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Pluggers, 10/26/19

They say the plugger and the hipster are mortal enemies, but here is evidence that they are both part of the same majestic web of life: assuming it wasn’t too stained or malodorous, I would absolutely, 100% buy an “I survived Y2K” t-shirt from a vintage clothing store, probably for more than this dog-man paid for it. Plugger hoarding tendencies ensure that these bits of pop culture flotsam don’t reenter the marketplace until enough time has passed to ensure that their cultural signifiers have gone from just out of date to ironically funny. Truly, nature is wonderful.

Crankshaft, 10/26/19

I’m not sure what kind of diktat came down from King Features Central Command about making Crankshaft cute ‘n’ cuddly to set up the line of Crankshaft The Friendly Old Man Christmas ornaments and cocoa mugs they’re cooking up, but it’s gonna take more than him gazing contentedly at some marshmallows to make up for literally 32 years of a strip where the central joke, hammered home over and over again, was “good lord, Ed Crankshaft is a tremendous asshole.”

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Funky Winkerbean, 10/17/19

Oh hey you guys, do you remember, how, way back in 2013, Lisa’s Story, Les’s sad-ass misery porn book about his dead wife, Lisa, got optioned for a movie deal? And Les got a huge check for it? But then he had a hard time writing the script, and then he did manage to write the script, but it sucked? And then he went to LA and the people who paid him enormous amounts of money to write the movie wanted to make it entertaining, and Les moped around the fancy hotel they put him up in, and Mason Jarre, the dumb idiot they cast to play Les who at that point was supposed to represent the worst of empty-headed Hollywood, didn’t even realize who Les was, and then Les was weird and condescending and gross to the actress cast as Lisa, and then Les exercised his right to get his “kill fee,” which in the Funkyverse is apparently the payment you get when you bail on the people who hired you and were counting on you, and finally the the whole production collapsed, and Les was thrilled about it? Well, it’s 2019 now, and it seems Mason Jarre, who is now one of the “good” characters in the strip, finally read Les’s terrible book, the one that was supposed to be adapted into the movie where he was going to play the main character! And now he wants to make a movie out of it! But this time he’s going to make it right, by which we mean it’s gonna be depressing as hell and suck ass. I’m very excited about this!

Crankshaft, 10/17/19

Meanwhile in Crankshaft, by which we mean ten years earlier, Pam and Jeff’s son and daughter-in-law have thrown a surprise birthday party for Pam, which has also doubled as an announcement that they’re having a baby, which has led Pam and Jeff to remember that birthday party back in college where the two of them had sex, a process which, under the right conditions, is ultimately what produces babies. Do you think they just went at it in front of everyone else at the party, or was Jeff the only one who showed up?

Six Chix, 10/17/19

This is it, guys. It’s the perfect comic strip. Start with the phrase “The pioneers of television,” the common saying we all know and love, and then draw some pioneers next to a sign that says “Television.” BOOM. PERFECTION. SHUT DOWN THE INDUSTRY, IT’S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE

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Funky Winkerbean, 10/1/19

Welp, it’s looking more and more like Bull really did do a suicide by cliff, or maybe he just has dementia and it was an accident, and we’ll never know one way or another! There are a couple things we know for certain, though: he certainly died in agony trapped in the twisted metal of his car, and Linda really should’ve hidden those keys better, if she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life obsessing over this. Funky Winkerbean, everybody!

Six Chix, 10/1/19

There’s a lot I don’t understand about today’s Six Chix. Like, I’m not a tea guy, but I’ve drunk enough to know that it’s perfectly possible to do so without experiencing happiness, especially if you’re a board-certified grouch. Meanwhile, the lady in this strip seems to be way into this dude’s negativity, like it’s their weird version of S&M. “Yes, Harold, deny yourself pleasure, wallow in crankiness, my goodness.” Also, is having a tiny little plate for a single fried egg really a thing? Those are the high points, those are three things I don’t really understand about today’s Six Chix, but I think it’s a good jumping off place for discussion.

Crankshaft, 10/1/19

Man, if you had asked me what awful conspiracy theory bullshit Crankshaft would’ve gotten into, I definitely would’ve guessed QAnon, but the anti-vaxx stuff tracks as well, honestly.

Blondie, 10/1/19

There are obviously any number of ways this strip indicates a near-total ignorance of how Uber, a ridesharing service that’s been around for close a decade, works in practice, but I think an underrated one is the guy saying “Here’s the Bumsteads’ estate, sir!” as he pulls up.

Zits, 10/1/19

ME: Ugh, I hate how in so much of pop culture, but especially comic strips, people who are parents of teens and little kids are matched up with Baby Boomer cultural signifiers like Woodstock and disco, even though that’s completely wrong here in the year 2019. This is one of my pet peeves! Please be more accurate, comics!

THE COMIC STRIP ZITS: Fine, we’ll do a strip about Walt, the dad in Zits, and we’ll have him discussing recognizable cultural touchstones from your youth, and also the joke will be that this demonstrates that he’s incredibly old, like literally a dinosaur.

ME: Noooooo … not like this. Not like this.