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Dick Tracy, 11/28/17

Dick Tracy is starting a new storyline this week, as usual bringing back beloved grotesqueries from the strip’s long history, and, you know, can you imagine how awkward it must be to have to make small talk in Mr. Bribery’s waiting room. “Sooooooooooo … your mom was called ‘Ugly Christine,’ huh? I guess there’s no real chance that was, like, ironic or anything, huh? Ha ha, obviously not. I mean, I’m the only black character in this strip and my name is ‘Lee Ebony.’”

Shoe, 11/28/17

Parallel evolution is an amazing process! It’s how animals as distantly related as the shark and the dolphin have come to look so much alike, and why the civilization of sapient birds in Shoe functions so much like our own. They have clothes, and corrective lenses, and even corporate media mouthpieces that cover for the crimes of the capital-holding class!

Family Circus, 11/28/17

Billy is definitely going to jail, right?

Mark Trail, 11/28/17

The sheriff is definitely going to feed all these people to the bear, right?

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Family Circus, 11/27/17

It’s hard for me to really conceptualize how old and how far along on the path to adulthood the Keane Kids are supposed to be, partly because they have to be a little unrealistically precocious to do all the darndest-things-saying, partly because they’ve been around for longer than I’ve been alive — and also, let’s be real, partly because I’m not a parent and have a hard time keeping track of how kids at particular ages are supposed to act or look like! Like, I have a friend who has a six-month-old baby and she was talking with another mom about how much her son weighed and the other mom was like “Oooh, wow” so I knew it was unusual but in which direction??? Turns out he’s a big old baby, but the point is, sometimes I forget that Jeffy is, I guess, a toddler. Right? Like, he’s too young to school but he’s old enough to walk around and talk? Is that a toddler? I assume that there’s a stage you go through in toddlerhood where your sense of self really gels and asserting your identity becomes very important, which is why Jeffy is furious at being called Mo and also is wearing a shirt with his name on it, which he can’t read but probably he’s been assured it says “Jeffy.” Either that or Jeffy knows full well that the “Mo’s” are abandoned at the bus station, and the t-shirt is there to tell whoever collects him what his name is. Why aren’t any of the other kids wearing name t-shirts? Because Mommy knows where to start “eeny”-ing in order to “mo” on Jeffy. She’s not dumb. Not like Jeffy.

Hagar the Horrible, 11/27/17

The Alps were one of the few parts of Europe that were unscathed by Norse raids, and the League of the Three Forest Cantons that would eventually become the nucleus of the Swiss Confederacy wasn’t established until 1291, long after the Viking Age had ended. Still, shoutout to the artist here for accurately setting the scene with a Swiss flag fluttering above the parapets, with newspaper readers being free to imagine it in its accurate white-cross-on-red coloring. And further shoutout to the syndicate colorist, who instead created a green cross on a white background, which in California at least is universally recognized as the symbol of a medical marijuana dispensary. It explains a lot about the way comics get colored, anyway.

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Mary Worth, 11/26/17

This is typical wrap-up Sunday Mary Worth with no plot forward motion, but I have to admit to being intrigued by the quote-of-the-week, putting a phrase that probably millions of humans have uttered into the mouth of former British Prime Minister John Major, who probably said it at some point. Does this presage future plot points? Will Wilbur return to Santa Royale and discover that Mary Worth, the “Iron Lady of Charterstone,” is becoming less and less popular, and manage to maneuver things so that he becomes condo association head (surprise!) despite having publicly backed Mary throughout the whole process?

Gasoline Alley, 11/26/17

I think there’s a lot to say about how Thanksgiving, which once represented an occasion to thank God for bountiful harvests in an era when nationwide food scarcity was an ever-present threat, slowly became an orgiastic, gluttonous rite as we moved into a less religious age of mechanized agriculture and endless food surpluses, and that shift is reflected in our iconography of the holiday. But until I get around to writing it, just enjoy today’s grotesque celebration of the season, in which armed turkeys intend to murder Slim and feast on his flesh and organs.

Dennis the Menace, 11/26/17

Sure, this is a trip about how much Dennis can’t wait to drink and party like a grown-up, but definitely the most menacing part is how the boldface in the final panel indicates that Henry is 100% stage whispering, clearly intending to let Dennis know that in his opinion the birth of a child is the death of fun.