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Crankshaft, 12/19/11

Reader of the twin Funkyverse strips are well acquainted with the heavy-lidded, soul-dead expression on the face of our young elf in panel two. Usually it’s just a sign that the character has been ground down by these strips’ omnipresent miasma of despair, but here I think it’s supposed to indicate that elf-girl too is part of the detached Facebook generation, as evidenced by the fact that she’s staring at her own phone rather than trying to drum up business with a little holiday showmanship. Her social analysis aside, though, I think it’s more likely that nobody is coming to see Santa because Crankshaft is an hateful jerk and no loving parent would let their children anywhere near him.

Mark Trail, 12/19/11

Somewhere back in the misty beginning of this plotline, Kelly declared that following the golden bible bird bands back to their source “would make a good story!” As it turns out, the gold came from a crappy played-out mine, only one or two bands were ever made, and Honey the Bear wasn’t even that good at fighting off wolves. The only vaguely interesting angle is that Mountie McQueen is allowed to remain a law enforcement officer despite his erratic behavior and hair-trigger temper. As our gang gathers around the table to enjoy something indeterminate and loaf-life, I think we all have to come up to terms with the fact that Kelly Welly’s journalistic instincts aren’t actually very keen.

Six Chix, 12/19/11

Yeah, so, long story short, Mrs. Claus is keeping tabs on your internet pornography habits.

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B.C., 12/16/11

A “bachelor party,” when brought up within a modern pseudo-humorous narrative, is invariably a euphemism for tawdry, regrettable erotic escapades. (This is not always true in real life; I’m sure yours was classy and not at all actionable.) Thus, I’m going to go ahead and assume that the bachelor ant here is planning on saddling this grasshopper as a prelude to some gross inter-species insect sex stuff. Whatever, let him have his fun, ants are one of those species where the males die right after mating, right? I was going to look that up, but I’ve never liked the ant characters in B.C. so I’m just going to go ahead and assume that it’s true.

Crankshaft, 12/16/11

I’m not sure why, but I find the retreating back of our Christmas Tree proprietor deeply unnerving. Maybe it’s the look of genuine horror on Crankshaft’s granddaughters face. It seems like he’s slowly and deliberately going to fetch his ax, and then, as predicted, he’s going take his payment in limbs.

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Crankshaft, 12/15/11

This would just be yet another Crankshaft in which the title character sits on the couch silently while the TV makes a terrible, terrible joke at him, if not for the carefully rendered expression of pure, incandescent rage on his face in that final panel. I mean, really, Crankshaft is always on the spectrum between dyspeptic and pissed off, but this looks like he’s finally snapped. It’s hard to say why, exactly — maybe he knows that he’s naughty and doesn’t want to be lumped in with the terrorists, maybe he’s insulted that the local news has stooped to this level of holiday jocularity, maybe he’s just finally worked out the grand conspiracy that everyone in the world is in on together, against him — but I’m assuming that he’s on the verge of filling his school bus with guns and ammunition and driving straight into a police station, just to see what’ll happen.

Family Circus, 12/15/11

Dolly is playing here with the lyrics to “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” lyrics that, if you live in the United States and have left your house to enter a retail establishment of any sort in the past three weeks, I’m assuming you have running unbidden through your brain. Still, I kind of wish that the Family Circus scheduling computer had accidentally spat out this panel sometime in June. If you read it then, you’d probably assume that Dolly is just enforcing false joyfulness on general principles and has had enough of PJ’s sullen, rebel-without-a-cause attitude, because in this house we sit up straight and smile even if we’re not happy, mister.