Trouble at home
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Archie, 5/28/26
I think it’s very funny that Jughead is first forbidden from playing the drums in … his room, I suppose? … and then decides that the next good place to do it is in the living room right next to where his father is trying to read the paper. I don’t like the idea of Jughead as a musician generally — it requires dedication and the motivation to practice your craft, something that I simply don’t think is in line with his character — but I do appreciate that move.
Crankshaft, 5/28/26
Hey, remember last week when I said Crankshaft was going so far up its own narrative ass that it was at risk for tearing the fabric of the Funkyverse apart? Well, it’s happening. It’s happening! Ed’s about to get vaporized by a blast wave of Hawking radiation and I think that’s swell.
174 replies to “Trouble at home”
GT: Is Beth supposed to be chibi in that last panel or has the artist completely given up?
Hey, they ain’t the Archies without the Jughead beat!
So, do we begin the “Oh, it was ALLLLL a dream!” countdown now? But which character dreams? Pam, with nothing better to mull on than her dad? Lillian, finally longing for oblivion? Ed, who’s always craved to truly demonstrate to all the subtle but inherent differences between a black hole and a singularity? Us, that Batiuk is finally ending this wretched strip? There’s options, here!
CS: NASA engineer(?) checks his iPad mini. “Yep, black hole, major anomaly.”
Archie:
“And didn’t you see the sign on our front door, young man? — ‘NO TANK TOPS’ !”
Archie I’m not even sure there’s a punchline here? This looks like a LinkedIn post about outside-the-box problem solving.
CSh God, just imagine that the last thing you heard before you died was one of Ed Crankshaft’s little quips. Then imagine the the massive gravitational force of the black hole that killed you stretched that moment into near infinity, as if you passed ten thousand years with those words ringing in your ears. Truly a fate worse than death (followed by death)
RMMD: “Wow, we’re really busy! Let’s stand around and tell one another things we both already know!”
Crankshaft:
“Gentlemen, do you think this might have something to do with the fact that I jocularly refer to my backyard as ‘Lacuna Beach’ ?”
The really great part is, that isn’t Jughead’s house.
At last, the setup for the Crankshaft/Stranger Things crossover we’ve all been waiting for.
Archie:
Josh may not like Jughead being a musician, but he shouldn’t worry about it—based on the history of rooftop concerts, Jughead’s about to give up on the whole enterprise.
Crankshaft: I will tolerate Crankshaft’s annual Memorial Day grill explosion hijinks as an established running joke in the strip’s universe. But it’s Thursday now! You hear me? THURSDAY! I cannot accept week long “Old man struggles with barbecue” story arcs! Especially when it’s day four and there’s no punchline in sight!
Crankshaft in a “Kiss the Cook” apron is my new emetic.
CS: Someone recently mentioned the Tom Servo advice “don’t mention a good movie during your crappy movie.” Similarly: don’t put your most detestable characters in danger if you’re not going to kill them off.
Pluggers: See prior comment.
FC-Bug watching or bug burning?
MW-In his loneliness Tommy makes a huge mistake by hooking up with Dawn.
Yesterthread from Vanya:
Whatever happened to those girls in Norway? ‘Silenced’ by the CIA as loose ends.
Where is April? As long as she isn’t on panel and the characters aren’t asking ‘Where’s April?’ I don’t give a flying $#@%.
The crazy Slavic guy who took the car? Hopefully off living his best life after selling that swank SUV on the black market.
MW:
“I’m impressed that you’re trying to improve yourself!”
It’s been 59 years but Dawn’s conception of human-like speech has finally surpassed that of the Horta (“No kill I”) from Star Trek.
MW: Dawn and Tommy run to escape the dire situation slowly unfolding at Charterstone, where the residents are apparently at risk of starving. Even now, the hollow-cheeked residents anxiously stand at their condo windows, looking out over the trellised vegetable garden, wringing their hands and praying for a speedy harvest so they can fill their pantries with the promised SUPPLEMENTAL FOOD SUPPLY. In her wisdom, Mary has planted okra. “It’s slimy, I admit, and relatively few people really enjoy it, but it’s packed with nutrients,” Mary smiles. “They’ll eat it gladly, once they get hungry enough. I only hope the rains come….”
Phantom: Once again, Schmelon Schmusk, HE KNOWS NOW THAT IT’S ALL AN ILLUSION!!! And TAKE OFF THAT STUPID MASK!!!
I’ve always considered Crankshaft to be a Black Hole on the comics page.
@Charterstoned: ‘… a real rain that will come and wash all this scum off my condos…’
ARCHIE: I am most impressed by Jughead’s getting the drumset onto the roof. He never comes across as particularly agile.
9CL: We all know who SHOULD have been spayed around here.
GT: Beth is weeping because all of her bridesmaids’ names will end with an i. I would cry, too.
RMMD: Oh, for crying out loud, here’s a little Business 101: Customers=GOOD.
MW: Are we sure that along with the haircut, Tommy didn’t get a little Captain America juice? He’s going to buff his way right out of his tee in a few strips.
@The Quiet Man: That’s not scum. It’s the far flung droppings from Sid’s free-wheeling Doves o’ Love.
DT: Please let the joke be that Liz and the Chief are maybe 5 feet apart.
GT: YES Manga Gil Thorp! Tomorrow will be all in black and white and as Gil dashes around he’ll have speed lines and run with his arms behind him.
