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Gasoline Alley, 12/12/19

You know, I don’t talk about Gasoline Alley a ton here but I really have come to respect its utterly shambolic narrative style. Like, none of the other continuity strips are what you’d call tightly plotted, but Gasoline Alley lurches from event from to event without any clear sense of purpose or direction, much like real life itself, in a style normally associated with European arthouse movies from the ’70s. Over the last few … weeks? months? time has no meaning in this context, honestly, so let’s just say “the last little bit,” the town’s resident psychic physician’s assistant diagnosed the diner’s waitress with a heart condition so she had to take time off, and then a tough-talking sailor woman wandered through town and took the job, and then a train full of little kids on their way to see Santa broke down near the diner, so then they got Slim to dress up as Santa and come entertain them, and now it turns out that the little kids are … mostly assholes? And the tough-talking sailor woman, in her crusty, non-PC way, is threatening to murder them? Not really sure if this kid is claiming his father actually is a gamma radiation-mutated superhero or just a guy with a terrible anger problem, and honestly, in classic Gasoline Alley fashion, we’re probably never going to find out for sure! This is just one in series of vaguely connected things that happen, and will keep on happening, forever.

Crankshaft, 12/12/19

Crankshaft has been doing a whole series of strips this week about hawking your book at a book fair and nobody buying it, maybe because print media is dying or maybe just because nobody likes your book or maybe a little of both, and the whole thing has a definite “pulled from real life” vibe. Anyway, I’m a particular fan of today’s strip because of the Christmas decorations, which really create a mood, you know? These people could all be spending precious time around the holidays with their families, but instead they’re here, in what appears to be a hallway of some sort, staring at their phones, not selling books.

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Gil Thorp, 12/6/19

Say, remember way back at the beginning of this storyline, when the first inkling that something was odd about Chance Macy was that he’d rather stay home and chill than party at The Bucket? We never quite got any explanation of if or how that tied into the problems with aggression he had as a little kid, but the surprise lines around his head in panel three here indicate that he’s still wary of partaking in this seemingly harmless social ritual. Will all the hubbub turn out to be too much for his fragile brain? Will some poor waiter end up with scissors embedded in his face? Will Chet finally be vindicated?

Crankshaft, 12/6/19

Say, remember when, less than three years ago, Crankshaft managed Ralph’s mayoral bid, and fixing potholes was literally the entire campaign platform? Well, it’s a good thing they lost, because they clearly lacked even the most basic understanding of governance necessary to deliver on their promises, or, worse, they’ve rapidly gone so senile that they’ve forgotten the election even happened in the first place.

Matts, 12/6/19

Say, remember the adorable lisping pets of Mutts? What’re they up to these days? Uh, fucking deer, it looks like.

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Funky Winkerbean, 12/3/19

“Hey,” literally nobody asked, “What’s going on with Darrin and Mopey Pete in Funky Winkerbean?” Well, at the doomed comic book publishing venture that they gave up lucrative Hollywood jobs to work at, an artist from the Golden Age of Comics has either been hired in some vague consultant role or is just hanging around the office because he has nowhere to go and nothing better to do (I don’t remember which and if you think I’m going to bother digging through my archives to see if I can figure it out you have wildly overestimated my tolerance for the Comic Book Wankery plots of Funky Winkerbean). Anyway, you want a seasoned professional on your roster for moments like this: when he remembers some long-held grudge against a co-worker who’s almost certainly dead and can’t defend himself, and then just drones on and on all afternoon about what an asshole the guy was.

Crankshaft, 12/3/19

You know, I sort of assume that Crankshaft’s endless malapropism are generated by faulty wiring in his brain, and that he lets loose with them without really thinking about them or even realizing what he’s doing. That’s why I kind of resent the sly smile he’s giving his granddaughter in panel three here. “A ‘napkin,’ get it? What do you think of that one? Just a little something I’m workshopping.”

Six Chix, 12/3/19

Remember Chicken Little, the beloved folk tale protagonist who’s hit in the head with an acorn and believes the sky is falling, convincing his friends of upcoming doom and teaching listeners a valuable lesson about mass hysterias that can arise without much evidence of danger? Well, today’s Six Chix dares to pose the question: what if the sky … were falling? Really makes you think, doesn’t it.