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Spider-Man, 7/15/18

I have, of course, persistently refused to go out of my way to learn any of the lore behind the various superheroes who dominate our pop culture and the international economy today, which is just as well because with all the reboots and so forth the characters’ pasts are ever-changing anyway, but my understanding is that Peter Parker got into the stringer newspaper photography game not because of any burning desire to be a journalist but because he knew the Bugle’s management was obsessed with running pictures of Spider-Man and he was uniquely positioned to sell them said pictures and so it was a way for him to make money without doing too much extra work. The desire to not do too much extra work is of course one of Newspaper Spider-Man’s defining characteristics, so it really fits in well in this iteration of the Spidey multiverse; being a stringer photographer for a daily paper also pays very, very little, which fits in nicely with Newspaper Spider-Man’s overall stupidity as well. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not really buying Peter’s moral dilemma here! The idea that Peter has gotten a taste of journalistic fame and now he wants more is only marginally more believable than the idea that he cares about the Iron Fist’s privacy or whatever! I reiterate an idea I put forth over a decade ago: Peter should just use his spider-powers to take pictures of celebrities and sell them to TMZ or the like. The moral stakes are lower all around, and presumably the gig will be so lucrative that he’ll eventually stop fighting crime altogether.

Gasoline Alley, 7/15/18

I don’t know that I would start my Sunday comic with a warning to the reader that, though they may think they’re safe from baffling and enraging faux-rustic wordplay, the next few panels are about to prove them very, very very wrong. But I’m not the guy currently in charge of the century-old Gasoline Alley intellectual property, I guess!

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Spider-Man, 7/14/18

Yesterday’s Newspaper Spider-Man provided the kind of pulse-pounding drama we’ve come to expect from Newspaper Spider-Man, which is to say that it featured Peter Parker, whose powers are beyond those of ordinary human beings, dozing off on the couch. But it wasn’t just a one-off gag! No, it was to set up today’s strip, in which Robbie calls Peter with a hot tip about the Iron Fist. Isn’t it more dramatic that the phone call through which this hot tip was conveyed woke Peter up??? I mean, marginally, I guess. There are other ways it could’ve been done, though. Maybe Robbie could’ve spun around dramatically in his chair right before he said “Iron Fist”? Just spitballin’ here.

Mary Worth, 7/14/18

Ah, yes, the seemingly unstoppable Tommy-Brandy Romance Express is hitting its first hairpin turn: Brandy is emotionally scarred by a bad dad whose problems sound a litte too much like Tommy’s until-really-quite-recently-active problems! And, as he’s a true acolyte of Mary Worth, Tommy is deploying her patented techniques for dealing with a painful past, and is just urging Brandy to just not remember anything bad her dad did, so, problem solved! Now all he has to do is will her with his mind into never asking anything about his own past, so that she’ll be satisfied with the idea of him as someone who spontaneously appeared as an adult in the supermarket where they work together, and everything should be smooth sailing!

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Hey all! I was away from Comment Compiling duties for much of this past week, but I still got a few days’ worth of COTW for ya! Let’s start with this great top one:

“Just what every teenage girl enjoys, to have her pores displayed on a 65-inch screen in ultra-HD! This is exactly the kind of insecurity-boosting situation that’s turned underage makeup mogul Kylie Jenner into a billionaire.” –BigTed

Followed by these hilarious runners up!

“You better learn what it is, because we’re one of five nominees, and when we lose, I want you to feel appropriately dejected and hurt! …But please don’t turn your pain into another installment of the series.” –Hogenmogen

“‘Oh geez,’ thinks Tommy, as he notices that his ginger ale has turned red. All those years of skipped dental visits while zonked on vicodin have not done great things for his gums. (Today’s strip is sponsored by the American Periodontal Association. Remember to brush and floss daily so you don’t end up like Tommy!)” –GeoGreg

“I’m trying to decide if Gil means ‘Kevin Pelwecki will always be relevant’ or ‘Kevin Pelwecki will live forever in despair at his lack of relevance.’ Gil’s a huge asshole, so probably the latter. ‘What about Kevin Pelwecki?’ ‘What about him?’” –jroggs

“I love how the art and the text don’t seem to match up at all here. Clearly they’re supposed to be saying something like ‘Thanks for dinner!’ ‘Have a good night!’ but the writer is like ‘NO I STILL HAVE FACTS ABOUT OBSCURE COMICS AND MORE TERRIBLE INACCURATE WEATHER JOKES!’” –pugfuggly

“Some archeologists are just too damn obsessive — but not famed archeologist Howard Carter! Of course, the real story is that his Carnarvon funding ran dry a long time ago and he’s been coasting on his reputation ever since — otherwise why would the earl have had to rent the house to the Downton Abbey producers? — but his eager postdoc assistant Becky got herself a MacArthur grant. Follow the bitter academic rivalry as it unfolds, in the breathless reporting of Woods and Wildlife Magazine!” –fausto

“Ah, I see Becky found another of these hideous masks at the dig. Suddenly, I know what to call this culture. Please say hello to the Rusty Civilization.” –Voshkod

“One of the most recognizable landmarks in mid-Michigan is a Dixie Baptist Church billboard next to I-75 between Clarkston and Holly. It depicts Jesus with the legend, ‘Are you on the right road?’ I thought of that billboard as soon as I saw panel two of this comic, in which the sad-eyed auto mechanic faces the reader and asks that eternal question, ‘Will a midsized SUV get you where you’re going?’” –Joe Blevins

“Pluggers keep food long after its expiration date because they’re dogs. It doesn’t even get most of its flavor until after it’s spoiled and been scraped off the sidewalk.” –seismic-2

“It looks like somebody was trying to kill mom with poisoned juice but accidentally murdered their own children in a terrible ironic twist. #justpluggerthings” –Escape Zeppelin

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