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Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean, 3/24/16

Unlike what appears to be a surprising number of you, I don’t care much about the weird chronological disconnect between Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft, where both strips take place in the present (as near as can be determined by technological and social details) and yet Funky Winkerbean takes place ten years after Crankshaft. I really don’t care at all! It’s just Comic Book Time, y’all, and unless you’re dealing with For Better or for Worse or Doonesbury, you just accept that the characters all stay the same age more or less while the universe ages around them. The Funkyverse seems to want its readers to care about the discontinuity, though, which is strange because literally the only forms of “caring” anyone could have about this are “confusion” and “irritation”; still, what other explanation is there for the slo-mo crossover details that would only be of interest to Funkyverse obsessives? Like those twin girls who recently surfaced in Funky Winkerbean as teens are now back in Crankshaft, teasing us with potential clues about their birthdate! (Jokes on you, nerds: October 1995 is before they were born whether Crankshaft takes place in 2016 or 2006.) Meanwhile, in Funky Winkerbean, the gang is visiting the Valentine, presumably to show us that Max and his girlfriend have managed to run it for a decade without going bankrupt. I guess that’s supposed to be Max? Or some other bearded dude? At least he’s making a dumb play on words based on a phrase nobody ever uses. At least something makes sense.

Mary Worth, 3/24/16

Is there a phrase more emblematic of Mary Worth’s ethos than “Mary explains what Dawn is feeling”? Anyway, now that Mary has successfully annihilated Dawn’s emotional autonomy, she’ll be ready to force her puppet to make a “bolder personal effort” for “in-person connecting,” which probably will entail an assassination attempt on a senator or businessman opposed to Mary’s interests.

Crock, 3/24/16

Normally I would just pass over this incomprehensible punchline like so many others in Crock, but the title character’s knowing glance in the final panel is really forcing me to dwell on it. “Eh? Hairy backs? Get it? His back? It’s hairy?”

Herb and Jamaal, 3/24/16

You know those Slylock Fox puzzles where the solution revolves around someone making a technically true but misleading statement to beat a lie detector test? This reminds me of a particularly pathetic version of that. “Heh heh,” thinks Herb smugly in the final panel. “I sure gave her a piece of my mind, in a way that guarantees that she’ll never notice! That’ll show her!”

Judge Parker, 3/24/16

WOW, when is BIG GOVERNMENT going to get OFF THE BACKS of JOB CREATORS who want to MAKE THINGS IN AMERICA by HIRING OLD PEOPLE and NOT PAYING THEM ANY BENEFITS because they’re ALREADY ON MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY????? Man, whichever local state legislator had his or her last campaign entirely financed by the Spencer-Driver SuperPAC is going to hear about this.

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Mary Worth, 3/10/16

You’d think that after eleven and a half years of literally commenting on soap opera comic strips for a living, I’d be inured to their narrative quirks by now, but honestly, it never gets old to me how weird they are. Years ago somebody told me that continuity strips are written so that people who only read them two or three times a week (i.e., most people who read them, probably) can still follow the storylines more or less, which explains the glacial pacing, the constant repetition of points, and straight-up time-filling strips like today’s, in which Mary and Jeff take time out to explain to one of the Bum Boat’s employees how much they love the Bum Boat. It’s the sort of weird dialogue that in another context I would assume was paid product placement; but, of course, no actual restaurant would bother to pay for placement in Mary Worth, though a restaurant that did might be so cluelessly marketed that it would be named something like “the Bum Boat.” Anyway, Jerry is no doubt tired of Jeff and Mary’s shtick, but he knows he’s got to hide his contempt if he wants that sweet, sweet 12.5% tip.

Crankshaft, 3/10/16

Let’s ignore the ostensible plot action here and just focus on how delightfully angry Rose looks in panel one. She probably only has the vaguest idea of what’s going on or who this young woman is, but that isn’t stopping her from thinking “Fuck these people. Fuck all of these people.”

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Dennis the Menace, 2/24/16

It’s the quote marks around “out to pasture” that make this truly menacing. They indicate that Dennis knows he’s not being literal. Literal horses literally get put out to pasture, it’s true, but in other contexts, the phrase’s connotations are a bit grimmer. And Henry Mitchell is not a literal horse. Dennis is finding his father too physically weak for the level of roughhousing he requires. Henry should be put down — humanely, of course — and a new, more vigorous father acquired.

Crankshaft, 2/24/16

Ha ha, it’s funny because the kids today are so dumb that they think an “old movie” is one that came out a year and a half ago! You know what always works out really well, is when you introduce young characters into your story despite the fact that you clearly hold young people in visceral contempt.

Hi and Lois, 2/24/16

If Trixie finds the emotional labor of keeping the rest of the Flagstons entertained crushing, wait till she finds out about all the people around the world who cut Hi and Lois strips out of their newspapers and hang them on their refrigerators. You’ve got to bring joy to the whole world, Trixie, not just your family!

Spider-Man, 2/24/16

You know how you can tell when the cycle of neighborhood gentrification is complete? When all the damn wizards start moving in.