I hate you so much, Dick Tracy

Dick Tracy, 8/22/08:
Wow, Dick Tracy, and here I thought you beat the Sherlock Holmes puns into the ground way back with the Hounds of Baskerville, but, no, you have to go and have her nabbed by James Moriarty himself. Awesome. Thanks. There isn't even a clever plot here to go along with the puns; in the actual Hounds of the Baskerville, it's a genuine mystery, but here? Here we get bank robbers who use dogs and whistles, which is clearly a better system than, like, automatic weapons.

Archie, 8/22/08:

"Hmm, Jughead needs an ugly conversation piece. Oh, I know - a human head. That is the first thing that comes to mind. In fact, after drawing Archie for many years, it's the only thing that comes to mind. All I see when I close my eyes. A decapitated human head.

"Wacky!"

Mark Trail, 8/22/08:
Oh, trust us, we are.

When comics fail...

Archie, 8/18/08:


Wow, well done Archie. You've managed to note an event. I can't wait for the rest of this week's thrilling installments. Maybe we'll get "Did you get a car wash?" or maybe that old laugh-fest "I don't remember a tree being there. Oh well."

Herb and Jamaal, 8/18/08:


It's adorable how easily unpinned her faith will become upon the most basic of enlightenment. That or she will begin to worship basic folding patterns. Either would make for a pretty good week of strips.

The Phantom, 8/18/08:


Wow. I think this might actually be the least amount of action in any soap strip, as there's no dialog and the establishing shot is of two unexciting ships. Well done, Phantom. You've raised the bar for unexciting ways to start the week.

Humor futures at a weekly low

Wizard of Id 7/22/08
Today's Wizard of Id didn't really catch my eye until the second time I read it. My first skim just registered "lame oil price joke," but on the second viewing I noticed the positioning of the "140" in the third panel. It's positioning in the speech bubble gave me the impression of "fill in this space later with the current crude oil price. " Now that's pretty commendable, even if it is only for the sake of a super-lame joke. Yet, doesn't this take place centuries in the past? Am I reading a modern interpretation into a comic based in antiquity? Perhaps at some time in the middle ages nut and flax oil was worth the price of 140 male deer. Even wikipedia notes that hot oil was very expensive at the time...

...and then I remembered this is Wizard of Id.

Archie 7/22/08
"I thought the voices had come back! They told me to kill...kill...KILL VERONICA! KILL JUGHEAD! KILL JUGHEAD'S STUPID HAT! The voices...they're everywhere..."