JP: Good advice, but the editors removed the middle frame where the cafe owner shakes Judge Parker’s shoulders and gives him a wake up slap. Then the final frame where JP realizes Ann isn’t a 16 year old girl.
RMMD: Nice to see fairness in standing around and talking during a BUSY work day extends to men as well as women. We’ve just established how busy this place is, so the manager decides AT THIS MOMENT to break up the flow of the one actual known cook he has by chatting up some gossip. Good going!
Archie: Jughead set up his drums right next to the chimney. The fireplace is presumably in the living room. He’s risking his own health and safety just to annoy his father while technically following his orders. I aspire to this level of petty.
@Hibbleton: iPad me eye, that’s a Kindle Fire Wire if I ever saw one.
@treetown:
GT: YES Manga Gil Thorp! Tomorrow will be all in black and white and as Gil dashes around he’ll have speed lines and run with his arms behind him.
They’re going to introduce a new student character who’s a ditzy freshman, who’s debut panel is her running late for school with a piece of toast in her mouth.
Her b-plot is going to be how she has a crush on a hunky sophomore on one of Gil’s teams, but IF ONLY HE WOULD NOTICE HER.
Archie: Iggy Pop famously grew up in a double-wide trailer outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan. He once expressed appreciation for his parents, who gave up the master bedroom so he would have room to set up his drum kit. Jughead is not Iggy Pop, and I never want to see him with his shirt off. Ever.
Zits: Is Jeremy’s mother supposed to be unattractive? She’s in her late 30s and not overweight. Maybe Jeremy doesn’t want to think about his mother in yoga pants but his pervert friends probably wouldn’t mind it.
@treetown: @Anonymous: Aw, I think manga Gil Thorp is cute. Besides, it’ll drive the comment section nuts, which is always a positive with that lot.
Luann: why is Shannon covered with what looks to be feces? If Bwad and Tone-deaf can’t even care for Shannon, what business do they have making a baby?
MW: I’ve made the same mistake Tommy’s about to make. Dude, do NOT fuck Dawn. Both of you are too stupid to use birth control, you’ll break up long before Dawn even realizes she’s knocked up, and then you’re gonna have a baby (and a longterm relationship with each other) that neither of you want. Don’t do it, Tommy. Make a withdrawal from the spank bank if you must, but you do NOT want to wake up to the crack of Dawn.
Tomorrow, the alternate-reality versions of the Funkyverse characters will emerge from the hole, and the entire comics page will be consumed by a multiverse-shattering battle that will transform everything. Will all the characters end up in one massive comics feature? Would Garfield and Heathcliff wage an endless war over which orange cat rules the unified universe with an iron claw?
Crankshaft: Bending the fabric of space-time is one thing, but could we please have more of the original Black Hole, from Funky Calcutta? Surely there are 146 Funkyverse characters and also these dishwasher repairmen we could cram into a 14×18′ room and leave to die from suffocation and heat exhaustion. It’s no worse than the wordplay they’ve inflicted on us!
@brendancalling: I’m not sure where it came from, but my family has a rule stating that one should not stick their d**k in crazy. I think we can expand that to “Don’t stick your d**k in Dawn.”
I guess Jughead’s house looks old enough to not have a garage. Sure, let’s go with that. Ha ha! He’s practising on the roof!
***
It looks like the Funkyverse has a smugness tipping point. Two people must have been discussing astronomy and one of them said “Dying in a black hole would really suck” with just the smuggest expression and the Funkyverse said “Bet.”
GT tomorrow: “And then, boom, Beth turned into Cathy Andrews from the old Cathy strip!”
“That’s terrible!”
“I know! Why couldn’t it have been at least one of the Apartment 3-G women?”
“Margo would have been awesome.”
“I told Barajas I’ll quit before I allow myself to be taped up on mirrors in women’s dorms. Dang I miss sports. Oops, here comes the dog. Heel Electra!”
Dustin: Does the US Marines recruiting just cold call people asking if they want to join? Do they want another Camp Swampy because that’s how you get another Camp Swampy.
Shoe has decided its readers need to be punished with this visual of an old obese bird person in a towel. Please don’t give Pluggers any ideas.
@Anonymous: Bonus points if she has a distinctly-odd hairstyle!
MW: If you can carry on a full conversation while running, you’re not running hard enough!
Pluggers: The way Dr. Dog is glowering at rhino man, and the way rhino man is sitting in stunned silence, it sure seems like “hot dog eating contest” a euphemism for something else!
@Tonio: Personally, I don’t think Garfield could compete with Heathcliff’s hustle. While Garf’s busy hating Mondays, Heath’s grinding broken glass into a fine powder to mix into Garfield’s lasagna.
CS: If the black hole formed in the Marvin universe, would it have an excretion disc?
A: “‘Sugar, Sugar’ paid for this house, old man. I’ll practice where I want.”
@pugfuggly: No, no – mercifully time dilation works so that the person falling in experiences time at the rate they’d expect, heck, you wouldn’t notice passing the event horizon (if you’re not spaghettified first by the tidal effects, that can be before or after the event horizon depending of the black hole mass [= event horizon size]). It’s the observers outside seeing the person falling towards the black hole that it takes an eternity (literally, it will take infinite time with a frozen-at-the-event-horizon endlessly redshifting view of the infall).
The main horror here is that we are now up to a black hole (based on the event horizon size of, oh, about 10 meters) of about 1000 Earth masses, and the difference in gravitational force across a few feet of distance should rip everything apart (when maybe a further 10 meters from it). But they aren’t being shredded. Crankshaft’s town and people were replaced by neutron star material so gradually we didn’t notice…
Archie: Jughead color-coordinated his socks with his drums, and I think it’s neat!
