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Family Circus, 10/29/13

You can criticize the Mommy and Daddy’s decision to keep the Keane Kids forever bottled up in the Keane Kompound, with the resulting stunting of their psychological, intellectual, and physical development obvious in every Family Circus panel. Still, you have to marvel at how even in their stunted circumstances, their imaginations soar. Sure, they’ve been denied contact with any biological texts outside of Genesis 2:20, but that hasn’t stopped them from coming up with their own charming and whimsical explanations for what they observe of the natural world. What would their parents say if they could hear their precious children’s simple just-so story? Probably it would involve scouring the Kompound for hidden radios to try to stop any further knowledge of “Halloween” reaching the children.

Funky Winkerbean and Pluggers, 10/29/13

Haha, it’s Tuesday a day of a week, so here’s a couple of comic strips making ham-handed jokes about Facebook! Rachel (her name’s Rachel, right? it’s actually remarkably difficult to find a complete list of Funky Winkerbean characters online) is trying to engage Funky on how he’s coping with Cory, his disappointment of a son (stepson? I’m honestly kind of pleased with my inability to pull up Funkyfacts from memory), being deployed in Afghanistan. As you can tell from Funky’s disgusted facial expression, he doesn’t want to talk about it! Yesterday he claimed that he’s never been on Facebook because “I’m an adult” (fun fact: the average age of a Facebook user is 41). Today he expressionlessly make a joyless sup-pun about how Skype, another technology he can’t be bothered to deal with, allows soldiers in a war zone to still feel connected to loved ones back home, and perhaps hold onto a little bit of their sanity. As long as those loved ones aren’t Funky Winkerbean, anyway! Funky has no desire to learn about fancy screen-phone whosits. Funky is also incapable of feeling affection for another human being, so what would the point of talking to him even be.

Pluggers, in its typical way, is taking a much simpler route to a laff. Whether you’re talking about a scary “web site” on the computer thingie that we guess we have to look at if we want to see the grandkids’ pictures now, or an actual physical book written by nerdlingers who think they’re smarter than us, “facebook” makes us sleepy! Zzzzz.

Archie, 10/29/13

How terrifying must it be to be poor, simple Archie Andrews? Imagine being so acutely aware of your own intellectual limitations that you live in constant terror of your mind being erased by some awful cerebral event, but too dumb to know what what such an event might feel or sound like!

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Archie, 9/28/13

“You’re the governor. And the governor belongs in the governor’s house. Or, as most people call it, the governor’s ‘mansion.’ I mean, it’s a pretty big place. Why undersell it? It’s also in Albany, which, I can’t emphasize enough, is hundreds of miles and several hours of driving away from New York City, which is where this strip ostensibly takes place. So probably you couldn’t get there tonight anyway. So why not stay here, sure, whatever, fine, I guess. Don’t you have a girlfriend? No, never mind, I don’t want to know.”

Blondie, 9/28/13

“And by ‘all of the sudden’ I mean ‘for the entire time this strip’s been around, even though I’m really only noticing it now.’ Jesus, are those antenna? Are you even human?”

Archie, 9/28/13

Pop’s outdoor cafe strategy includes some serious fire safety code violations

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Lockhorns, 9/27/13

This isn’t the first time that Loretta and Leroy have gone to see one of the Twilight films, but it’s always jarring and delightful when a smidgen of contemporary pop culture forces its way into the Lockhorns’ eternal 1962, isn’t it? I am also 100% in love with the fake Twilight poster hanging up at the Lockhorns’ local cinema. It reimagines Robert Pattinson’s dull, pasty visage as the brooding face of a proper Weimar-era expressionist vampire. And the graphic design! Doesn’t the striking image of the undead fiend’s face floating over the single word “TWILIGHT” have a million times more impact than, say, this piece of overbusy airbrushed garbage? Kudos, Lockhorns, for daring to imagine a better world than ours.

Mary Worth, 9/27/13

“The specific reason is that I have no friends and no life and writing advice to people desperate enough to send me letters is literally the only thing that gives my existence the barest shred of meaning! Uh, I guess I sort of covered that earlier, but that’s the much more specific version.”

Family Circus, 9/27/13

“I mean, he’s a competent adult and he could just learn how to cook properly, but I guess he figures that if he does, that’ll undermine the whole patriarchal structure that gives him power. So, your parents abandoned you at the world’s dullest mall kiosk too, huh?”

Shoe, 9/27/13

Huh, had it been established in this strip that the Perfesser’s mother is still alive? I guess it never hurts to introduce a new character in order to set up a hilarious joke! In this case, the joke is that an old man dropped dead during a social event for senior citizens, which probably cast a real pall over the rest of the evening.

Archie, 9/27/13

Meanwhile, the streets of Riverdale are haunted by roving packs of vicious feral dogs.