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Before the comics begin, a note on last week’s fundraiser! Please read if you contributed! First of all, another huge thanks to all of you! I’ve already written to everyone thanking you, and asking which reward you’re interested in and double-checking to make sure your mailing address is correct. Unfortunately, about 20% of you never got back to me! So, if you haven’t heard from me, because your Paypal account is connected to an old email address or my message went into a spam folder or something, please email me at bio@jfruh.com. If I don’t hear from you by the end of the week, you’ll get a magnet mailed to whatever mailing address is attached to your Paypal account (unless I don’t have a mailing address for you either, in which case you won’t get anything). So please, get in touch!

Funky Winkerbean, 5/29/13

You know, after close to nine years of making fun of newspaper comic strips, I still sometimes discover that I have optimism that can be dashed. For instance, I figured Funky Winkerbean would be able to squeeze a week out of Darrin and Jessica indignantly refusing to participate in Darrin’s bio-dad’s terrible reality show, tops. And yet here we are on the next Wednesday and it’s still happening. Most FW “punchlines” contain at least some token bit of wordplay, no matter how grim, but I have to say that “reality” -> “really stinks” doesn’t quite do it for me. Here, here’s a better version: “The only reality about reality TV is that it stinks almost as badly as the fetid, choking air in the terrible, cruel reality that we are forever trapped in, like flies in a spider’s web.” Too … too long maybe? Not enough room in the word balloon?

Archie, 5/29/13

Man, forget the multiple half-assed jokes in this strip; the dramatic arc I’m interested in is the dog’s. He pushes his head around the corner, spots Archie and Jughead, then takes a deep whiff of Jughead’s pants and instantly falls in love despite the fact that his presence has not been acknowledged at all. Is this li’l lost pup so starved for affection that he’s latched onto the first person who doesn’t threaten or flee from him? Or, more likely, does every single item of clothing owned by notorious glutton Jughead Jones smell strongly of ham and/or barbecue sauce?

Momma, 5/29/13

I know it can be hard to tell sometimes, but Momma is still being produced afresh daily in the current Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Thirteen, as today’s strip makes very explicit. I like the way Momma and Marylou look directly at the reader as they announce this fact. “We can’t believe we’re around in this far-off future era either. Death is coming for us all!”

Hi and Lois, 5/29/13

Little known but important motivation for attaining verbal skills: they’re needed to demand constant reassurance that we aren’t completely unlovable.