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Crankshaft, 7/8/22

Look, obviously this blog is about 15% by volume me slamming on Funkyverse strips, so I’m just going to get ahead of things here and say that today’s strip is very, very funny, and the time-reverse gimmick is a good one that makes it funnier. Was it worthwhile spending 35 years writing the comic strip Crankshaft in such a way that we all hate him enough to get a genuine belly laugh watching him flee in terror from angry bees? Probably not, but in this moment, I appreciate it.

Blondie, 7/8/22

It’s extremely not new to remark on how much modern filmmaking is dominated by superhero franchises, but that doesn’t mean the syndicated newspaper comic strip Blondie can’t bring anything new to the table. In this case, it’s “late-middle-aged-and-older dudes find superheroes sexually threatening,” which I have to admit is new to me at least.

Dick Tracy, 7/8/22

Oh, right, I had forgotten that the Moon People in Dick Tracy had to leave the Moon for some reason and relocate to an undisclosed location (that turns out to be Antarctica) and Dick pretended to care about his family so he could sniff out the answer to this puzzle, because he’s the world’s greatest detective and also an asshole. I was going to do a joke about him conquering Moon Valley, but he’s a cop, annexing territory isn’t really his bag. I guess he could arrest everyone for violating the Antarctic Treaty System, but enforcing international law isn’t really his bag either.

Family Circus, 7/8/22

Gotta respect the thought process here, which was apparently, “Sure, we establish in dialogue that he’s still drinking his soda, but comics are a visual medium, we need to show that with a big disgusting blob of spit coming out of his mouth. Those grandmas who cut the panel out to hang on their fridge might not like it, but this one’s just for me.”

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Dennis the Menace, 6/8/22

Damn, Dennis is trying to talk Joey into pulling off some Munchausen syndrome by proxy … by proxy? I guess that would just be regular Munchausen syndrome. Anyway, still extremely menacing all around.

Crankshaft, 6/8/22

I’m not a religious man, but I would urge you to pray to whatever God you believe in that we all will be blessed by a Crankshaft storyline where he and all his old friends lose their money in some extremely transparent crypto scam. Can’t wait to learn what kind of terrible ape-themed malapropism Ed will make as he stares out at us with dead eyes, mentally pushing back his retirement date to sometime in the mid 2040s.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/8/22

“Hmm,” thinks Rex. “I’m not thrilled at the prospect of having to leave the house, but on the other hand I do have that trepanning kit I haven’t gotten much use out of lately, thanks to those meddling liberals over at the FDA.”

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Hi and Lois, 6/5/22

I think telling stories out of chronological order has gone from being an innovation to something of a crutch or gimmick at this point, but there are times when it still works. Like, I’m thinking about this Hi and Lois from a couple weeks ago totally differently now that I know that the twins are trying to get extra scoops of breakfast ice cream at like 8 in the morning, and their dad is waiting in the car because he’s still groggy and disoriented.

Crankshaft, 6/5/22

One of my very first shocking insider discoveries about the comics-production process when I started doing this blog was that the daily strips were colored in by syndicate folks who aren’t the strip artist, leading to occasionally troubling errors. But the Sunday strips? Those, in theory, are colored by the same people who draw them, which means you can treat the entire scene as a unified whole. That explains why all these people have fallen asleep, because they’ve clearly decided to have their Sunday Afternoon Book Club at a law office and are having a hard time staying engaged while reading the identically bound volumes of the city code cover to cover.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/5/22

I love how angry Rex looks when he says “You want me to come down there in the middle of the night just to save somebody’s life?” but as soon as the cop is like “Nah, you’d just get in the way,” he’s like, “Of course, officer, I’ll help in any way I can. I’m a hero!”