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Crankshaft, 8/19/22

“Slight markup” is my favorite part of this. Crankshaft isn’t doing this for the money! He’s doing it so he can make a big show out of being an asshole.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/19/22

Hey, remember how, at Les’s suggestion, Lisa made a bunch of videotapes before she died for Summer to watch over the course of her adolescence? Well, this week in Funky Winkerbean we learned that in fact, it was Crazy Harry’s idea! Pretty wild, huh? Does this upend everything you thought you knew about this strip? No? You say you actually don’t spend much time thinking about Funky Winkerbean, and while you vaguely remembered the whole videotape thing, you didn’t actually remember that it was supposedly Les’s idea and don’t really know why you should care that it wasn’t? Interesting. Interesting.

Marvin, 8/19/22

Look, I know the question of “what mental age is Marvin, the title character in the comic strip Marvin, supposed to be” is a muddled one, but this is still a kid who pisses and shits himself on the regular. He’s not thinking about the future at all! He’s never thought about anything but the present.

Six Chix, 8/19/22

Oh, sorry, are Marvin’s piss jokes too “basic” for you? Well, check out Six Chix, where the piss jokes are extremely baroque.

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Hi and Lois, 7/12/22

Though I strongly believe in the comedy principle that specific things are funnier than vague things, I have kind of come to respect the fact that most comics dads have the same extremely ill-defined white-collar jobs they’ve had since the ’50s. Their wives got their jobs in the more specific ’80s and ’90s, so they’re in identifiable businesses like “real estate” or “catering,” but the husbands are still going to generic offices doing generic professional stuff in the year 2022. Today even Mr. Foofram looks utterly exhausted by this ruse, as he urges his employees to give 110% with an affect indicating that he’s giving about 35%, 40% tops.

Crankshaft, 7/12/22

On Sunday, America’s comics-reading public was “treated” to Ed Crankshaft — and this is no time for delicacy, so I’m just going to say it — fucking his girlfriend in a car less than three feet away from impressionable children. Today we learn that he likes to leave plates of rotting meat out to attract flies. I fear that this strip is beginning to realize that its main character will never experience any pushback or consequences for his actions, and that’s taking things to a very dark place.

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Crankshaft, 7/10/22

This week, Crankshaft already delivered some “fan service” to that portion of the reader base who, like me, are interested in seeing the title character stung by dozens of bees, so I guess I have to accept that they also have to cater to those who want to see Crankshaft having sex in a car, or at least blowing his nose so vigorously that the windows steam up.

Family Circus, 7/10/22

Speaking of hanky panky, some might see this strip as showing Big Daddy Keane imitating his worst son in an attempt to convince his wife to initiate sex, but check out how genuinely sad he looks in the last panel: I think it’s just about the affectionate physical touch he hasn’t received in years and will continue not receiving in the future.

Hi and Lois, 7/10/22

Man, this is a real bummer for me, because for a long time this has been one of my go-to Fun Facts to drop at parties or whatever but now that I see that a boring suburban dad like Hi is enthusiastic about explaining it I’m reevaluating my whole attitude about this! Although, one thing he leaves out is that people didn’t just do chores when they woke up in the middle of the night; that was also a popular time for religious devotion, and a lot of what we know about this whole sleeping schedule comes from prayer books written specifically for this contex[I AM PULLED OFF STAGE BY A GIANT VAUDVILLE-STYLE HOOK]