He also grew to enormous size when he ascended to the rooftop, and the musical notes he’s emitting could be dollar signs or grawlixes. Is there a word for that? Less than neat?
LUANN: Poor Tony. He womb is barren, inflected with a nasty case of Status Quo-itis.
LUANN: You know, I suspect Brad and Toni would solve like 75% of their issues by spending less time dealing Shannon and her bratty coitus interruptus antics. (It’d probably also help if they didn’t have a noisy third-wheel roommate furtively masturbating while listening in to their
having sexual intercourseengaging in juvenile ribaldry.)GT No, no – don’t worry your, um, not-as-ugly-as-the-other-deformed-ones little head about what my mother said. We all know you’re just a trophy for me as part of my ex-wife’s “queer saga”, you don’t need friends! or personality traits!
Blondie: A screaming Bob Ross.
“NOOOOOO!!!!!!”
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Moy: “That’s not happening. That would ruin every “Dawn” plot I have for the rest of the decade!”
CS — If that’s a black hole, shouldn’t it be sucking Crankshaft into it? For the love of God, Batuik, just let the physics play out!
Archie — That’s great initiative, Jughead, but most of the rooftop performers find a flat one
@Charterstone: Dune:
“MW: If you can carry on a full conversation while running, you’re not running hard enough!”
I don’t get the impression Tommy is that turned on by Dawn but whatever floats your boat.
MW: Long walks, short piers, etc
@But What Do I Know?: It’s not a black hole. It’s Dawn’s cavernous and horrifying vagina.
Imagine being spaghettified in a black hole event horizon due to Cranky’s charcoal.
It would be like being meddled by Mary Worth for eternity.
Sure, all life on Earth will be ended, but this the less horrifying version of what Ed Crankshaft’s black hole could be!
“Yeah, look, you gotta black hole to be sure, but it’s neither in the air nor space. NASA can’t help you. Try FEMA.”
“Sure, it’s bad, but is it really an emergency, much less a Federal one? Maybe EPA.”
“By definition, a black hole is nothingness, kind of the opposite of an environment. It is giving off a lot of radiation, try Energy.”
“Look, man, if it ain’t producing useable energy or an atomic bomb, ain’t Energy’s problem. But I have an idea.”
“Agent Smith, CIA. We’ll take it from here.” Picks up phone. “Boss, I have the ultimate black site, and I think I know who we send in first.” Eyes Crankshaft.
The good news is that so close to a mid sized black hole like that, the gravitational tidal forces are well up into the “rip everything around into shreds” level, so Crankshaft is dead, he just hasn’t realized it yet.
@2+2=7: Also, Tommy’s still talking about Brandy. I was half-expecting she’d be memory-holed to make way a Tommy-Dawn romance, but maybe not? We could still see Brandy return, and walk in on Tommy and Dawn kissing.
That would also give Mary scope for meddling — so far she’s done nothing worth a victory lap. But straightening out a love triangle, especially one involving Dawn? Expert-level meddling will be required.
@CanuckDownSouth: mercifully time dilation
You go on to explain that if Crankshaft falls into the black hole, we outside observers will see him for all eternity. I don’t think “mercifully” is the right word here.
Mallard Fillmore: Today’s strip is unusual in that it contains an actual favorable statement about Barack Obama.
Lockhorns: This one is true to life. “You know what you did” are the most frightening words a wife can tell her husband.
Yes, we husbands can really be that clueless.
@Liam:
Billy starts with bug watching, then independently discovers bug burning, then goes on a power trip about how he is the God of Insects.
C’shaft: Calling it now: the black hole is stopped by feeding it one of Lena’s brownies. Because the only thing that can cancel out a trite, overused running gag of this magnitude is another trite, overused running gag.
Ed is just hoping to see Dustin through boot camp before the Department of War decides to put boots on the ground in the Iranian mountains. One good Persian sniper and all his troubles will melt like bubbles.
@But What Do I Know?:
CS — If that’s a black hole, shouldn’t it be sucking Crankshaft into it? For the love of God, Batuik, just let the physics play out!
Once again, it’s Batiuk’s M.O. to be oblivious that a thing he’s written and drawn into his comic massively sucks.
@Anonymous: Calling it now, that’s our COTW.
yGT: “Oh, boo hoo. Your parents are dead? So what? I’m alive and I’m the only parent that matters!”
@Lauralot, GT: That’s Chibi. And it’s not working, unless Beth becomes a Demon Hunter.
Phantom: Tokoloshe is real, which I did not know. It would be interesting if, in the Major Trophy Room, Purple Stripeypants has the Zuni Fetish Doll to counteract.
@Anonymous: First — we need a monkey.
THERE HAS TO BE A MONKEY!
Dustin: I’ve heard that, among the myriad other problems with recruitment, the military is struggling to find young people able to meet the physical fitness requirements for service. Of course, one could point to many potential causes (cutting PE from schools, food deserts that force people to subsist on highly processed convenience store fare), but Parker and Kelly fall back on their favorite standby of “The Kids These Days suck.”
GT: “But…but…if you have friends, then your entire world won’t revolve around me!”
(Also, yikes! Was Merrill watching K-Pop Demon Hunters while doing that last panel?)
