Hi and Lois, 8/17/15
Huh, I always wondered what Lois’s skeletal, mostly noseless face reminded me of:
Anyway, Lois is trying to kill her husband, I guess, for his birthday!
Crankshaft, 8/17/15
Remember when the State Fair was a place of excitement and family bonding? Now you just walk around in sullen silence. Even the carnies look depressed.
Pluggers, 8/17/15
Considering how big that pill is, pluggers should probably be taking some kind of eyesight pill, too.
Funky Winkerbean, 8/14/15
Oh, hey, I didn’t mention it the other day, but Darrin got offered a job helping Mopey Pete on the comic book movie he’s writing, and Jessica immediately agreed to move to Los Angeles with him, which Darrin treated as if this were some great favor she was doing him! Which seems to imply that someone, anyone, might want to live in the eternal Vale of Sadness that is Westview, and specifically the apartment above Montoni’s that presumably smells like mediocre pizza and depression all the time; it also ignores the fact (just like Funky Winkerbean the strip has been mostly ignoring the fact) that Jessica is in fact an aspiring documentary filmmaker so maybe … Los Angeles … might a place she’d want to live? Just a thought.
Anyway, clearly Montoni’s needs somebody paying rent on the apartment upstairs to supplement declining pizza revenue, and clearly Montoni’s needs someone in charge to make sure the giant barrels of low-grade pizza sauce shipped in monthly haven’t spoiled, and it looks like Wally is next in line for both positions! Wally already has a perfectly nice house that he and his wife live in, of course, but the needs of the pizza collective outweigh any rights he has to choose where he lives, as his look of stone panic in panel three makes very clear.
Mary Worth, 8/14/15
Thank you, Hilton Berkes: “I see enough of you on campus, Ian” is a sick burn for the ages. When I am cold at night, I will bring this strip up on my phone and bask in its cruel, warming glow.
Crankshaft, 8/14/15
Here’s today’s Crankshaft! It’s about uncontrollable pooping.
Dennis the Menace, 8/3/15
You know, my usual schtick with Dennis the Menace is to reinterpret innocent kid whimsy as something more adult and unsettling and slap a “menacing rating” on it, but, you know what? Today the strip’s doing it for me. Dennis has learned that if he preys on other people’s vanities and insecurities, he can get things from them. And from his facial expression, he’s not conflicted about this at all. It’s great! It’s also extremely menacing. He’s a straight up sociopath!
Crankshaft, 8/3/15
Meanwhile, today’s Crankshaft has decided to bypass a punchline more or less entirely and just go for straight up ennui. Ha ha, it’s funny because Lilian (or is it Lucy, I can’t keep them straight) uses a turn of phrase the girls don’t understand, and they just stare at her blankly, a widening gulf between them mocking everybody’s attempt to have a single moment of human connection!
Apartment 3-G, 8/3/15
I always assume that Margo is terrible at all the aspirational creative service industry jobs she tackles — publicist, art gallery owner, etc. — but being a wedding planner seems like the one that would be least up her alley. After all, weddings involve human affection, which is anathema to her. Just look at these panels! She makes a start at figuring out how she can help her parents finally establish the permanent partnership that has eluded them all their lives, but by panel two all she’s thinking is REVENGE REVENGE REVENGE
Funky Winkerbean, 8/3/15
Yes! Crazy Harry has brought an advanced piece of 21st century technology back to his high school days! The timestream’s going to be totally disrupted! The sadness-spiral Funkyverse we all know and loathe will never have existed.