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Mary Worth, 2/18/20

Oh no, it’s Jared! You might recall that back when Dawn was working a summer job at the hospital and falling hard for a doctor who was, unbeknownst to her, married, there was a rival for her affections: Jared, a dorky medical assistant who also transparently lusted after Dawn, offering to just come over to her apartment whenever, if she wanted him to. He was extremely clumsy and lived a sad life alone with his cat and his Star Wars action figures, but he seemed to be set up to be Dr. Ned’s “nice guy” foil, especially after he was the one who warned Dawn about Dr. Ned’s marital status. But at the end of the summer, Dawn ended up with neither of them, which, in its own small way, was a triumph for feminism, and it I find it all the sadder that Jared is apparently destined to win Dawn away not from some shitty two-timing doctor but rather from a perfectly nice age-appropriate Frenchman who has the misfortune of not being physically present.

Mark Trail, 2/18/20

Sure, becoming a social media “influencer” seems like it would be fun and easy, but if you go down that road, you will inevitably end up dead under a pile of snow, while some square-jawed, raven-haired technophobe tries to explain what “Instagram” is to a baffled Nepali police officer. Stop now before it’s too late! Turn off your phone and read a book or something!

Crankshaft, 2/18/20

I for one expected this story to be “everyone gets snowed in at the Valentie and Hannah ends up giving birth there.” And I appreciate it when the comics can surprise me with plot twists! But I don’t think any of us had any real interest in the story actually being “Crankshaft finally runs out of excuses and has to have sex with his girlfriend” instead.

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Crankshaft, 2/15/20

We’ve already seen the 10-years-ahead version of Max in Funky Winkerbean, still running the barely solvent Valentine, so I guess, despite the heavy air of foreboding looming over the final panel of this strip, that he isn’t going to die in a ditch on this dangerous night ride. I can’t remember if we saw Hannah and/or their future child during that sequence, though. Maybe she’s going to die in childbirth? Right there, in the theater? Because Crankshaft doesn’t care about his own safety or the safety of others? It would sure make the failure of the Valentine, his last connection to his dead beloved, all the more poignant!

Curtis, 2/15/20

The “humor” in today’s strip, which involves Greg making a joke, then Curtis getting that joke, then Greg making another joke, is barely worth discussing here, but I do want to say that the overarching plot of the past few weeks has been that Greg threw his back out and is in a lot of pain, and never has the art sold this concept more aggressively than today. The man looks properly miserable in a very visceral way, and I respect it.

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Crankshaft, 2/11/20

Ahh, who could forget Butter Brinkel, the silent-era film comedian in the Funkyverse whose career was ruined when a starlet died under mysterious circumstances at one of his parties? Well, due to the Crankshaft/Funky Winkerbean chronological disjunction, the shocking documentary revealing that the real murderer was a talking chimp is still a decade off, which means that Butter Brinkel is still universally loathed at the time of today’s episode. Maybe holding this comedy festival was a bad idea, and not just because you scheduled it for mid-February in northeast Ohio! But thank goodness Crankshaft is here. I was going to say that Crankshaft doesn’t care if some movie star is “problematic” but actually, Crankshaft cares quite a lot. Crankshaft is frankly only interested in art created by murderers. Being that close to death makes him feel alive, which honestly explains a lot about why he still drives a schoolbus despite being demonstrably bad at it.

Blondie, 2/11/20

Hey, would you like to do a joke about how Kids Today are soft, with their lawsuits and their trigger warnings and their asbestos-free lungs, but also want to do a joke about how kids today have access to dangerous technology like drones, and you worry that they don’t really go together in the same strip? The wildly popular newspaper comic strip Blondie would like to urge you not to overthink it and just go for it. That’s what they’d do!

Curtis, 2/11/20

Or you could do a strip about modern-day technological culture that both pokes fun at its foibles but also recognizes the real warmth and human connection it can foster, like a coward.