Monday glimmers of joy
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Crankshaft, 8/10/26
You know how when you’ve been experiencing pain for a while so it’s become just kind of background radiation in your life, when it abates the absence of sensation feels actively pleasurable? That’s what I’m assuming is happening here: Pam had instinctively steeled herself to receive some gibberish pun-like utterance from her father, but then he just said some mostly coherent dribble of Chicken Soup for the Soul, and now she’s positively beaming about it. Obviously this is even less of a “punchline” than you usually get in this strip, but maybe reading one of the only Funkyverse strips ever where everybody involved is more or less happy is its own reward.
Alice, 8/10/26
I’m assuming we’re supposed to understand “The Marketplace” as Amazon or eBay or Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or something, but maybe Alice’s boyfriend is talking about, like, the marketplace as an abstract concept? Maybe Alice has crafted the perfect computer virus that’s going to destroy capitalism, and she just has to do “one more thing” to end all forms of buying and selling, forever.
Mary Worth, 8/10/26
Here’s a thing about Wilbur: he could’ve been fucking your mom for years and that wouldn’t make you his friend. You’ve got to go out for ice cream with him and conspicuously not mention the fact that he got a triple scoop and it’s melting all over everything to earn that status!
29 replies to “Monday glimmers of joy”
Mary Worth Mashups: Do any of the Missing Final Panels do anything for you?
Alice: I suppose Alice is finishing her purchase of the Columbo: The Complete Series Blu-Ray boxed set?
Crankshaft:
“Especially a hard — hic! — lemonade!”
JP: Yup, just as I suspected. Look at the fearful, apprehensive look on the raspberry-haired brat’s face. This ain’t CIApril, the only question now is whether we’re going to spend 1-2 weeks arguing about it, or if NotCIApril is just going to go all stabby-stabby tomorrow and leave Sophie for dead in the woods.
Ph1: You mean to tell me that with all the BRATATATATATATA-ing and ‘splosions that only *two* of the expendable natives died?
Ph2: Wait… ‘The trail starts here?’ The ‘trail’ started back in Guantanamo when Schmelon Schmusk was given No-mad No-Service on a silver platter to make his own personal remake of ‘The Toy’ with Richard Pryor. You mean to tell me that was all *PROLOGUE*?!
Mary Worth:
Why is it that all foodstuffs on display in Santa Royale shop windows appear to be floating in zero gravity?
Alice: Alice is done with the sexual marketplace (she has a steady boyfriend) after she just does one more thing (a huge orgy).
Alice I don’t know why, but I assumed that ‘The Market Place’ was dating apps, and that Alice had just one more depraved act to fulfill before closing her accounts.
MW Love how Wilbur is talking into his ice cream like a microphone, taking little licks between each word he says like the worlds fattest hummingbird
JP: And another thing! Why in the world would NotCIApril make a big show of cheerily calling Neddy being all fake happy and ‘everything’s all good now!’ when the one thing *everyone* knows about CIApril is that she’s pissy, sullen and never, ever, *ever* smiles? This was clearly meant to be a covert snatch out of the woods, and she blew her cover before things ever got started! CIA Boss NotAmanda Waller is going to be even more pissed than usual!
CS: This is too nice, what horrible tragedy is going to befall our characters tomorrow? C’mon, Batiuk, you must be turning blue in the face trying not to tell us!
Mary Worth:
“C’mon, kids! — let’s polish off these cones and all go play a game of ‘Twister’ !”
CRANK: Ed’s benevolence is because he’s just wet himself and is enjoying the relief.
RMMD: By having knowledge of and remaining silent about a kidnapping, Jimmy-Rene could face additional charges. Jimmy-Rene doesn’t want additional charges. The Morgans are going to get a call from the prison; “Watch your @#$% kids!”
H&L: The vibe of Shark Week is not ordinarily existential angst, but hey, you do you.
MW: Tommy’s mother is going to be less than thrilled to learn that he’s now on Team Wilbur, and that future holiday celebrations have altered a bit.
