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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!”

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Gil Thorp, 5/28/22

Welp, the gig (gigg?) is up for our boy Gregg, whose blindness was was discovered by Coach Thorp, and after briefly taking the position that, while he was willing to engage in an elaborate web of deception to fool the world, actually making use of reasonable accommodations for his disability would be a bridge too far, he quickly changed his mind and will be wearing a mask to protect him from the baseballs that will be flying at top speed towards his face, completely unseen. Mostly today I’m enjoying the Thorp’s post-coaching intimacy, with Mimi admiring both Gil’s manly yet caring mentoring style and his carrot-cutting skills (he’s going to slice off a finger roughly 0.5 seconds after he delivers his line in the final panel).

Hi and Lois, 5/28/22

What ever happened to romance? To mystery? All you have to do is look at Chip’s face to see how a red-blooded American teen reacts to a girl who “is straightforwardly interested in physical intimacy” or whatever. Thank god nobody else is in this theater to watch a women’s libber absolutely ruin this date, and also to apparently hear them talking at full volume during the movie.

Crankshaft, 5/28/22

Not only do I absolutely buy Crankshaft becoming obsessed with the minutia of property laws, I actually think this would be a great topic for a whole series of storylines. If we’re really lucky, he goes down an internet rabbit hole and becomes a sovereign citizen whackadoo. He’s going to spend hours at the diner scowling at Ralph and Keesterman, talking about how gold fringe on a courtroom flag means you’re being tried under admirality law and that means you don’t have to pay any property tax, while they wait for a terrible pun that never comes.

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Funky Winkerbean, 5/9/22

Happy Monday, everybody, Funky Winkerbean is starting up the week with a funeral, obviously. I’m pretty sure Mary Sue isn’t someone we’ve actually met before in this strip, and Funky and Les want to make it clear that they don’t actually know her well or care that much about her, they just think it’s an important Funkyverse ritual to stop by funerals and acknowledge that everyone’s dying all the time, just some of us a little sooner than others. “Mary Sue” is of course also a derogatory term for an idealized authorial self-insert character in fanfiction, and it absolutely tracks that an idealized self-insert character in Funkyverse fan fiction would be someone who dies off-panel in order to give the sad sack main characters the chance to talk about how the whole world is falling apart, really.

Crankshaft, 5/9/22

Meanwhile, the “fun” Funkyverse strip is here to make sure you never forget the real victim of 9/11 (Crankshaft’s grill).

The Lockhorns, 5/9/22

I’m sorry, I’m usually on team “The Lockhorns is good, actually,” but I do demand that the strip keep to its mission of laser-focusing on Leroy and Loretta’s mutual animosity and self-inflected misery. Leroy complaining that it’s annoying when he has to leave the house to buy things simply won’t cut it.

Mary Worth, 5/9/22

Well, it seems this plotline is going to wrap up without much conflict, I guess the last detail to take care of is Cal, I wonder how oh my GOD Ian is going to come to Toby’s class and GLOWER at him, and possibly start pounding his chest and making what he thinks are gorilla noises, this is gonna be AMAZING