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Crankshaft, 3/4/12

I’m always intrigued by the precise relationship between Crankshaft and its mother strip, Funky Winkerbean — not so much in terms of characters in common or mismatched chronology, but in tone. What thematic elements do they share, and what distinguishes them? Take this Sunday installment. All the old people are sitting around, talking in terms of mounting panic about the death of everyone they know, a fate that will find them soon enough. That’s basic Funkyverse fare. Then you get a dumb and tactless pun about the situation — also Funky-standard. But Crankshaft being a sullen, humorless jerk when he gets his pun taken away from him? That’s the Crankshaft value-add!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/4/12

Sorry, boys, nobody’s allowed to leave Hootin’ Holler! Loweezy’s doing you a favor: if you had managed to pilot your makeshift aircraft over the barbed wire fence, you just would have been shot by the guards.

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Ziggy, 2/28/12

That’s true, Ziggy! It’s also true that sometimes that door is an inky black portal radiating evil so powerful that it somehow, incomprehensibly, casts a shadow, and that it doesn’t lead to opportunity so much as to an awful hell-dimension full of soul-devouring demons. KNOCK. KNOCK.

Pluggers, 2/28/12

Pluggers know that if things really get bad, well, old Jed down at the pawn shop has a pair of pliers, and a few hours of pain should pay the rent for another month or two.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/28/12

Did you know that “druthers,” as in “If I had my druthers, the characters in Barney Google and Snuffy Smith would keep their tongues in their mouths instead of letting them flap about obscenely,” is actually a contraction of “I’d rather”? It’s true! Today’s Snuffy Smith sent me on an etymological voyage of discovery, which is a sentence that I’m pretty sure has never been written before and will never be written again.

Six Chix, 2/28/12

Aw, that bluebird looks awfully sad! Probably because the squirrel has just told it, in so many words, that it’s going to starve to death.

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Hi and Lois, 2/27/12

I was going to write some joke about Hi casting a loving glance over his shoulder at the TV set, reenforcing Dot’s claim that this soulless hunk of electronics has become a beloved family member by filling the Flagstons’ dull lives with hours of mind-numbing entertainment, but then I noticed that OH MY GOD HI HAS NO LEFT HAND! We’ll probably never know what sort of awful accident or assault or disease resulted in this mutilation, but it’s likely that Lois’s sudden desire for everyone to eat together at the dining room table is a misguided response to her husband’s trauma, as if she hopes that seeing his loved ones smiling at him will make him feel whole. But follow his eyes: he wants nothing more than to just sit on the couch and let reality TV wash over him and forget, forget whatever happened to him. The fact that somebody set the table so that his fork is on the left side of his plate can’t be helping his mood at all.

Notice that one of the framed pictures on the wall is of Charlie Brown and Snoopy! It’s a nice little tribute to a classic strip than ran for 50 years and never once forgot to Photoshop a hand on the end of its main character’s arm.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/27/12

“Haw haw! But seriously, sheriff, th’ hovels in Hootin’ Holler are all poorly constructed an’ cain’t keep out the cold! Is there anything in yore platform that would help us? Or d’you believe the gummint only exists to punish its poor citizens in yore jail, and never t’ help ’em?”

Gil Thorp, 2/27/12

I can’t help but notice that failure loser chump Ric DeVore is entirely tattoo free. Just another example of how misguided Gil’s anti-Milford Ink crusade is!

Archie, 2/27/12

“It’s the screaming, Arch. I can handle the fountains of blood, the writhing, the look of terror and agony in my patients’ eyes. But for some reason it’s the screaming that gets to me.”