer

“I’ve come up with an analogy that’s sure to convince my wife she shouldn’t mind me cheating on my diet! This brilliant plan can’t fail!” –Peanut Gallery

“It’s just as well that Peter’s not going to make his flight, since the irony of him dying from the bite of one of Australia’s wide variety of venomous spiders would probably be lost on him.” –BigTed

“So … a kid’s toy would stop an armored truck?” –Col. Havoc

“I’ll give Dustin this — most comic strips would be content to end on the wife’s Ashely Madison quip, applaud themselves for being relevant, and call it a day. But whoever does this strip decided to throw in another panel just so people who haven’t heard of Ashley Madison can still enjoy the Sara Lee reference. Then we end on something everyone can enjoy — a wife in a bathrobe looking bitchy and opposed to fun. It’s a classic 1-2-3 punch, kids! Watch and learn!” –Jenna

“Actually, I thought that was the town motto. The next billboard says ‘Welcome to Milford.’” –But What Do I Know?

“Didn’t Foucault have this in his office when he wrote Discipline and Punish?” –Little Blue Bicycle

“Sure, Glenwood Medical Center is clean and has a decent lobby with an acceptable if bland decor, but the lobby is full of sick and crying people. It’s really annoying to be trying to type a Yelp review and have a couple sobbing and screaming about their ‘baby’. Also it takes forever for them to do a simple kidney transplant. The video on YouTube was only 30 minutes long, but it took Dr. Morgan and his team hours before they were finished and could tell us the results. Would not recommend. 2 stars.” –Dread

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Gil Thorp, 12/14/18

Yesssss, some mysterious character is in fact taunting the Milford athletic department via billboards, just like those guys in Buffalo, or, less relevantly but I suppose more at the top of the collective cultural consciousness, Frances McDormand’s character in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Given the outsized importance high school athletics holds in the Greater Milford Micropolitan Area, it’s wholly appropriate that our antagonist here beholds his work like a cackling supervillain unveiling his doomsday device.

Family Circus, 12/14/18

Jeffy thought that once he had killed Santa, the shackles of “nice” and “naughty” that had defined his life were broken forever. But there was one thing he hadn’t reckoned with: Santa’s ghost.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/14/18

The Minutes Will Feel Like Hours™: That’s the Rex Morgan, M.D.,® promise!