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Mary Worth, 8/26/18

Man, maybe I’m a bad person for seeing a sincere, chipper, bright-eyed recovering substance abuser telling his lovely girlfriend on the beach “And I don’t hate myself anymore!” and enjoying my most honest laugh in weeks. But if you’ve read this blog all these years and not known what kind of person I am, well, that’s on you, I guess. Anyway, long story short, there’s no word in the English language to describe how extremely healthy and durable this relationship is going to be!

Mark Trail, 8/26/18

Hey, kids, do you think that plants are boring? Tell that to fuckin’ hogsbane, a 14-foot-tall invader that, if you try to kill it, will blind you by spraying you with its poison blood. No wonder Mark doesn’t even crack a half-smile in today’s strip! We must kill all plants, everywhere, until we can be sure that we’re safe.

Dick Tracy, 8/26/18

So Dick Tracy is doing a two-week “minit mystery” with a guest artist. It’s a locked room mystery in which the real Dick Tracy has to solve the murder of a guy cosplaying as Dick Tracy, and all the suspects are people cosplaying as Dick Tracy villains, which I think is a pretty good metaphor for how far up the ass of its own lore this strip has gotten in general.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/26/18

I’m enjoying today’s Funky Winkerbean, in which the title character allows himself a brief smile when he believes that his mother-in-law has finally, blessedly died, only to scowl when he realizes she’s just dozed off.

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Dennis the Menace, 8/25/18

If I know my Dennis Mitchell, he’d never say “he will” rather than “he’ll.” And if I know my genre conventions, inappropriate failure to use contractions is a sign that what we’re dealing with here is an android, presumably one that Mr. Wilson built in his garage workshop to make him feel like he has some kind of control over his life. “Ha ha,” says the Dennis-bot, “Mr. Wilson will need a calculator to count so many calories, because biological life forms are not good at mathematicak operations, even simple ones like addition!” George looks incredibly smug because he knows he could turn Dennis off whenever he wants.

Family Circus, 8/25/18

“Your eyes, Daddy!” Dolly exclaimed, grabbing at them with her short, stumpy fingers. “So wise and learnèd.” She began to really dig in there with her surprisingly sharp nails. “I want them.” Her voice deepened, and echoed like something very far away, yet at the same time rose to a deafening pitch. “I want your eyes. Give them to me. Give me your eyes. I want them.”

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Did somebody say … comment of the week? Here’s your comment of the week, everybody!

“I thought plugger Netflix was driving by the old, closed-down Blockbuster and sighing.” –JJ48

And here are your very funny runners up!

“The old ‘I suspect he’s an android so I’ll have to obsessively observe him using the toilet’ ploy.” –nescio

“I just don’t think this La La Land sequel has the magic of the original.” –Schroduck

“A kid who owns a toy drum and bugle would know perfectly well what Dixieland jazz sounds like — and Dennis would take this situation as a clear sign that he needs to step things up a notch. ‘You don’t play music that annoys me, old man,’ is what he’d say before beginning an atonal, experimental number by Ornette Coleman, ‘I play music that annoys you!’” –BigTed

“Hon, would you pass the syrup? By the way, are you scared shitless of snakes? I know this may not be the best of things to bring up over flapjacks, but I just got thru reading Riki Tiki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling, and there’s a scene in it where a cobra attacks a family at breakfast! Fascinating, huh? I mean, who names a kid Rudyard?” –willethompson

“Most depictions of Cleopatra VII omit the fact that she was married to her brothers and incest was the rule of the Ptolemaic family. This is probably less taboo after the Animalapocalypse, since inbreeding would be necessary to keep the pedigree pure and the distinctive features of the breed prominent. Haven’t you noticed how Slylock refuses the seduction of Cassandra Cat since she’s from another species, while the girlfriends of Slylock and Max look EXACTLY like them?” –Ettore

“This Funky Winkerbean looks like it takes place in a nightmarish alternate universe where everyone is the love child of Jack Webb and Harry Morgan from Dragnet 1967.” –Joe Blevins

“Kinda have to respect how Mark Trail commits to the pre-renaissance style of art depicting children as ugly, smaller forms of adults.” –Joe

“No, Mary, that’s not what it sounds like. It sounds like Iris is introducing a new series. ‘Brandy’s a good influence! Tommy’s determined to stay clean and sober! Together, they’re … The Uninteresting Duo!’” –Peanut Gallery

“Seat belt? I call bullshit.” –The Modesto Kid, on Twitter

“‘Driving up I-75‘ is the perfect euphemism for sex in Westview: it’s mind-numbingly tedious with a few rest stops. And the view never changes.” –But What Do I Know?

“The best thing about this cartoon is that Mr. Wilson has the time to rattle off a well-thought-out statement expressing how much he loathes Dennis instead of spending the amount of time you’d expect him to on processing questions about Dennis’s contraption. Most of us would start with, ‘How does he steer that thing?’ ‘What’s holding the chair legs in place?’ ‘How could he possible appear so relaxed while rolling down the sidewalk with no benefits of a steering mechanism?’ Even Mrs. Wilson views this as a minor curiosity, and nothing to panic about. I just wish we could see the follow-up panels where we see how badly Dennis crashes.” –Larry McAwful

“Since this is the Batuikverse I presume ‘fail‘ is a euphemism for massive coronary.” –Zerowolf

“Sometimes a kid gets on a roll! Around here we call that a kid hoagie, but down South it’s a po’ boy!” –Uncle Lumpy

“The New York Times: ‘All The News That’s Fit To Print’ The Chicago Tribune: ‘The World’s Greatest Newspaper’ Obits: ‘If You Can Read This, You’re Not Dead Yet’” –Red Greenback

“Oxpeckers, once thought to benefit their host animals by eating parasites, are now thought to open wounds on their back in order to attract ticks, which they only eat once the ticks have fed and eating them does the host no good. Which honestly seems like the sort of epiphany a hippo psychiatrist would be trying to elicit.” –matt w

“I’m pretty sure these TSA agents could all lose their jobs for detaining a child on the charge of ‘attempted terrorist-liking,’ but if that lady cop on the right discovers Hel’s 15 paragraph text on her phone, then at least they’ll be able to send her to Gitmo for flagrant violation of messaging etiquette.” –jroggs

“I haven’t been to Portland — is the Fathomless Blue Void worth the trip, or is it just another tourist trap?” –TheDiva

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