Dawn and Wilbur and Tommy are so happy! It hurts my very soul.
I am hoping beyond hope that Tommy takes Wilbur 100% literally for the rest of either of their lives. “Thanks for inviting me to the barbeque, ‘Wilbur.’ I hope I brought enough caffeine-free diet Pepsi for everyone, ‘Wilbur’. Can I get you some more potato salad, ‘Wilbur’?!” My guess is that Mr. Weston-if-you’re-nasty will be hitting the streets within a day and a half. “Now, what was it he was on? Math? Do the 27-year-old kids snort math these days?”
Crankshaft: “A summer porch isn’t a porch until you’re holding a lemonade! Before that it’s a deck, at best. I don’t know what you have to drink to make it a veranda.”
MW, panel 2: None of these people know how to eat an ice cream cone, do they? Wilbur is rubbing the ice cream over his chin, Tommy is going in for the slightly-open-mouth kiss, and Dawn has blanked out and doesn’t even remember what she’s holding.
Alice:
Alice is of course a weird strip, but I think what weirds me out the most about this particular installment is that the two halves of Alice’s laptop are different lengths.
MW – Oh God, is this ever going to stop?
RMMD – Oh God, is this ever going to stop?
Phantom – Oh God, is this ever going to stop?
GT This is the junior coach who was propped up as a bridesmaid so that Beth could appear to have friends, right? Did we know she had a wife before? Uh oh, the Characterization Fairy cast the wedding’s reward-for-being-a-Thorp spell on the *wrong* woman and Beth is still wandering about wondering if she gets to have anything other than a desire for Gil, not even realizing she freezes, staring into space whenever there’s no main character in the room with her.
GT, panel 4: “And the next thing I know, your honor, we’re all naked covered in Miracle Whip, I’m wearing clown makeup, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack is on, and the police handcuffing me. It wasn’t even fun.”
MW: Why is Wilbur holding his ice cream in some sort of circus strongman pose? Is he having another Wilburman fantasy in which he saves Tommy from a froyo monster than uses a crack pipe as a cone?
Crank – A lemonade doesn’t have enough vodka until you piss your pants….
Alice – Why not switch things up – plenty of cyberporn out there….
MW – …and I’ll call you TT – Tommie Tweaker….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
I like the little detail of Wilbur standing in the ass-out pose (made famous by a certain orange man) that people completely without self-awareness think makes them look less fat. He must be feeling extremely strong and virile today. After all, isn’t it such a heroic feat to extend some basic compassion to a fellow recovering addict?
A lemonade instead of a beer? Crankshaft being an effete East Coast liberal was not on my bingo card.
***
“Okay! Thank you, Wilbur Tommy.”
MW-“After all you’re among friends with benefits if you know what I mean.”
I think Alice is unique. When other comic strips falter, I might wonder, “What was that about?” Alice forces me to ask, “Was that about anything?”
C’shaft: It’s not Harry Dinkle, Batton Thomas, terrible wordplay, self-indulgent nostalgia or callous destruction. In other words, this may well be the best Crankshaft strip ever.
MW: I can think of few things to make a person turn to drugs faster than having Wilbur Weston call you his friend.
Crankshaft : I’m wishing that Batiuk honors the anniversary of something that happened nine years ago. Heck, considering the actual date falls on a friday, just spend the entire week with Pam and Cranky enjoying their lemonade until Jeff runs in and tells them what they’ve actually been drinking this entire time.
@Mr. A: I think it would be a mint julep, but you also have to dress up like Colonel Sanders to get the full effect.
Bona Fide Surprise Endings
– FRAZZ: Yep, important to see both what does and what doesn’t exist.
– JUMP START: how quickly the honorable fall
– 6 Cx: me, on a good day.
JP: get over yourself, Mom. Thankfully, Soph has Ned as a support line.
Dawn’s ice cream cone looks like it was made from the algae sludge of the Reflecting Pool.