JP: Man, what must it be like to be a person with common sense in the Parkerverse? I’m surprised that Jerry hasn’t gone mad from the insanity around him, like Frank Grimes in that one Simpsons episode.
Luann: Can we just skip to the part where they adopt Shannon and be done with it?
MW: “Plus, the Sinola Cartel still has a bounty on my head. I need to be ready when they come for me.”
Phantom: Ten minutes later, the Nomad has trained Tokoloshe to believe that strychnine has health benefits and that sprinkling rat poison on his captor’s dinner will only make him stronger and more virile.
FG: which came first– Ming’s black hand or Saruman’s white hand (LOTR)?
Crackers: Agent J of MiB: “Zed. Black hole confirmed. Can say it’s the perfect spot for dumping ‘Men in Black: Intercontinental”. Also that weird little stocking hat asshole from ‘MiB 3’.
I’m more impressed by Jughead being so dedicated to practicing that he’s willing to lug an entire drum set anywhere and everywhere.
@Anonymous: There have been enough strips about it that we can confidently say Jeremy’s mom is menopausal. Definitely not late 30s, unless that’s been retconned in the past decade or so.
Archie: Jughead only had to look like he’s drumming — he knew the actual music would be overlaid by a group of talented studio musicians. (No one really believed Archie, Reggie and Veronica were any good at electric guitar, bass guitar, and stand-up rock piano, did they? Of course, poor Betty — the one who probably took years of classical music lessons — was stuck bouncing her ponytail while fake-banging a tambourine like a schmuck.) So Jughead got by just fine…. Still, I bet it ground his gears that he had to fake-play pablum like “Sugar, Sugar” instead of, say, “Anarchy in the U.K.”
Crankshaft:
Let’s review some ways this is an inaccurate depiction of a black hole, shall we? First, it’s just, like, a big two-dimensional hole in the ground, instead of an incredibly dense point that attracts objects in all directions; second, we can still see objects that have fallen into it; third, it’s not distorting the view of objects near or behind it. Artists are of course pretty infamous for not understanding the technical and scientific concepts they use in their work, and sometimes that reputation is deserved, but just as often they are merely using them as a convenient narrative device with no attempt to be accurate, so you might object that this strip is just trying to be wacky using the general concept of a black hole. However, that kind of suspension of disbelief has to be earned, or at least not squandered, and I’m not going to give Crankshaft of all things the benefit of the doubt, considering it is not now and pretty much has never been funny.
@74 Vulpes: Don’t edit yourself, please tell us how you really feel.
S4th: Nona’s apparently pretending to be Columbo.
FG: Ming earned his bad-assery chops in the pre-Mafia Italian-American extortion rackets.
Rhyme w/ I: when ch brings up new questions: does Medusa dare to look at herself in a mirror? Does she have pubic hair?
MW- “This is me trying to deal with the fact we’re separated” Who talks like this? Oh yeah, my girlfriend went on a trip so now “we’re separated”. Unless Tommy is puposefully trying to mislead Dawn and yet “technically” be telling the truth, this “forced awkward” language is clearly done by the strip writers so (ala Three’s Company) a ‘misunderstanding” on Dawn ‘s part arises and hilarity ensues.
@Activist: Answer one: Yes, as she is immune to her own powers. Answer two: Yes, and it makes men hard.
9CL: So are these pets immortal or are they clones of the ones Edda had over 20 years ago before Lolly was even born?
LUANN: It’s amazing that anyone would even want kids after spending enough time around Shannon. She’s a walking advertisement for condom use.
@TheDiva:
#69. PHANTOM: Bet you’re right– reprogramming the device would be a smart way out. The Nomad couldn’t do it however because a plan to hurt captor would be detected. The record, Phantom would have to do the counter-programming
FC- A short time later, Billy comes back into the house, crying and covered in huge, red welts. “Mommy! I was bug watching a Yellow Jacket nest!”
Archie: This is missing a fourth panel where the drumset falls off the roof and takes Jughead with it.
Crankshaft: I’m guessing this is the work of that fascistic time-travelling janitor who manipulated the cast to enforce his own future on them. This is his way of destroying the wayward town to reset the timeline after it strayed too far from his preferences to easily pushed back into place.
Archie – Jughead’s parents were fine with him buying a drum kit and setting it up in his room. How were they to know that at some point he might actually want to play it?
Archie – “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of The Archies and myself, and I hope I passed the audition.” “We’re replacing you with a drum machine!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“What a crowd!”
[Sign: TO CIRCUS]
“I’ll get you right into the middle of the action”
“Are you ready?”
“Yeah, but I wish I had brought my tights”
Bizarro – We know the patient isn’t Mary Worth, because she never feels anxiety about whatever human like speech she spouts.
FC – How can he run with his head on backwards?
Frazz – Oh, for fuck’s sake, give it a rest. Frazz and Caulfield are the only ones who know how every detail of life should be done, and anyone who doesn’t follow Frazz’s lifestyle is wrong. Who cares if Mrs. Olsen does things differently from Frazz? Of course, if these insufferable assholes stopped being judgmental and superior to everyone around them, the strip would be three or four panels of blank paper.
JP -Diner guy has spoken more sense in one speech balloon than the rest of these entitled characters have said or done in the decade I’ve been following this.
Sure, Alan, convince the diner manager to give your criminal daughter a job she didn’t ask for and has little or no aptitude for. That always works out well.
Mary Worth – I don’t have the energy to come up with a long paragraph of swear words, so I’ll just say, They’re not SEPARATED! She went away for a visit to a relative! If Tommy and Brandy didn’t discuss this and work out how to communicate with each other during her absence, they’re not the true love soul mates Tommy thinks they are.
