Post Content

Mary Worth, 10/11/18

So it looks like Mary’s going to go with the “Tee hee, I need a big strong man to make sure I’m not ripped off by those ruffians down at the auto repair shop” gambit to try to lure Saul out of his Sadness Condo. Charmingly patriarchal as I find Mr. Wynter’s snarled “What happened to your boyfriend?”, we all know what happened to Mary’s boyfriend: (a) this is all a ploy so he’s not even involved, (b) he has an actual job, unlike these two retiree layabouts, and (c) he’s extremely nervous and would probably react to any hard sell from the mechanics by saying “He’s right, Mary! A car without a thorough undercoating is unsafe!”

Crankshaft, 10/11/18

There’s this whole depressing long-simmering storyline that Crankshaft has revisited over the years about how Lilian thwarted her sister Lucy’s love life when they were young out of jealousy, which I can never keep the details straight because I find it tedious, and also I think Lucy died within the last ten years of real-life time or so in some tragic way … was it Alzheimer’s? I’m gonna say Alzheimer’s. Anyway, the fella who was the object of both sisters’ desire in their youth is this behattèd gentl here, who’s come to this class reunion to offer absolution, I guess, and also offer career advise: Lilian should write a book about her tragically dead sister! Sure, she’s written exactly one book, a cozy murder mystery, and cozy murder mysteries are a solidly commercial genre that you can be real successful in if you find your niche, and she landed her agent on the strength of that manuscript, but why not suddenly shift gears and write a memoir? Remember, this is the Funkyverse, where the only valid literary form is the Tragic Memoir About A Loved One Who Died.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/11/18

Speaking of the Funkyverse, Funky had planned to “run through the tape here at Montoni’s,” which I take to mean that he intended to keep working there until he died, presumably of a rage-stroke while he screamed at some tomato sauce supplier over the phone, but now he’s going to abruptly hand the job over to his nephew and peace out. Does he have any retirement savings to fall back on, or has he finally realized that dying in poverty is preferable to smelling burnt pepperoni and sadness every day for the rest of his life?

Crock, 10/11/18

This comic doesn’t make any sense because it’s established Crock canon that Maggot and Grossie live in a tent. I hate that I know this.

Post Content

Crock, 10/10/18

Ha ha, yes, it’s funny because Crock appears to be suggesting that poor Barlow be fitted with a chicken liver, a ghastly parody of a medical procedure that would surely result in his death. But check out Orville in the final panel, who appears to be using dark magick to animate a severed hand to perform menial labor for him. Maybe he’s a man who could transform a chicken liver into an organ that could keep a human alive! Who could possibly set limits on the capabilities of this powerful wizard?

Hi and Lois, 10/10/18

Trixie is, of course, an eternal infant, trapped in comic-time amber for half a century and presumably doomed to stay there for a half century more, assuming newspaper comic strips are still around for that long (they will not). So it’s not a surprise that her fully adult mind has become all sick and twisted inside her forever soft baby skull. Yes, it’s good that her parents keep her confined behind closed doors; if she were allowed to escape, she would truly “mess up” the world with her terrible and well-earned wrath.

Hagar the Horrible, 10/10/18

I was going to make this one in my continuing series of jokes about “ha ha, Hagar recently converted to Christianity but doesn’t fully ‘get’ it,” but then I remembered … most of the history of Western civilization? Then I got real sad.

Spider-Man, 10/10/18

Oh no, Spidey and Iron Fist punched the helicopter they were dangling off of, damaging it enough to interfere with its ability to fly, probably leading to their fiery deaths! Who could’ve possibly predicted this outcome? Oh, literally anybody? OK!

Post Content

Crock, 9/8/18

As I have repeatedly promised, I will continue to produce this blog until the day I die, but one of my big fears is that as I get older the blog will transition away from “Ha ha, here is some trenchant commentary on newspaper comics, and how they relate to society as a whole” and towards “Help! I don’t understand today’s Crock!” But ………. guys, I don’t understand today’s Crock. I’m sort of hung up on Grossie’s facial expression in panel one. Normally I’d interpret “going to have number four” as, like, she was pregnant with a fourth child, but Grossie’s face is marked by a certain cruel glee that seems wildly misplaced even to me, a committed childfree coastal elitist. Like, it should be a well-known term for a type of plastic surgery to match her expression, you know? I basically feel like Otis has gotten the exactly correct sense of things from context clues and shouldn’t be the butt of the joke here.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/8/18

The death of any human being is of course a tragedy, but if a woman passing peacefully, surrounded by her family, after a good, long life well-lived is the price that needed to be paid to end the Hanks’ endless nationwide tour of dumb roadside attractions, I think it was worth it.