Post Content

Judge Parker, 10/13/12

Dear Judge Parker: I’m sorry I ignored you for, like, months while you winded your way through a boring fishing/vague hints of marijuana badness plotline! I’m not sure how we’re going to get from “horrifying, bloody chainsaw murder” to “our heroes will be handed a large pile of money and/or adulation that they didn’t deserve,” but I’m very interested in finding out and will be paying close attention from now on!

Crankshaft, 10/13/12

Wow, it looks like Crankshaft is even more death-haunted than yesterday’s strip led us to believe! The end is closer than it appears … much closer. Will Crankshaft die, say, tomorrow? Leaving entropy to slowly and silently advance in each subsequent strip, until we reach the heat death of the Funkyverse?

Post Content

Spider-Man, 10/11/12

OH MY GOD YES YOU GUYS KRAVEN THE HUNTER!!! Kraven was the villain in the very first Spider-Man plot I covered in this blog. Back then I was charmed by his outfit but eventually enraged by the plotline’s stunning lack of superheroics, which caused me to vent thusly:

When I did my first Spider-Man comic, almost a month ago now, I said, “Presumably the ass-kicking will begin in due time.” Oh, how naive I was! How, bitterly, bitterly wrong I have been proved to be! In that time we’ve had marital spats, a little aimless Web slinging, a press conference to announce the opening of new theme restaurant, and the firing of an incompetent waiter.

Haha, little did I know at the time that this represented more or less the most excitement the Spider-Man strip would ever offer. Now that I’m more in tune with the true nature of this strip, I’m really looking forward to Kraven’s wacky, camptastic antics.

Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft, 10/11/12

Never let it be said that the Funkyverse strips can’t cut loose and have some fun now and then! My only complaint about today’s Funky Winkerbean is that the colorists have once again failed to pick up on obvious textual cues, because I’d really like to see Les go chalk white in terror — proof that, despite the smug facade he presents as a defense against relentless tragedy, life still has the capacity to scare him to death. Crankshaft, meanwhile, is confronting the most depressing notion that modern science can muster — that the universe will end not with a bang or a cataclysm, but rather with a slow fading out to emptiness, with no life and no light. It’s almost a relief that Crankshaft greets this prospect with the exact same attitude of semi-informed grievance that he has about everything else.

Post Content

Mary Worth, 9/23/12

One of the things we’re getting to know about Dawn’s armless new friend is that he’s kind of into one-upmanship. Like, oh, Dawn, did you experience a harrowing ripped-from-the-headlines boat accident that suspiciously resembles the Costa Concordia disaster? Well, Jim experienced a harrowing ripped-from-the-headlines ferry accident that suspiciously resembles the Staten Island Ferry disaster from 2003, during the course of which he lost a limb. And Dawn, did you almost see your father die during your nautical crisis? Well, if today’s thought balloon is any indication, Jim actually lost his father during his! Give it up now, Dawn, he’ll be doing this to you forever if you fall in love!

Rex Morgan, M.D. 9/23/12

Uh oh, looks like the apartment where Rex and June are supposed to be staying while they check up on a patient’s San Diego investment property is occupied — by a hot naked lady! Wasn’t … wasn’t there a Rex Morgan story where some semi-naked lady was in the Morgans’ house, by surprise? I’m really pretty sure of this, but I find the prospect of trying to suss it out of my archives strangely exhausting.

Crankshaft, 9/23/12

You guys, Crankshaft’s irritating malapropisms aren’t just the detritus of a mind slowly slipping away into dementia! They can also help distract other family members when they threaten to wallow in unbearably moralistic nostalgia for a world that never existed.

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 9/23/12

As usual, Sunday’s Apartment 3-G just rehashes the previous week’s plot, but we do get this bonus shot of Evan making fart noises with his hands.