Archive: Crankshaft

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Mark Trail, 6/9/26

The “Mark’s dad is getting romance-scammedMark Trail storyline has had some pleasing twists and turns: we learned Mark “Happy” Trail Sr. was sending money to a gorilla sanctuary due to the entreaties of young “Dreama,” who was hitting him up for money at said sanctuary where she claimed to work, but then it turned out that her pics were photoshopped/AI-enhanced images of Gail, the owner (?) of the sanctuary, and it turned out that Happy had also been sending AI-enyouthened pics of himself to Dreama, so it seemed like an embarrassing incident that would end with two older nature lovers finding love with each other. But today we learn that, nope, Gail is in fact evil, and has mostly been outsourcing all this catfishing to her dweeb-ass son anyway. You can tell she’s evil because she lets gorillas just wander aimlessly around the sanctuary parking lot, without any enrichment toys!

Crankshaft, 6/9/26

Oh, did you think that those pictures Eugene brought over were going to result in some emotionally affective revelations? No, sorry, we’re just learning about how the current Funkyverse cast has in fact been entangled with one another for multiple generations, in exactly the sort of plot development that everyone loved when Star Wars kept doing it. I like how the strip’s namesake has kind of wandered over from whatever it was he was doing to take in all this information. Maybe he’ll learn he’s Les Moore’s uncle or something! You never know!

Dennis the Menace, 6/9/26

Love the look of absolute delight on this woman’s face. She’s the Chief Marketing Officer at the National Potato Council and she’s here to confirm the rumors: the chosen one has arrived.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 6/9/26

Can you imagine a dog — a dog, mind you — that knows what lattes are and enjoys drinking them, but has never heard of pilates? Well, you don’t have to: that’s the joke in today’s Mother Goose and Grimm, printed in newspapers everywhere!

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Pickles, 6/5/26

“We’re all gonna die eventually, but sometimes our ability to experience even basic pleasures dies before the rest of us” is a pretty grim thing for kids to read in the comics, so it’s a good thing that not many kids read the comics, I guess.

Heathcliff, 6/5/26

Although you know what legacy strip has a surprisingly strong zoomer fan base? Heathcliff! That’s why it can afford to play around with youth slang like this. Ha ha, the fish is “low-key” terrified, as the kids would say, if they were trapped in a bowl perched atop the head of a creature who was about to devour them.

Hi and Lois, 6/5/26

I’m not going to say that the art in Hi and Lois is “good,” exactly, but the faces are surprisingly expressive given how stylized they are. Like, with Lois today, they really nailed “Well that wasn’t an inappropriate thing to say exactly, but it also forced me to contemplate my teenage son as a sexual being, and I honestly don’t care for it.”

Crankshaft, 6/5/26

“That’s the pocket where I keep my phone. Did you know you can put pictures on your phone now? And also get copies of the pictures of your phone printed out? Truly we live in an age of wonders!”

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Andy Capp, 6/2/26

Look, I don’t pretend to know everything about what life is like in working-class, industrial neighborhoods in Northern English cities. Do people go door-to-door selling prints of the 19th century Romantic artist who revolutionized landscape painting and inspired the Barbizon school? I mean, maybe they do. Who’s to say the yobs and louts who populate this strip don’t appreciate a lovely, bucolic landscape? I’m sitting my ass down and learning.

Crankshaft, 6/2/26

There was some kind of long-ago love triangle involving Lillian and this guy and her now-dead sister that was introduced at some point when I wasn’t reading the strip and frankly I’ve never really caught up on it, but I know a lot of my readers have very strong and negative feelings about the whole thing, so if you fall into that category, I just wanted to bring you the latest update on this gentleman: they’re putting him in a home, or possibly in prison.

Pickles, 6/2/26

“Also, they don’t really enjoy spending time with me!”