She’s in Florida. It’s not like it takes a ship several months to carry a letter from one to the other. People text, exchange messages on social media, and talk on Zoom. Does Moy live under a rock?
Sherman’s Lagoon – If anyone in the lagoon is severely depressed, that’ll snap them right out of it.
Archie – Jug is gonna tear the roof off….
Crank – Did you have a class 3BBQ permit, Ed? You better come with us….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Archie: I guess I’d never given much thought to Jughead’s parents. I’m not sure I’d have pictured them as dour, old-school killjoys who look enough alike to be brother and sister.
‘shaft: “Uh, so, Mr. Batiuk, you’ve written in two NASA guys for today’s strip. Do you picture them as reedy little nerds with thick glasses and hunched-over posture or confident, broad-shouldered jock types with crew cuts?” “Eh, give me one of each.”
DtM: Is Dennis at the Glenwood Motel? Does he want a room with a peephole into Mae Mae’s room?
@Cleve Barrister: You got there first on the separated issue.
This “We’re separated” and the total lack of communication is driving me nuts.
@Peanut Gallery: Got the reference!
They won’t replace him with a drum machine – they’ll bring in Andy White.
This is going to end with a bad Oprah joke.
@I speak Jive: Honestly, I can’t even tell what’s going on Mary Worth. The whole “need to go to Florida for an indefinite amount of time for vague step-family reasons” sounds like an obvious ditch. But the story refuses to be clear about what’s actually happening. Nor does it have any concern fo finding out. Tommy says things like “getting over Brandy”, but Tommy never says that he thinks Brandy’s departure is in fact a breakup. And she never said it was. Is it? Who knows? Mary’s just going to spew empty platitudes that won’t help either.
@2+2=7: Shannon and her bratty coitus interruptus antics
That was the entire point of her character when she was repurposed into Toni’s niece (originally she was just some random kid for Luann to babysit.) Once Brad and Toni got romantic she was introduced to prevent them from ever being alone together. It makes one wonder the in-universe answer as to who was watching her back when Toni was dating Dirk, as there’s no way in hell he would’ve been ok with her always being saddled with her brother’s spawn (and not even getting paid for it).
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: And in classic manga style Gil’s arch enemy, the coach at Valley Tech will in the end join him and be best buds because they share a true love for all things manga high school sports!
@Pozzo: And Hot Dog, too!
FC: Young Mark Trail better not catch you burning bugs, Billy. Remember what he did to young Cricket Bro’s magnying glass? Big Daddy Bil won’t like you losing something that costs a thousand dollars.
@Activist: #70: If Ming’s black hand logo is part of original strip canon it predates LOTR, which was published in the early 1950s. Tolkien’s defenders could point out that he already started working on his Middle Earth mythology while laid up in a military hospital during the First World War.
@treetown:
Isnt that what happened with Coach Hernnadez-Martinez?
@I speak Jive: re:MW – I’m not sure living under a rock is sufficient distance from a normal life to explain all of Moy’s how-to-write-about-humans problems.
I suspect she just *wants* Dawn/Tommy shenanigans and really doesn’t *care* that it makes no sense. I also suspect she’d rather it *were* 1980 with no cell phones, email, video chat etc – the ability to communicate not only short-circuits this story it also throws a wrench into other stuff like the ballooning mess. Now, the thing is you *can* set a comic strip in an earlier less-easy-communication era (or an alternative timeline!) as long as you’re consistent and interesting (*cough* Crabgrass *cough*) so obviously that’s not an option here.
Archie-“I don’t wanna work. I just wanna bang my drum all day.”
Crankshaft-At the end ‘Funky Winkerbean’ they talked about the Burning but they never brought up the Sucking.
Dustin-“I was dishonorably discharged once before for fragging the Lieutenant why would the military want me back.”
ARCHIE: I cannot believe what degenerate filth the Archie franchise has become! I mean right here, in full public view where children can see, is a principal member of the cast, Jughead Jones beating his drum! Shameless!
ARCHIE (2): Um…I hate to be “that guy”, Josh, but it’s long been established that all of the main Archie cast members play in a band. It’s literally in the title sequence to their cartoon and it’s been a featured backdrop for many digest entries. And in general, “slackers playing in a band” is a long-running archetype for fiction about teens.
I know that realism isn’t really Dustin’s thing, but would the Marines really be interested in a guy in his mid-twenties with an English degree, no athletic accomplishments and no ROTC?
Crank: “A backyard black hole such as this is a major scientific anomaly. In that not only is there no precedent for such a thing occurring at all, but it doesn’t even act like a black hole! We should all be within the gravitational pull already, and yet we’re just standing here like we’re only in danger if we actually fall in! Either literally everything we thought we knew about black holes is wrong, or this is a similarly named but unrelated phenomenon called ‘a hole’. Which, in turn, shouldn’t be confused with an ‘a-hole’, although there’s one of those here as well!”
FG: Yep, somehow I always suspected that the way the Inquisitor’s fanatical devotion to the law worked was that anything she didn’t object to must, by definition, be lawful.
