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Shoe, 5/20/15

If you’re like, me you saw the Perfesser’s statement that he attended a “1950s sock hop” and immediately thought, “Have the bird-men of Shoe invented time travel, and do they use it to travel back to enjoy the innocent entertainments of simpler eras?” But the answer is clearly no, as obviously the Perfesser wouldn’t have phone service in the days before the deployment of modern wireless networks. So instead, we’ll have to console ourselves with the deliciously depressing story of the evening that we can derive from this strip: the Perfesser, having finally worked up the energy to leave behind another grim night at home, went out for a social event with fellow bird-nostalgists, only to be overcome with social anxiety at the thought of actually interacting with others; he thus spent the whole evening staring at his phone screen, with eventually disastrous results.

Heathcliff, 5/20/15

Hmm, how many SynergyPoints™ should we award today’s Avengers-themed Heathcliff? Well, we should deduct some for the fact that it was published nearly three weeks after the movie debuted, but perhaps add some back because the colorists correctly did up Heathcliff in Hulk green despite the absence of explicit color or even name cues in the caption text.

Archie, 5/20/15

OK, Newspaper Archie, we know you’re just slumming it here on the comics pages and most of your money comes from those Double Digests on sale at supermarket checkout aisles around the country, but that doesn’t mean you have to be rude about the genre.

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Funky Winkerbean, 5/5/15

I vaguely remembered that this “band box” business has been in the strip before, though I’ve apparently never discussed it on my site. A little Google searching to try to find out more led to a pretty horrifying discovery, though: Luigi’s is a real pizza place in Akron, Ohio, and it’s not only the model for Montoni’s but actually boasts about that on its web site. Luigi’s mentions the band box on its site, but for a picture, you need to go to the Funky Winkerbean Wikipedia page, where it’s under the “comic book connections” heading, for some reason. Anyway, the band box presumably plays old-timey music, and it’s probably gotten more and more wobbly and off key over the years as Funky has desperately tried to keep its archaic mechanisms functioning. Just imagine its tinny, irritating background music adding another layer of unpleasantness to your visit to Westview’s Only Viable Business™! Do you think Funky can get it to play mariachi music for people to listen to while they eat their Cinco de Mayo pizza special? (The Cinco de Mayo pizza special is a pepperoni pizza with a jar of store-brand salsa dumped on top of it, or maybe a jar of store-brand mayonnaise.)

Mary Worth, 5/5/15

“I must’ve seemed like a stalker! You know, the way I tracked you down, years after our relationship ended acrimoniously, once I decided to win you back at all costs, and then I found out where you lived without asking you, and then rented an apartment there, and showed up right outside your door with no warning! Just doing the sort of things that stalkers do! I must’ve really seemed like one! I didn’t plan on coming on so strong! It was just a powerful reaction that I couldn’t or wouldn’t control!”

“And I didn’t plan on being so emotional! I should’ve been more rational. Methodical. Say, let’s drive far into the woods where nobody can hear you scream, shall we?”

Archie, 5/5/15

How are you celebrating National Cartoonists Day, everybody? Cartoonists are celebrating National Cartoonists Day by drawing their favorite characters having hot three-way makeouts. Some of them are even getting those drawings published!

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Apartment 3-G, 3/30/15

I’m reasonably sure that we haven’t met Carla before, but I assume from context that this latest Apartment 3-G character who looks kind of like, but is not, Lu Ann is Margo’s assistant? Anyway, the hand that Carla is gently resting on Margo’s collarbone rekindles prospects of Margo/Margo’s assistant sexytimes for all of us who finally gave up on the Sargo pairing. “You don’t have to demean me … but you could, if you wanted to as part of consensual dom/sub workplace roleplay.” Either that or Carla’s about to strangle her, one of the two.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/30/15

Speaking of workplace dominance, I am getting more excited about Nurse Carter’s apocalyptic arrival on the Morgan clinic scene by the day. “Yeah, I spent years in the DESERT getting HUMAN BLOOD all over me when I was UP TO MY ELBOWS in the GUTS of young people who got BLOWN UP for your FREEDOM to not use a FUCKING NAPKIN when you eat a SANDWICH, so we’re cool, don’t worry about it.”

Archie, 3/30/15

Man, Jughead sure looks awfully smug in that final panel. “Haha, this sure is a savage zinger that I didn’t even dare speak aloud, even though I’m miles away from the school cafeteria and its staff. I’m dying, bit by bit!”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/30/15

Hey, are you vaguely aware of bitcoin, the distributed cryptocurrency that very few people care about but the ones who do care about it care about it a lot and won’t shut up about it? Were you wondering when it would stop being a thing? Well, good news, it’s a punchline in Snuffy Smith, so I’m pretty sure it’s officially not a thing anymore.

Crankshaft, 3/30/15

In today’s Crankshaft, Crankshaft’s saddest friend has a flat tire! That’s … the joke?