Cancer and the Funkyverse (not together, for once)
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/7/13
I feel like I’m not lavishing as much attention on the story of the Party House With A Heart Of Gold and the Possibly Suicidal Cancer-Stricken Stripper in Rex Morgan as I should, but it turns out that tales of uninsured possibly suicidal cancer-stricken people are … actually kind of depressing? Still, my heart is buoyed by Rex’s palpable scheming in panel three. A magical pregnancy-predicting cancer-stricken stripper, eh? This sounds like something Rex can monetize for his clinic!
Funky Winkerbean, 2/7/13
Speaking of depressing stories about cancer, remember back in 2007 (side note: ugh, I am old) when Lisa was dying of cancer in Funky Winkerbean, and one of the questions was whether Darrin, the son she gave up for adoption, would meet his biological mother before she died, but also Darrin was courting Jessica, and she looked an awful lot like him, there were certain suspicions that they may have shared some biological parentage? Well, that turned out to be not the case, but even though this lady is actually his half-sister, not his stepsister, and is related to him via his adopted parents so there’s no genetic overlap, I still admit to being 100% squicked out that she put her hand on his knee in panel two.
Archie, 2/7/13
As is true for a lot of everyman viewpoint characters, Archie’s personality is actually not all that fleshed out, but if I had to describe it I guess I’d say he’s kind of feckless and oversexed. I certainly don’t think of him as being a fanatical athlete of any sort, nor as someone willing to risk exacerbating an injury when he could be hanging out at the ski lodge hitting on girls. Perhaps this is part of his class anxiety vis-a-vis Veronica’s family? Or perhaps the Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000, in attempting to parse the human humor genre known as “slapstick,” has decided that if we’ll laugh at the antics of the Three Stooges or Looney Tunes characters, surely we’ll enjoy the thought of a teen boy flying down the slopes, teeth gritted in pain as his tendons tear horribly beyond repair.
Crankshaft, 2/7/13
Speaking of slapstick, some years ago Crankshaft introduced some loathsome yuppie neighbors who were even less likable than the strip’s title character, presumably so we’d laugh when Crankshaft attempted to physically assault them.
Shoe, 2/7/13
THEY’RE BIRDS ALL THESE CHARACTERS ARE BIRDS AND THEY’RE CRACKING WISE ABOUT A COMPANY THAT SLAUGHTERS BIRDS AND PROCESSES THEM INTO FOODSTUFF
THIS IS MONSTROUS BEYOND DESCRIPTION