JP: “I’m beginning to think I’m confusing being there for her with being here, in a diner!” I’m just saying, if Batty isn’t going to send Crankshaft to Bedside Manor, that means there’s a vacancy…
MW: If it were possible to have wheels turn in Dawn’s mind, they’d be going “Wait, he was going for runs with Brandy? A girl he’s been dating for some time and who left him* before I noticed he’d suddenly improved himself? I guess that means … he wasn’t a druggie when he dated her, which I naturally assumed without ever speaking to either of them!” Unfortunately, those wheels rusted solid a long time ago.
* Yes, I know, but all Dawn has to go on is Tommy’s version of events, and unlike Mary, he hasn’t told her “Well, technically she’s gone to meet a long-lost relative, but she didn’t specifically say she was ever coming back.”
DUSTIN: So we’re just gonna repeat the same joke all week? I can’t wait for Lance Corporal Fox to call again tomorrow!
Speaking of black holes, anyone else worried about the inky dark mass that is Jughead’s roof? Maybe that’s why nobody minds him practicing up there — if light can’t escape, sound can’t either. Or maybe they’ve just decided it’s not worth it to fight, given the imminent spaghettification of their entire neighborhood.
@CanuckDownSouth: Give Moy a break. She needed some way to make Tommy’s blatant upcoming cheating “forgivable.” (Oops, I hope I didn’t “spoil” this obvious “twist” for anyone.”)
Basically it’s a shameless poorly done crub of the infamous “we were on a break!” plot from Friends (or, since everyone at this condo complex is an unfaithful whore, Wilbur’s storyline with Iris. After all we weren’t following Wilbur when he went on vacation. For all we know, he might have spent the entire time whining “why did she leave me” while moping on Colombian beaches, until he found a Sofia Vergara clone to sex-grift him.)
@Voshkod: Yeah, I definitely don’t see how this is NASA’s bailiwick.
Who you gonna call? The American Physical Society! (Astrophysics division.)
What the hell, there’s no rule that says I can’t take two cracks at the same strip.
Crankshaft:
Hey NASA man, that’s not a black hole, it’s just a regular hole in the ground! If you want a scientific anomaly to investigate, try figuring out how your glasses are staying on without a bridge.
@CanuckDownSouth: I’ve just thought of something else. Remember Hugo, Dawn’s French boyfriend? Remember how they were totally going to make a long-distance relationship work, and then almost immediately both met someone else who conveniently lived in the same city?
I don’t know if that was always the plan, or if Moy was soured on long-distance relationships halfway through the story, but I wonder if she now considers it axiomatic that long distance relationships are doomed, and everyone in Santa Royale including Brandy just takes for granted that if you’ve travelled more than ten miles away from someone, that’s the same as a break up?
Hawking radiation results in black hole shrinkage. This black hole is growing, which means Crankshaft will be drawn in and crushed by the singularity.
RMMD-“Hey Hector…Wake up! Adam and Eve on a raft…wreck em! Short stack of tire patches! Maple machine oil! Get with it!”
@114 Mark Jackson: This black hole is growing bigger around. Pluggers are growing bigger around. Thus, this black hole is a plugger. Did I get that right?
It’s actually really sad that everyone on Earth is going to die from a black hole growing until it destroys the entire planet. Like more sad than all of Funky Winkerbean even. I hope someone will explain to the very last humans in all of existence that it got Crankshaft first, so they can die knowing some sort of peace.
@Hibbleton: CS: NASA engineer(?) checks his iPad mini. “Yep, black hole, major anomaly.”
______________________________________
…..”Contact Major Anomaly, He’s in charge of THE CRANK FILES.”
@Mark Jackson: which, if I understand correctly, time will eventually stop for Cranky as he approaches the event horizon. We surly can’t have THAT happening, can we?
Tomorrow Mary Worth:
Tommy: Brandy used to let me touch her here.
Dawn: I know, she told me.
The Familliar Mucus: Billy begins Flunking Wrinkled brain’s Burnings with one out of control ladybug.
Archie – Unlike those drums, Jughead will not be beaten.
Crankshaft – Unfortunately, due to the scientific rules of comics, the radiation and collapse of the strip may give Ed Crankshaft both superpowers, and the ability to hop into other comics’ universes. Ed could be meddling with Mary Worth! Shitting his pants with Marvin! Tearing through Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC’s worlds! Cockblocking Jeremy in Zits!
So much of the newspaper comics universe has been held together by keeping the Funkyverse contained
Archie: It’s questionable whether Jughead and his drum kit could remain balanced at the top of his roof, but said Jughead and said kit cover about 50% of the roof’s length between them, and that’s the main issue.
C-Shaft: Yeah, Batty has set up the appearance that it’s oblivion which will “kiss the cook”, but we all know it’s just a tease.
Too bad Jughead does not know a teenage witch who could twitch him up a rehearsal studio.
MW-“It’s like Mary Worth says, ‘Trade one addiction for another’.”
Frazz: It’s already a little awkward that Frazz is a rich guy who’s chosen to spend all day making friends with children that are not his own, for fun. But is there any innocent reason he’d denigrate another adult authority figure like that? Even if he’s not trying to fuck those kids it’s a bad look, and I’m pretty sure he’s trying to fuck those kids.
@Peanut Gallery: So, the Capt Crunch guy’s name is Al Circo?
Late Thread Cuisine: They’re not even really trying with this one.
@Andrew Millar: Given that Frazz has a longstanding girlfriend in the strip (namely Miss Plainwell, one of the teachers at the school) and has not engaged in predatory behavior, could we not attribute base motives to him?
This, by the way, is one of the contributors to the male loneliness epidemic–if you’re a single guy and hang out with anyone other than other single guys people assume that it’s because you’re some kind of horny.
