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Between Friends, 9/22/21

I’ve been reading and very occasionally commenting on Between Friends for a while now, and I absolutely get and accept that the titular “friends” are all women, and their jobs are extremely ill-defined white collar work of some kind, so I definitely shouldn’t expect to know what their husbands/boyfriends, who are definitely the strip’s supporting characters, do for a living. And yet I could not help but be very intrigued by what appears very much to be a coffin behind Susan’s husband in the background of panel one. That looks a lot like a coffin, right? Or, it could be something else (a closed grill, maybe?) and the colorist just thought it looked like a coffin, possibly because Susan’s husband is wearing a black suit with a pocket square and if he’s not an undertaker but just some guy standing near a grill outside during the workday, well, why is he dressed like that? Anyway, I certainly hope there’s a grieving family standing just out of frame, staring at him in increasing agitation as he loudly makes his evening plans.

Gil Thorp, 9/22/21

Good lord, Heather, reporting on Milford games on Twitter so that people can read about them as they happen instead of waiting for tomorrow’s afternoon edition to arrive on their doorstep is one thing, but are you really walking away from Coach Thorp while he’s mid-sentence to talk to one of the children who play for him? Looks like you’re about to make a powerful enemy (Coach Thorp), and just as the Hapsburgs made the seemingly unthinkable decision to ally with Bourbon France in the aftermath of the War of the Austrian Succession, so to will Gil make peace with his hereditary enemy (Marty Moon) to restore the high school sports-local media balance of power.

Barney Google, 9/22/21

Just a reminder that, canonically, Snuffy’s dad was asleep for decades (?) in the woods in a comical Rip Van Winkle-style situation, so who even knows what’s going on inside his body! Pretty weird stuff, I bet!

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Oh my gosh it’s the last day of the 2021 Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser! Hurry!

And remember, there’s no Comment of the Week on my watch—look for an extra helping from Josh next Friday.

Mary Worth, 9/3/21

Wilbur canonically has exactly four hairs in his combover, never one more nor fewer. But his rage over %$#@! cat Libby’s shocking disrespect has released a flood of hair-sprouting testosterone, and now he can’t get enough. As if caught in a terrible Jason Statham movie, he must now keep the rage alive, until at last he stands utterly alone but glorious in his ’80’s arena-rock hirsute majesty.

Gil Thorp, 9/3/21

That’s it? Gil Thorp‘s legendary reporter Marjie Ducey says “Oops, I wanna retire!” and in comes this usurper and that’s it? What am I supposed to do with my Marjie Ducey is Gil Thorp’s Side-Piece fanfic now, huh?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/3/21

Uh-oh, looks like Jordan Like the Country’s stolen valor confession was itself a cover story for some dark secret which, in the manner of comic-strip dark secrets, has come back to haunt him.

But tread lightly, Griff! You think you can just waltz back to fill your buddy’s humdrum life with drama and passion? Look into those steely eyes—he’s heavily invested in this tedium. And if he has to go all Jordan Like the Rogue State Whose Interests Do Not Align With Those of Major Powers, so be it!

Between Friends, 9/3/21

Of the three principals in Between Friends, Susan and Kim have concerns (about aging and financial security, respectively), but only Maeve here has conflict. She’s been maintaining an exhausting long-distance relationship with love-interest Steve because of her relentless careerism (and, to be fair, his). Last week, though, she decided to march right up to her boss and quit in the interests of True Love.

Ah well, character runs deep and so does whatever she‘s got. Perhaps Steve will find solace in the arms of Marjie Ducey down there in the sweet enveloping darkness of the memory hole.

Venmo—like Vendo, without the candy!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Funky Winkerbean, 5/7/20

OK, I am ashamed to admit this, but: I genuinely do not have a handle on what is happening in Funky Winkerbean today. On the one hand, what we know most about this quixotic second-time-around attempt to turn Les’s maudlin book about his dead wife into a movie is that Les, whom the strip assumes is good and noble, is afraid that Hollywood is going to bastardize it in some way, probably by making it interesting or watchable, and so far his meetings have confirmed his darkest suspicions. Today, he and Mason are talking to a personified cluster of Rich Hollywood Asshole Signifiers, with the giant desk and the smug face and the “Amaze me!” and such, and the dude reacts to their pitch by saying “Creating art isn’t a business model,” which one might expect to mean “I’m in the business of greenlighting profitable entertainment products, and creating art — beautiful, tragic art like Lisa’s Story — isn’t how you do that.”

BUT! HOWEVER! Mason’s pitch isn’t about making some intimate, art-house film that can be made on a Netflix budget and maybe get limited theatrical distribution. He’s throwing all sorts of business-y jargon out there. Box-office appeal! High-concept four-quadrant movie! Maybe the big twist is supposed to be that our Rich Hollywood Asshole has a soul after all. Why are you coming to us with business models, Mason? Creating art isn’t a business model, and we thought you wanted to create art. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Between Friends, 5/7/20

Meanwhile, let’s check in on the gently neurotic middle-aged Canadian antics of Between Friends. There, uh, seems to be a gas leak of some sort? More on this situation as it develops.