Funky Winkerbean, 1/4/15
Mirroring the washed-out colors of this strip, any sense of positivity and human kindness in Westview will soon fade into a sort of pastel muck of sadness and bitterness. Haha, look, Les is making a whiny little complaint about how those darn department stores are always trying to get you to buy their products! IT’S HAPPENING ALREADY, IT ONLY TOOK ONE PANEL
Shoe, 1/4/15
“Oh, you know how teenage girls are these days! Just a loose sack of flesh wrapped around a rattling pile of electronics, stumbling from place to place in a ghastly parody of life! Seriously, what have we done to merit this horrible curse upon our children? What cruel God can we propitiate to end their suffering?”
Shoe, 12/11/14
A cool thing about having a daily comic strip is that you can use it to air some very specific gripes you might have that arise from your personal life! I mean, if it were me and I was taking on Geico, I’d probably go with “Why does Geico have so many mascots, like there’s the gecko and the caveman and the pig and the talking paintings and the two guys with ukeleles and I think also there’s a stack of money with googly eyes?” But, you know, “I resent the application of actuarial science to me in particular” could work too!
Funky Winkerbean, 12/11/14
I know it seems weird, but there are probably some people who only read Funky Winkerbean and not its sister strip, Crankshaft, or vice versa. These people are spared the useless mental exercise of trying to figure out how the timelines of the two Funkyverse strips now line up, as are 99 percent of the people who read both and still only have the vaguest idea that they’re connected. But even if you forgot/don’t care, Funky Winkerbean has decided that its readers are starved for delightful Crankshaft-related content, and are giving us a charming flashback to the Funkypast/Crankpresent, in which the ’Shaft deals with an obviously emotionally vulnerable little girl with his classic lack of tact. I don’t was to cast aspersions on anyone’s parenting, but it sure looks like this child came to talk to a pizza-parlor Santa with neither her father nor her mother with her, so her family situation is probably pretty dire.
Crankshaft, 12/11/14
Meanwhile, over in Actual Crankshaft, we learn that in the Funkyverse you never ask an innocuous question because you might get a super depressing answer.
Phantom, 12/11/14
Hey, what’s happening over in the “Amnesiac Phantom Joins The Jungle Patrol” plotline, guys? Well, the Jungle Patrol’s colonel decided to test his theory that “John X” was secretly a criminal by locking him in a holding cell with a bunch of criminals, and then our hero brutally beat them into unconsciousness. Now he’s going to be taking down to the infirmary by a leering, sexually aggressive medic. Based on the conduct of one of the country’s main law enforcement bodies, I may have to retract my assessment of Bangalla as a successful post-colonial democracy, guys.
Mary Worth, 12/11/14
Hanna and Sean are so crazed with lust for each other that they’re finding erotic inspiration in anything, even Mary’s cooking. I honestly am rooting for them to start going at it right here on the dining room table, if only to take Mary to levels of scandalization we never would’ve thought possible.
Hi and Lois, 12/11/14
“Chemicals!” shouts Ditto. “The touch of water is anathema to me! Bathe me in a cleansing tetrachloroethylene fire!”
Six Chix, 12/11/14
Hey, everyone, here’s today’s Six Chix! It is 100% grim as shit.
Shoe, 11/13/14
It’s a well-known technique among schoolchildren everywhere: if you don’t know the answer, just dazzle ’em with some prokaryote erotica.
Mary Worth, 11/13/14
OK, so, the whole point of this storyline is that Mary has deemed Hanna no longer competent to drive and is now browbeating her into making significant lifestyle changes as a result. And yet look at panel one. This is one of the worst parking jobs I’ve ever seen. Mary has thrown her car diagonally across this admittedly enormous parking space willy-nilly, and in panel two is just unbuckling her seatbelt like she thinks it’s good enough. It’s super not good enough, Mary. BAN MARY FROM DRIVING ANYWHERE FOREVER.
Family Circus, 11/13/14
I like how profoundly angry Jeffy looks at being forced to breathe in some of (presumably) Mommy’s perfume and appreciate it as it’s meant to be appreciated. No, he seems to be saying, I will not and never will experience puberty! I will be a filth-covered little melonheaded urchin for eternity within the Protective Circle. Adulthood means change. Adulthood means death.