@Baja Gaijin: You had better provide a detailed recipe — I hate to think of one of us attempting to prepare this and screwing it up.
DT: Yeah, um, looks like not everyone got the “too many civilians” memo.
Dustin: So terrifying that it makes his pupils contract to a semi-normal size.
GT: Back from her traumatic cake tasting with the elder Mrs. Thorp—and by the way, thanks for the warning, Gil, great job!—Beth finds her hair growing to floor length, her mouth a gateway to some terrible dimension of pure light, and tears for some reason flying toward her. I know it’s supposed to be manga-influenced, but it looks more psychotic break-influenced.
JP: If there’s a martial art that involves deflecting a good question with a blatant non sequitur, you just know Alan has a brown belt or the like.
Luann: “Begetting issues”? Bwad’s first step toward dealing with his and Toni’s fertility problems is to address their hypothetical offspring as if they were a Biblical figure.
MW: Not surprisingly, Tommy has been told to “take a long walk off a short pier.” Somehow it started a fitness regimen.
RMMD: If these two biddies have the time to stand around gossiping I’m not convinced it’s really as busy as all that.
6C: Hot yogurt just sounds nasty, but the other option was “hot Yoda”, and that wouldn’t have been an improvement.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
#99 FG: so Tolkien may have been influenced by, if not directly copied from, FG, which in turn may have been based on Italian gangstas. What a small world full of maybes.
Dirk Twacy Hollistic Defective: How exactly does the MCU calculate “too many civilians”?
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: No, again it’s the other way around. Quoting from
https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/BlackHoles/fall_in.html
The time I experience before I hit the event horizon, and even until I hit the singularity—the “proper time” calculated by using Schwarzschild’s metric on my worldline—is finite. The same goes for the collapsing star; if I somehow stood on the surface of the star as it became a black hole, I would experience the star’s demise in a finite time…
…
A more physical sense in which it might be said that things take forever to fall in is provided by looking at the paths of emerging light rays. The event horizon is what, in relativity parlance, is called a “lightlike surface”; light rays can remain there. For an ideal Schwarzschild hole (which I am considering in this paragraph) the horizon lasts forever, so the light can stay there without escaping.
…
So if you, watching from a safe distance, attempt to witness my fall into the hole, you’ll see me fall more and more slowly as the light delay increases. You’ll never see me actually get to the event horizon. My watch, to you, will tick more and more slowly, but will never reach the time that I see as I fall into the black hole. Notice that this is really an optical effect caused by the paths of the light rays.
Crank would experience a finite time, you would see his light frozen (well, redshifted and dimming) at the event horizon.
The article also notes the characteristics of black holes that would kill you before / after the event horizon and yes they’re all ripped to shreds in that backyard.
Dirk Twacy Hollistic Defective 2: “The Gang is fleeing forward!” Underarm shooting cop:”….And Leon’s pits are getting sweaty!”
I come for the comics snark; I stay for the black hole discussions that don’t involve the word “ass.”
Archie: George Harrison voice: “It’s been done.”
@Activist: It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
Luann: The fertility specialist is going to recommend that Brad tie a number two pencil to his dick in order to maintain some semblance of an erection. Toni wistfully remembers her years with Dirk, who was able to stay hard for more than a few minutes.
@Activist: It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
Luann: The fertility physician is going to recommend that Brad tie a number two pencil to his dick in order to maintain some semblance of an erection. Toni wistfully remembers the years with Dirk, who was able to stay hard for more than a few minutes.
Six Checks And A Cat Named Make Me One With Everything In Search Of A Punchline: “Came for the hot yogurt, melted into the floor because of the hot acid.”
@GarrisonSkunk: You know, the Jefferson Airplane did the same thing in Manhattan, two years earlier.
The quality of the live performance is not as high as the London concert, probably because they didn’t have a Sir Paul type in the band to slap the LSD out of their mouths.
CS: Ed jumps into the black hole and winds up on Arrakis but he’s far too much an asshole for the Harrkonens.
I got a double-header at 138/139 because I copied the text, altered the forbidden “spec1alist*,” reposted, and deleted the first post. Josh and Uncle Lumpy put it back, making me look like a total wanker. They are just too darned efficient tonight.
*Ironic for a wisecrack about erections, huh? Anyway, the Airplane clip at 141 is great, if you enjoy hippies.
@GarrisonSkunk: And he goes on picnics with his buddy, Al Fresco.
(In case you really want to know, the character’s name in the English-language version is Admiral Asterbloom, but everyone just calls him The Admiral. In the Spanish-language version he’s called “Trinquete,” which translates as “ratchet.” I have no idea why they picked that.)
@komentues tipik: “You get a COTW!!” “YOU get A COTW!!” “EVERYONE GETS A COTW!!”
@Rube:
Depends on how desperate the recruiter (who are Sergeants -on-up, this Lcpl. Fox thing is ridiculous) is to hit his quota, I suppose. They will really shove some sorry shit onto that bus, I fear.
@GarrisonSkunk: The irony is, since a later comic, Jughead’s the only one of the gang who knows that Sabrina is a witch.
@Philip: Hopefully Hagar the Horrible will use Crankshaft as cannon fodder on a raid.
@Baja Gaijin:
I’m afraid I’ll have to confiscate that tray of “hot dog cheesies.” They’re…uh…filled with evil spirits. This six pack of Miller High Life and I need to go, like, perform an exorcism on them. The jar of Grey Poupon? Totally helps for exorcisms.
