Recent Comments

1. about 9 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   Will it answer the question of why the mayor and governor are acting like their heads are buried in their posteriors? Inquiring minds want to know.

   But I’ll bet 50¢ we aren’t given a clue as to why they were making phone calls.

2. about 11 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   Neither fast, or slow, is necessarily superior to the other. I experienced speakers who can bore me in 90 seconds, and speakers I remained enthralled with after an hour and wish they could continue. But, as you say, something needs to be happening. I’m willing to accept character development, even if it doesn’t tie directly with the story-line. Nothing may obviously be happening during a suspense building sequence, but it is still of value in building anxiety in the reader. And, as someone who enjoys P.G. Wodehouse I’m willing to have a threadbare and totally predictable plot if the use of English language is entertaining. But (except in humor writing) some kind of sense. That is annoying me more than the pace of this. I mean, even if Heinz Doofenshmirtz thinks his cottoncanianator which will turn steel into spun sugar will enable him to rule the tri-state area he has a clear plan and acts as if that makes sense and Perry sees a need to stop him. No one, governor, mayor, either Totten, TA cop, freelance terrorist, or the police department is acting in any way that presume they think this makes sense.

3. about 12 hours ago on Broom Hilda

   Sadly, but it becoming easier all the time.

4. about 12 hours ago on Broom Hilda

   You are correct. It was never modified to the level of hot rod. He has updated his car, but it is still a jalopy in classic sense. In the 1940s he even referred to it as a flivver on occasion.

5. about 13 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   I’ve got nothing against slow. I read the Phantom. But there is a logic in the Phantom, even if it takes three days to break a pane of glass (quite possibly a record in comic strips. One panel is usually enough). I don’t mind a slow story. I want a story that makes sense. And the mayor’s office calling the governor to put pressure on Totten, or calling for a totally unknown reason now makes no sense.

   In fact, I think the writer even realizes it is nonsense. If there was any reason whatsoever to call that made sense it could have been given. Instead we’re left with pointless harassing phone calls.

6. about 13 hours ago on Tarzan

   Rambul was introduced as sincerely concerned with the health of his boss (or was putting on one H3ll of a good show for other members of the band). His behavior since then has been totally erratic and shows poor writing rather than a concern for intricate plotting. Poor writing and a desire to get them into another piece of impossible architecture for the sake of the artist’s salary. Whether you want the boss to live or die you give him a shot of the elixir of live immediately (in a clean glass, of course. Maybe it is the lack of a clean glass in the raiding band that necessitated the long march home).

   If the boss lives you keep the rest of the elixir for yourself – more valuable than gold. If the boss dies you skin the old coot alive and leave the body for the vultures.

   Not giving the boss a shot of the wonder cure immediately would make the brighter members of the raiding band highly suspicious and one of them would likely give the boss some in hope of becoming the new number 2, with Rambo here being left for vulture bait.

7. about 14 hours ago on Broom Hilda

   The song Henry’s Made a Lady Out of Lizzie by Irving Kaufman in 1927 celebrates improvements Ford claimed to have added to the Model T.

8. about 14 hours ago on Broom Hilda

   There are a couple theories for where the word comes from. No one knows for sure (just like we don’t know exactly where flivver came from, we can only know when it first appeared in print – but can assume it was used in speech before appearing in print) but we can look at how it is used for meaning. Flivver is older than jalopy in print. A flivver was a not necessarily a junk car, it simply wasn’t top of the line. A Cunningham was not a flivver, the cheapest Ford on the market was. A flivver might, or might not, be in bad shape. A jalopy was in bad shape. One of the proposed etymologies is that is the term comes from cars being shipped to scrapyards in Jalapa, Mexico (although that could be bogus etymology, some folk invent etymologies for words or phrases of unknown origin based on, “Hey, that sounds like ––”).

9. about 16 hours ago on Baldo

   Week? It’s been going on for years.

10. about 16 hours ago on Crabgrass

    But wait, there’s more! This story is the classic “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” How will Kevin and Miles save Christmas? What is their role in the epic conflict?