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Crankshaft, 8/23/11

One aspect of the Funkyverse that is correctly only dwelled upon by a limited number of comics obsessives involves the question of intra-universe chronological continuity: what happened to Crankshaft when Funky Winkerbean jumped forward 10 years? I say “correctly” because really the timelines of all non-Doonesbury non-FBOFW comics, which generally run for years and years and yet the characters never get any older, is totally mucked up, so really, there’s no point in dwelling on it. The fact that the Funkyverse strips are permitted by a morally bankrupt comics industry and a loving God to continue spreading soul-killing gloom via the last few remaining newspapers is a Funkyverse dilemma that is incorrectly only dwelled upon by a limited number of comics obsessives, but that’s neither here nor there.

ANYWAY, for those of you who care, today’s Crankshaft confirms what we’ve all suspected, which is that Crankshaft’s universe never got time-jumped, and so the action in his strip is taking place about a decade before the current mopery in Funky Winkerbean. Here we see future Les romance victim Cayla, still sporting an Afro and still probably capable of experiencing joy. What event in the next decade will reduce her to the straight-haired, Les-proposal-accepting broken shell of a human that she is to become? Will it be because of something terrible Crankshaft is about to say to her this week? Yes, let’s go with that, it seems like a pretty safe assumption.

Spider-Man, 8/23/11

Another thing that’s only of interest to comics obsessives: changes in comics lettering style. More often than not this indicates that one of the dwindling number of holdouts who still hand-letter their strips have finally given up and start using a computer font. You can spend a bit of money and get a font based on your own handwriting that is almost indistinguishable from it, or you can make like Spider-Man and use the font that’s one step up from Comic Sans. Today our cyberletterer clearly was having so much fun playing with italics and bolded italics that they neglected that other great digital advance, the spellchecker, which probably would have helpfully noted that “copsin” is not a word in standard English.

Archie, 8/23/11

I actually completely love the middle two panels of this strip; Archie and Reggie’s mirrored angry faces together make a minor pop art masterpiece. The same could not be said for the hideous shirt that’s the source of the disagreement, which lends the whole dispute a certain air of absurdity.

Gil Thorp, 8/23/11

Guys, if you don’t find Kenny’s “‘Course not, mom. You were bombed!” response to his weeping, emotionally shattered mother hilarious, then I’m not sure if we can be friends anymore.

Marvin, 8/23/11

At last, the strategy behind Marvin’s constantly filthiness is revealed! By establishing an ever-expanding sphere of poop-stench centered on his person, he is marking his personal space.

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Mary Worth, 8/19/11

Gruesome mob-related killing, everyone! That … that’s why Gina can’t truly love? Because of the mob? Not because of some kind of freak skateboard accident or anything. Mobsters! This is … I gotta say, it’s pretty disappointing. I admit that for most of my life if you had said to me “gruesome mob killing in Mary Worth!” I’d have been intrigued, but the strip already did a drive-by killing last year, and frankly it needs to up its weirdness quotient if it intends to keep my attention. Are you sure there wasn’t any synchronized skateboarding involved in this gruesome mob killing, Gina?

Archie, 8/19/11

I’ve always kind of enjoyed the comics convention whereby flying droplets of sweat represent a character’s surprise/bafflement/disbelief (at least in non-Cathy contexts). The fact that Betty is completely out of our field of vision, leaving only her three sweatballs to fly into the frame in the final panel to indicate her bemusement, charms me all the more.

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Gil Thorp, 7/27/11

Hey, everyone, in case you were wondering, Gil Thorp hasn’t been cancelled or anything. Due to my extreme displeasure at the second summer in a row featuring a shenanigan-free golf plot, I refuse to do even a cursory job summarizing the storyline for you, but I do want to point out with icy disdain the “FOOZLE!” in panel two. Can you imagine any circumstance under which hitting a golf ball would result in a noise that sounds even remotely like “FOOZLE”? No, of course you can’t, other than maybe Dr. Scavuzzo has a special wacky trick club that emits hilarious vaudeville noises. Gil Thorp, we want our insane summer plot! We will not be bought off by supposedly zany sound effects.

Mary Worth, 7/27/11

Potential reasons why our waitress is flabbergasted at Mary’s very mild health-based oversharing:

• “Oh, no, we don’t have anything even remotely healthy on our menu! Even the salad is garnished with fried onion rings and lard-flavored dressing! Literally anything I serve to this woman will kill her right here in the booth!”
• “Wait, I wasn’t listening to anything she said until the very end. ‘Dodged a bullet?’ Is this seemingly feeble old woman a ninja with superhuman powers?”
• “Hey, it’s that jerk Mary Worth, who meddled in my affairs a few years back and ruined my life!”

Archie, 7/27/11

Of course we all know that Jughead loves a good hot dog, but now we’re discovering just how much: take one from him and in his rage he’ll commit genocide.