@Professor Well Actually: He who controls the comic books controls the universe.
@Baja Gaijin: There’s a restaurant near me where the whole menu is grilled cheese sandwiches. I could totally see them doing those sandwiches, though to justify the price they’d do something like wild boar sausages and smoked gouda on Texas toast.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Re: C-Shaft: Yeah we all know that Batiuk is a cook-tease.
@Ken:
To be fair, anybody selling wild boar sausage/smoked gouda texas toast grilled cheese would most definitely be getting some of my money
@Peanut Gallery: In the original Belgian editions of the Tintin books, Thomson and Thompson are called “Dupont et Dupond.” In the German translations, they are “Schulze und Schultze.” All pronounced the same, minor spelling difference.
Sorry if I posted this information here before; I just think it’s cool.
Is anyone else having trouble with Comics Kingdom? I don’t always want to look at comics ahead of time, but I pays my money so I will be able to know I can. But today I can’t. WTF.
GIL THORP: Gil: “Beth, what’s wrong?”
Beth: (hysterically sobbing as copious amounts of tears cascade from her eyes like a waterfall) “Turning into a anime character didn’t make me more kawaii!”
Gotta feel sorry for for the cast here. The creators are desperately trying to find some gimmick that would make these characters attractive or even just presentable in any way.. They tried Japanimation pandering, they tried shameless fanservice with Beth’s skankalicious wedding dress/teddie. Nothing is clicking here!
@A Grave Mind: The Yankee Doodle Coffee Shop, a counter restaurant in New Haven, Connecticut (12 whole stools!), served a frankfurter wrapped in white American cheese and toast with a pepper relish. I had them a couple times, but really couldn’t resist ordering their cheeseburgers.
The Doodle closed in January, 2008, just 8 months before our daughter, Little Pianola, matriculated. Poor baby.
LUANN: This isn’t a little bit creepy, not at all. No.
MT: Please let the gorilla sanctuary be as fake as the characters, because if Mark actually believes that a gorilla sanctuary could exist without ginormous money and a large staff and complex facilities, when in fact there isn’t a single gorilla sanctuary in this nation, he really is dumber than a box of rocks. With apologies to the rocks.
CRANKSHAFT: At least it’s not a gardening story. That’s what I tell myself.
MW: Boy, I really am old. I can’t even carry on a smooth easy conversation when I’m doing a fast walk, let alone a run.
JP: Alan has almost caught up with Shannon and Crankshaft as the comic strip characters who would be the most awful to find sitting next to me during air travel.
@Poteet: For the most part I use the Seattle Times site for CK strips, so I haven’t had much to do with the Kingdom site for a while.
@Ukulele Ike:
Heard of the place. Jealous, for the dogs OR the burgers.
Side note, I looked up the actual official recipe here – and it calls for BOILED hot dogs. That shit has gotta go. Hot dogs have no place in a microwave, and should never be boiled. Pretty much anything else is okay, anybody with me here?
@Poteet:
She’s from an infinitely superior comic, but Lucy from Peanuts gotta be somewhere on that list.
@Baja Gaijin:
Baja, those would be impossible today as sides of bread connected with a toothpick. Those lethal items are outlawed today. (Socially)
@A Grave Mind: I find that most sausages — hot dogs included — are best when placed in a 350 oven, and roasted until done. I do this when making one or two sausages, rather than firing up a grill.
Wrap a couple of rolls in foil, set the sausages on top, and you end up with soft toasty rolls and lovely crispy sausages. Flip once.
Raw sausages like Italian and bratwurst obviously need more time, ten minutes on a side.
@Ukulele Ike:
Never timed it for dogs, I just go by look, but I’m big on the broiler, if I can’t grill ’em. Which I can’t. Pan cook works too. All of this, obviously, would require more thought in the face of cooking a raw sausage, but, well, that’s another article.
@149 A Grave Mind: SNERK!
@151 Ken: I’ve seen macaroni-and-cheese only restaurants. I don’t understand.
@163 A Grave Mind: Did you read all the way through the recipe? The dogs get broiled after being boiled. And no, I’m not with you. As long as they’re hot, weenies are fine. Fine eatin’ they ain’t.
@165 Activist: Oooh, I didn’t notice the one sandwich with a toothpick. Definitely a choking hazard.
@166 Ukulele Ike: I can tell you this: your recipe will NOT be a Late Thread Cuisine. Period.
@Baja Gaijin:
These restaurants appeal to people who have trouble deciding what to order. Once they’ve chosen the restaurant, they know what they’re going to eat.
Then they walk up to the counter and see that there are three basic mac-and-cheese types and eight different toppings you can add to them, meaning that there are 768 possible ways to order…
@Ukulele Ike: #141: I was wondering if anyone here would mention the Airplane in NYC (pre-Beatles). They didm’t get very far in their set: “House at Pooneil Corners” & then the cops showed up. It was cold there, too. Acid? always should be mentioned
@Artist formerly known as Ben: Thank you very much for responding. A notice has now appeared on the Kingdom website, announcing (approximately) that maintenance is being done to fix site issues and the site should soon be back to normal and thanks for patience. Hope! I’ll take it.
@A Grave Mind: Good point, and Lucy is on the list. For now, for me, there are many ahead of her, including TJ from LUANN, any of the “bros” from MARK TRAIL, and Wilbur, from hell.
@brendancalling: Dude, do NOT fuck Dawn.
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Tony Orlando will kill you!