Post Content

Funky Winkerbean, 2/24/14

After being told that she was old and apparently analog last week, Cindy gratefully took her corporate masters’ offer of a job as a newscaster in Cleveland, which is close enough to the Westview hell-nexus that I assume that she’ll now be back as a member of the regular cast. The abrupt transition to Funky declaring his intention to sexy up his body would imply to me that we’re about to get treated to the strip’s title character as a the fulcrum of a love triangle with his former and current wives, because scientists have finally figured out how to top the sense of disgust you felt when you saw two women fighting for Les Moore’s affections. Anyway, it’s good to have workout goals and all, but those goals should be realistic, and thus Funky should forget about “looking better than people my age” for the moment and concentrate on “looking like my actual age and not 10-15 years older.”

Crankshaft, 2/24/14

Meanwhile, in the “fun” Funkyverse strip, the actual, literal spectre of Death is strolling through Crankshaft’s suburban neighborhood, looking for souls to reap. Crankshaft gets over his momentary startlement rather quickly, of course, because he knows he’s safe for the moment: his destiny lies in a broken husk of a body in a nursing home, ten years in the future. “Huh, wonder which one of my family members is about to die,” he thinks idly, before returning to his shoveling.

Archie, 2/24/14

The mid-90s Archie strips in syndicated reruns are in fact pretty dire, but it’s kind of sad how little faith in themselves they seem to have. Look at how Reggie’s punchline has been broken up over two panels! It’s like they think if you got to the end of a sentence in panel two, you’d say, “Enh, I don’t think this is going much of anywhere, think I’ll go take a nap or something.”

Post Content

Curtis, 2/21/14

Remember when that dolphin swam into Brooklyn’s extremely polluted Gowanus Canal and then died, more than a year ago? The creators of innumerable parody Twitter accounts, along with the creators of Curtis, hope you do! Curtis has been sad about these poor trapped dolphins all week, but now Magical Caucasian Gunk will rescue them with his Flyspeck Island powers, after stripping to the waist! I’m mostly just relieved to learn that Gunk’s nipples, unlike his eyes, are configured in the usual way.

Crankshaft, 2/21/14

Speaking of half-naked people in the icy cold, it looks like Crankshaft has somehow managed to lock himself out of his house wearing only a towel and set off the burglar alarm trying to get back inside, ruining his family’s vacation in the process! Thanks to Big Government, we’re not allowed to print a drawing of Crankshaft’s exposed junk in the newspaper, but panel three uses a clever reaction shot to illustrate what an unpleasant experience it would be for you if we were.

Dennis the Menace, 2/21/14

Ha ha, it’s funny because literally nobody wants to spend any time with Dennis! Looks like the person he’s really been menacing has been … himself.

Post Content

Crankshaft, 2/15/14

This week’s Crankshaft “plot” has been far too inane to discuss, involving a reality show called Ice Road School Bus Drivers — it’s like Ice Road Truckers, but for school bus drivers! — filming our characters in action. The producers are no doubt disappointed that Crankshaft didn’t engage in any of the property destruction or reckless endangerment of children for which he’s so famous, but nevertheless, the new reality show stars are getting their reward today: cheap giveaway hats emblazoned with the show’s logo. The drivers’ overjoyed reaction to this is probably the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. “Life doesn’t get any better than this!” proclaims Crankshaft, a man who helped defeat the Nazis in World War II, who has children and grandchildren, who played professional baseball, who overcame his own struggles and learned to read as an adult, who helped pay for a group of underprivileged kids from his bus route go to college. “Life doesn’t get any better than this.” He pulls the ill-fitting cap tightly down onto his head.

Mark Trail, 2/15/14

“I sure hope Trail is what he says he is … for his own good! If he’s a person, like he says he is, then that’s OK! But if he’s an animal, then I’m going to have to taxidermy him. I can’t stop taxidermying animals! But wait … what if a person is a kind of animal? Oh no. Oh NO. My taxidermying fingers are gettin’ itchy!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/15/14

Well, it looks like Sarah was right to be suspicious of her editor, because her editor intends to put her in a cage and let other little kids come and gawk at her while she churns out books. This is quite frankly the best business decision anyone at the museum has made at any point during this storyline.

Mary Worth, 2/15/14

“But let’s not talk about such heavy topics now, Wilbur. Look, I’ve figured out that I can hold a full coffee cup using just my mouth! Pretty neat, huh?”

Pluggers, 2/15/14

All across America’s strife-torn inner cities, members of the Bloods and Crips put down their newspapers with stunned expressions on their faces. “Why are we fighting all the time?” they ask. “No matter what crew we roll with, we’re all pluggers. We are all pluggers.” Consider the peace increased.