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Crankshaft, 7/30/20

The Valentine Theater is the passion project for Crankshaft’s grandson Max, and as the owner and a true cinephile, you’d think he’d be mad about, for instance, people just talking at full volume during the movies, and that he’d try to prevent it, even if the offenders were his parents. I assume this conversation is happening because, despite The Phantom Empire being fairly well known and regarded by film history buffs, no actual paying customers have shown up to see it. Can’t believe this theater isn’t going to go out of business for another ten years!

Beetle Bailey, 7/30/30

I honestly love the twisted, tongue-centered riff on Cinderella in today’s Beetle Bailey. Look at how mad General Halftrack is! Those eyes! The rage! His age- and booze-addled brain couldn’t retain the face of the man who sassed him, but he’ll never forget the tongue. The vision of it haunts him at night. It haunts him.

Dennis the Menace, 7/30/20

Every menace we encounter is just a second-order byproduct of the one true primeval menace, which is insatiable need

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Judge Parker, 7/28/20

You might be tempted to think that the current Judge Parker storyline has a certain political point of view based on current events, what with the antagonist incumbent mayor demanding his aides go mask free and lashing out against bad poll numbers. But you have to admit that he really is a victim of a “deep state” conspiracy, in which entrenched, corrupt officials and the town’s out-of-touch elite are working in concert to bring him down and replace him with their preferred puppet candidate!

Crankshaft, 7/28/20

The Phantom Empire is an old serial from the ’30s that has an extremely bonkers plot, starting off as a Western starring Gene Autry as, basically, himself, and somehow ending up deep under the earth’s surface battling a super-advanced civilization from the lost continent of Mu (“The idea for the plot came to writer Wallace MacDonald when he was under gas having a tooth extracted“). The important thing here though is that it’s not part of the Star Trek mythos, nor does it star Leonard Nimoy (understandable, as he was only four years old when the serial was made), so, uh, does anyone know what Pam’s talking about? I’m not sure what Pam’s talking about.

Blondie 7/28/20

Dagwood smugly shitting on the young is nothing new in this strip, so let’s just take a moment to appreciate how much chutzpah it takes to shit on the young while you lounge around the house wearing loafers and a mustard-colored polo shirt tucked into khaki cargo shorts, with a black belt really bringing the outfit together.

Mark Trail, 7/28/20

Am I sad that we’re not finding out what’s happening with Jeremy Cartwright? You bet. But is the vision of a man half-heartedly tossing a cat (?) into the middle of a dirt road and saying “Sorry about this… Good luck!” the absolute funniest thing you or I or anyone else will see this year? Yes. Absolutely yes.

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Mark Trail, 6/22/20

Just because life is a rich tapestry, the whole Funky Winkerbean plotline where they’re making a movie about material we’ve already seen in earlier comics never fails to send me into an absolute rage, whereas I am very excited about this upcoming Mark Trail plotline, in which some hot-shot movie producers (having communicated with the IP rights holders via a message sent in a manila envelope, like you do) want to make a movie about an adventure Mark had back in 2015 and 2016! You remember this thrilling tale of white nose syndrome and human trafficking, don’t you? It started with Mark talking bat illness with an amiable academic, and then brushed up against some human traffickers out there in the desert, who dynamited them into a cave, where they were trapped for month after month after interminable month, until they managed to swim out. This all has “third act problems,” as they say in the biz, but I’m sure the geniuses at the Hollywood dream factory will smooth it all out, and because Mark isn’t a whiny little pissbaby like Les Moore, instead of lurking around the set fuming with his arms crossed not talking to anybody, he’ll just say “The movie business sure is interesting, Rusty!” and cash his option check.

Crankshaft, 6/22/20

Speaking of Funky Winkerbean, we all know that Funky Winkerbean is ten years in the future from Crankshaft, but the fact that autonomous cars are cruising through residential Ohio neighborhoods in Crankshaft indicates that Crankshaft is several years in the future from us. So the good news is that Mason is trying to put together funding to make Lisa’s Story: The Movie just as the entire movie industry is about to finally collapse because everyone is just watching short homemade porn clips on their phone for entertainment now.

The Phantom, 6/22/20

Sorry that I haven’t been keeping you up to date on The Phantom, and I’m not really going to bother catching you up now, but I do want let you know that a flaming skeleton has been berating our hero for like a whole week now and it’s been glorious.

The Lockhorns, 6/22/20

OH MY GOD THAT MUTANT OPERA SINGER IS AT LEAST 40 FEET TALL

RUN, LEROY AND LORETTA, RUN