The Comics Curmudgeon

Main Menu

Social Media

Archive: Crankshaft

Comments are closed

End-of-summertime blues

Post Content

Gil Thorp, 8/31/15

Not to be one of those people who keep saying “The good old days were good and the present day is bad” all the time, because those people are wrong, but there was one specific way in which the good old days were good, and that is that we use to get totally bonkers summer storylines in Gil Thorp. Those were the days when Coach Kaz spent his vacation serving as a security guard for an aging rocker, or when Marty Moon got golf-grifted by a Ben Franklin lookalike in a dumb hat. There was a brief return to form in 2013 with a zany senile pro wrestler plot but mostly the last few summers have been an uninterrupted run of dumb golf storylines; this year we didn’t even get that, with the focus mostly being on True Standish convincing his fellow big-time high school football prospects to ease up on having press conferences to announce their college choices, which was so dull that I’ve only mentioned the strip twice since the beginning of June.

But! That could change fast if the strip’s football-season plot proves to center on the long neglected Marty Moon, and change real fast if centers on a Marty Moon who mingles self-aggrandizement and self-loathing while day drinking alone and talking to nobody in particular. Throw in some sort of terrible “reality series for braniacs” B-plot and my expectations are suddenly so high that they’re guaranteed to be dashed in short order!

Crankshaft, 8/31/15

I’m pretty impressed by the rapid cycling from manic glee to abject horror between panels two and three here. “Seriously? You’re … participating in the democratic process? Oh, God, guess it’s finally time to throw the Constitution in the garbage and admit that this country’s centuries-long experiment in self-government is an abject failure.”

Funky Winkerbean, 8/31/15

Remember when you were young, and each additional year gained you social status and physical might that you could use to impose your violent will on your inferiors? Now the passage of time just brings you closer to the blessed end of your current suffering.

Comments are closed

Monday quickies

Post Content

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.

Comments are closed

Mostly Funkyverse Friday

Post Content

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.