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Crankshaft, 11/4/26

I don’t talk about it very much, but ever since Funky Winkerbean triumphantly (?) concluded, Crankshaft has been afflicted by thinly veiled authorial insert character Batton Thomas, creator of the comic strips 3 O’Clock High (thinly veiled Funky Winkerbean) and The Wrinkles (thinly veiled Crankshaft). Except the characters in Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean look more or less like people, while the characters in 3 O’Clock High and The Wrinkles are these grotesque, large-eared parodies of humanity, symbolizing the fact that they are a narrative layer further away from our real world. But now they’ve escaped containment! And they walk among their Funkyverse counterparts! What happens when Lovable 3 O’Clock High band director character [NAME NOT INTERESTING ENOUGH TO FIND] interacts with his obvious model, Harry Dinkle? Will it tear a hole in the fabric of reality and allow them to enter our universe, in a crossover event that will greatly amuse some unknowable-to-us observers in yet another, more “real” universe? I hope not! I don’t want to talk to any of these guys! What if they read all the mean stuff I’ve written about them on my blog?

Herb and Jamaal, 11/4/26

I was going to try to parse the “punchline” here and try to figure out if it represented a joke or even wordplay of any kind, but then I realized that the dialogue in the first panel is in a thought balloon, which I guess means that this isn’t Herb being sullen about one of his loudmouth customers, it’s him ruminating at random, possibly after experiencing a minor cerebrovascular event, so I don’t feel obligated.

Mary Worth, 11/4/26

I know “suspenseful” is not a term we usually use about Mary Worth plots, but I’m genuinely unsure if where she’s going with this is “Nelly is such an unhappy soul, nothing I could do or say would be worse punishment than just living with herself” or “Nelly could lash out and hurt anyone at any time, and that’s why we have to put her down like a rabid dog.”

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Dustin, 11/3/26

Man, man, I could’ve done without Dustin’s dad’s sheepish little I-did-an-oopsie smile in the last panel here. I don’t really care if this is happening in his subconscious and he’s about to wake up having made a mess of the sheets or if he’s decided to manifest his dreams in real life and this is the incident that finally gets him disbarred at minimum, but he’s clearly getting off on his coworker’s anger and disgust and that shouldn’t be in the funny pages, which are a sacred space for cats who hate Mondays and whatever they have going on in Peanuts reruns these days.

Crankshaft, 11/3/26

Speaking of little smiles I hate, I don’t think Comic Book John should be imprisoned or anything for his facial expression on panel two, but I still don’t care for it. “Ah, the children of today,” he seems to be thinking. “They’re incredibly stupid, as it should be. Only the dumbest of minds will eschew legitimate literature for the moronic capeslop I sell, so this is all good news for me. Sorry about society, I guess.”

Marvin, 11/3/26

Also, Marvin, don’t go outside at all! You are literally a toddler?

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/2/26

Look, I get that they might have been misled by the “racing days” reference, but it’s embarrassing that these two birds have mistaken their fellow avian for a horse. This is just proof that they’re very stupid and, despite their ability to talk in the context of these Barney Google and Snuffy Smith Present … Sparkplug’s Grandson Li’l Sparky strips, it’s actually fine that Snuffy is going to steal them from his neighbors so Loweezy can kill and cook them.

Dick Tracy, 11/2/26

I know I’ve recently celebrated Dick Tracy’s turn back to the macabre, but I have to say the strip may have gone too far today. Streaming media personalities? In the comics? No thanks. Oh also the family appears to have murdered their pinheaded nurse, to cover up their various crimes, I guess.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 11/2/26

I am ignoring whatever joke they’re attempting to implement here, but I do want to point out that it’s now strip canon that the title characters can just drop by the office of Satan, the great Adversary, which is clearly in the depths of Hell itself, whenever they feel like. Not sure if we’re meant to understand that they have the power to move back and forth across the veil that separates the worlds of the living and the dead, or if they in fact inhabit Hell full time themselves, and the various misadventures we see them get into represent some kind of ironic punishment tailored specifically for them, due to their sins.

Mary Worth, 11/2/26

It’s day 17 of the siege by various law enforcement agencies that began when Mary hung Nelly Fenele’s flayed skin on the gates of Charterstone as a warning to those who would dare betray her. The feds thought it would take only a few days for the hungry residents to turn on the woman the media is calling “The Butcher of Santa Royale,” but the produce from the Charterstone garden has so far been enough to keep everyone loyal. Thank goodness for mild California weather!