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Crankshaft, 5/24/25

The wisteria guy from earlier this week is, as Uncle Lumpy remembers so I don’t have to, the former paramour of Lilian’s now-deceased sister Lucy; he used to dance with her at the Wisteria Ballroom, and then set up an overly elaborate proposal scenario that was to take place there that didn’t come off right and therefore their love was thwarted forever, to their mutual despair, which could’ve been avoided if he had been just a little bit normal about the whole thing. Anyway, the lady at the flower shop gave him some wisterias, which he wistfully put on Lucy’s grave, and now, mere minutes later, a maintenance guy is driving by to grab them and put them directly in the garbage. The terrible Funkyverse vibes are back, everybody! They’re back and they’re better than ever!

Luann, 5/24/25

Speaking of terrible vibes, Luann and the weird uptight guy she kissed behind a clipboard exactly once are apparently going to move into a tiny studio apartment together? There’s two ways this could go: the strip could finally approach young people’s sexuality in a straightforward way or it could do a ribald fanfic-style storyline where, uh oh! There’s only one bed!!!! I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out which possibility I find more likely.

Gil Thorp, 5/24/25

Hmm, in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court ruled that a public high school football coach could lead students in prayer on the 50 yard line after games, but the Milford administration thinks it can stop Coach Hernandez from peacefully using an Ouija board to contact a ghost in a school supply closet? “Lawyer up, coach!” is what the beloved dead “Pop(s)” is urging Luke, as he floats conveniently where Dr. Pearl can’t see him.

Beetle Bailey, 5/24/25

C’mon, man, the Beetle Bailey gang is in the army, and they have their own special forces units, like the Rangers. The joke should’ve been “Maybe I could’ve been an Army Ranger” “You’re more of a bear” and OK now I see why they didn’t go with that one.

Pluggers, 5/24/25

Pluggers are of an age at which they’re more prone to falling, and a fall could result in serious injury. They live in constant fear that such a thing could happen to them or their partners!

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/20/25

On Sunday, June got the mail, and told her sons that the family had gotten a wedding invite, and they were like “You get free cake at a wedding! That’s the reward for sitting through the boring parts!” Then yesterday and today, she also told Rex about the invite, and he gave the exact same response. This would’ve been a perfectly serviceable bit if it had played out over a minute or so in a sitcom, but it works significantly less well in a continuity strip, where it takes three days and at the end you have to remind people what happened over the previous two days, in case they never read those strips, or just forgot about them.

Luann, 5/20/25

“Sassy old lady” is also a hoary sitcom trope, and I probably shouldn’t get as much amusement from it as I do, but you have to admit it works particularly well in Luann, when the sassy old lady quips are generally along the lines of “Hey why don’t you loser kids shut the fuck up for once in your extremely overthought lives, huh? Let’s have some tea.”

Crankshaft, 5/20/25

Look, buddy, this lady works at a florist shop, so I agree that she should not just repeat the name of the flower you named back at you as a question, but should rather let you know if they have them available and how much they would cost if they do. However, I do not think taking her question as an opportunity to launch into a meandering soliloquy about times gone by is going to speed up this transaction. Quite the opposite, in fact!

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Dennis the Menace, 5/4/25

OK, obviously I was going to object that “Sunday school was awesome today!” is possibly the least menacing thing Dennis has ever said, but then I got to the big reveal of what he learned about: the pre-existence of souls, which was very explicitly anathematized by the Second Council of Constantinople in AD 553. Last I dwelled on the question, I had decided that the Mitchells were high church Episcopalians, but apparently they’ve since fallen in with some kind of Origenist cult.

Hi and Lois, 5/4/25

Not sure if some diktat has gone out to the comics to do jokes about how fun it is to read the comics in the newspaper, as God intended, but I feel like today’s entry has been undermined by Chip’s legitimately exasperated attitude. You’re making a disaster of the fridge, Hi! It’s embarrassing when he brings girls over! Why not just add your favorites to your bookmarks on Comics Kingdom dot com, like a reasonable person?

Crankshaft, 5/4/25

Ha ha! Get it? April showers … bring May flowers? Get it???? Anyway, I hope these guys recognize Crankshaft’s many sins and choose to punish him with exile from the colony, or perhaps even hanging.