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Crankshaft, 2/7/21

I’m not such a stickler for detail that I’m opposed to a comic strip being established via in-strip dialog as taking plance on a different day of the week than the strip actually runs in the real world, but I do think that you sort of have to have a good reason for doing so, because it’s going to cause a little niggling of dissonance for the reader. Take today’s strip, for example; it’s a Sunday strip — something the format makes impossible to ignore — but within the world of the strip itself, it’s taking place on Thursday. At least the joke it’s in service of is very funny, right? Well, no, not really. But doesn’t the joke require the full muti-panel treatment that only a Sunday strip can provide? I’m afraid that’s not true either.

Dennis the Menace, 2/7/21

When margarine was first introduced to the U.S. in the late 1800s, the butter lobby pushed to undermine sales of it. For a while, it was mandated that pink food coloring be added to it to make its artificial and presumably less appetizing nature clear; though that law was struck down by the Supreme Court, other laws taxed margarine that had yellow food coloring added to make it look more butter-like. What I’m trying to say is that I wonder if today’s Dennis the Menace was the end product of a long, tortuous negotiations that ended with the editors saying that yes, fine, you can do an entire Sunday strip about Dennis picking his nose and even graphically depict boogers, but you have to depict said boogers in a bright yellow color found in no booger that has ever been extracted from a human nose.

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Crankshaft, 1/25/21

All syndicated newspaper comics artists have to submit their strips at least a few weeks in advance. Most, not surprisingly, go right up to the wire of what they’re allowed to do, but some leave a longer buffer. I admit that this is only a rumor I’ve heard secondhand, so I’m not saying I’m sure this is true, but the consistent rumor really is that Tom Batuik has a full year-long buffer for the Funkyverse strips, so he can get in the spirit of the holidays as he writes twelve months in advance. Normally this isn’t a big deal, as one Christmas is pretty much the same as the next, but over the past year, as a global pandemic brought exactly the sort of disease-based gloom we expect from the Funkyverse into our reality, the disconnect has been kind of striking. I’ve assumed that, like many strips, Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft would just ignore COVID-19 rather than be caught a full year behind the times but … what if they won’t? What if we’re about to see last year’s rollercoaster of panic and confusion play out for us amongst Crankshaft’s family and bus driver pals? Wouldn’t that be incredible? And by incredible I mean “extremely disturbing, please don’t do this, why on earth would you do this?” Well, buckle up, because here we go! CORPSES IN THE STREETS OF CENTERVILLE EVERYBODY

Crock, 1/25/21

I relate far too well to Poulet’s seemingly out-of-place expression in panel two. Sometimes, when you spend far too much time worrying about something that you’re not sure will ever really happen, even if it’s a bad thing, just knowing that it’s a real possibility and you haven’t wasted all that anxiety on a mirage is a relief!

Hi and Lois, 1/25/21

Speaking of facial expressions, I am genuinely cackling at Hi’s slack-jawed shock in panel one here. “I cannot believe I married this naive simpleton,” he seems to be thinking, just barely capable of holding his tongue so as to prevent an open marital rift.

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Gil Thorp, 1/21/21

We’re now in the midst of what I call the “fun and games” section of a Gil Thorp storyline, where everyone’s zany character premises are given free reign to run wild before some inevitable conflict results. In the current case, we have newly minted PA announcer Vic Doucette getting drunk with power and arranging hot dog giveaways on his own initiative, and car fanatic Doug Guthrie continuing to be a fanatic about cars in any given context. Presumably these two are in for a fall soon enough, when Coach Thorp tells Vic that it’s all well and good for a nerd to offer supporting services to jocks but he needs to keep in mind that jocks are the reason we’re all here so let’s keep the focus on them and Doug gets caught up in a car-fucking scandal, respectively.

Crankshaft, 1/21/21

Oh, I didn’t talk about it here, but Crankshaft’s beloved Beans End catalog didn’t go out of business after all, but instead got absorbed by Buddyblog, the Funkyverse’s catch-all Internet company whose primary business seems to be demonstrating that the Internet in particular and young people in general are bad, actually. Anyway, remember how it used to be a whole big thing in this strip that Crankshaft overcame illiteracy as an older adult? Well, cut him some slack, Lillian, maybe he’s never going to read cozy mysteries for fun, just let him enjoy his damn gardening catalog in peace without judgement.

Family Circus, 1/21/21

You couldn’t pay enough to go look it up, but I’m willing to guess that this joke, slightly modified, has run in newspapers on quite a few January 21sts over the years, and while normally I would roll my eyes at yet another moronic Jeffyism, I have to say that it’s nice to see that, after a few violent hiccups, the hallowed ceremonies that surround the presidential transfer of power are proceeding as scheduled.

Mary Worth, 1/21/21

“It’s almost like she … doesn’t want to talk to me? But that can’t be right.”