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Daddy Daze, 4/28/25

One of my favorite little linguistic quirks is the existence of true homonyms: when two separate words with different meanings and different origins evolve in a language until they happen to be pronounced and spelled the same way. That’s what’s going on here with the word funk, or more accurately the two words funk(s): the “be in a bad mood” word derives from a Scottish and Northern English word of uncertain but possibly Flemish origin that means “become afraid,” whereas the “music to put you in good mood” word derives in slang from the sense (still in use today) of a funk as a bad smell, which in turn comes to English via French from the Latin verb for putting off smoke, fumigare. This is the sort of information I would convey to my baby, if I lived alone with my baby and had very little contact with the outside world and it drove me to a state of madness in which I believed that my baby’s incoherent babbling noises constituted meaningful attempts to communicate that only I could understand.

Andy Capp, 4/28/25

Nice try, Andy Capp. You think you can slip this kind of blatant falsehood past us because we’re dumb Americans who don’t know any better? We may be dumb but we do have access to Wikipedia, which informs us that the parliamentary constituency of Runcorn and Helsby has been vacant for nearly six weeks now. Sadly, the by-election to fill the seat is this Thursday, so it’s too late for Andy to throw his iconic hat into the ring. The sitting MP resigned because he got caught on camera repeatedly punching a man in the street, so it sounds like the locals would’ve been open to Andy’s whole vibe, frankly.

Crankshaft, 4/28/25

Remember “the burnings,” the apocalyptic event in the near-future of the Funkyverse that wiped out most printed literature? Well, it turns out Lilian invented them, as part of her cozy mystery series. And yet we know that her building-code-violating above-the-garage store survived them, which certainly is interesting in light of this new revelation, although we can at least take solace in the fact that she’ll eventually be replaced by a robot.

Heathcliff, 4/28/25

Heathcliff is finally starting a cult! And, you know what, good for him.

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Dennis the Menace, 4/26/25

Obviously my “is this menacing or not” bit is done mostly in jest, but I genuinely think this is menacing behavior. Making unbroken, angry eye contact with his mother as he lets milk overflow the glass all over the table, while nonsensically blaming her and her glass-acquisition choices for the whole situation? Really unsettling stuff, I would be quietly calling a child psychologist in this scenario.

Shoe, 4/26/25

Normally I don’t have a lot of patience for “kids and their damn phones” jokes like these, especially given that the behavior in question is so omnipresent among people of all ages that there’s an industry term for it. But I do have to say that if Skyler isn’t going to be fully engaged during his TV-watching experience, he shouldn’t be making use of the living room’s only chair.

Crankshaft, 4/26/25

You might recall that Funky Winkerbean’s beloved (?) Mopey Pete ended up in a relationship with Crankshaft’s granddaughter, which meant he successfully escaped the collapse of the Funky Winkerbean dimension and has survived in its formerly ancillary Crankshaft zone, which has survived as its own space-time continuum in the aftermath. Anyway, we’ve finally learned what can briefly make him slightly less mopey: the prospect of interrupting his in-laws while they fool around in their car.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/21/25

It’s Monday, y’all! Monday, the beginning of a new week in the soaps, with promises of exciting setups playing out over the next few days in increasingly intriguing and twisty ways, especially in this Rex Morgan plot about literal murder, and … wait, what’s that? The murderer has announced his intention to turn himself in and is apologizing to anyone his murderous ways might have inconvenienced? Hmm. Not really what I was hoping for. I guess we now have three to six thrilling days of everyone standing around awkwardly waiting for the cops to show up to look forward to.

Hi and Lois, 4/21/25

Ha ha, yes, that certainly is a pickle, you guys. It’s not fair, college wasn’t so expensive back when you embarked on the project of having a family with four children back in [does math] 2009? Can that really be right? Kids who are in high school today were born in 2009, a year when I and my contemporaries were already fully mature adults? Seems wrong. Seems very wrong indeed.

Crankshaft, 4/21/25

“Look at this ring … I’m married? To you, I guess? What the hell?”