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Funky Winkerbean, 5/19/10

Oh, Funky Winkerbean, I’m glad you’ve finally decided to give in and just embrace emotional devastation as the engine for all your drama. Today’s strip, both in form and in content, could be the basis for some bleak avant-garde art film that would play tiny, pretentious cinemas in New York and LA for two weeks before being released in a Criterion Collection DVD. For those of you not familiar with all the ins and outs of the strip’s depressing backstory: the brown-haired lady who is attempting to bust in on Les’s budding sexless romance with Cayla is Susan, who, pre-time-jump, was one of Les’s students who developed a crush on him for some incomprehensible reason, and who tried to kill herself (the incident depicted in the second panel) when her advances were spurned. Thus, what we have here is pretty much “mild low-level flirting mild low-level flirting INTRUSIVE SHARED BUT UNSPOKEN MEMORIES OF HORROR mild low-level flirting,” which is pretty hardcore. The kicker, for me, is the panel two’s “sepia-toned photo in an old-timey album” motif, which serves as a visual cue for flashbacks in the Funkyverse. In this case, it colors a grim, painful moment with a sort of ghastly nostalgia, as if Susan and Les will be laughing about it in retrospect after the consummate their mopey love.

Also, I know that the time jump wasn’t supposed to move us a decade forward in absolute time, but I’m not sure which prospect I find more unsettling: that big shoulder pads will be back in style for ladies by 2020, or that they’re coming back into style now.

Dennis the Menace, 5/19/10

Since I basically just egged Funky Winkerbean on to whatever Grand Guignol emotional excesses it might dare to achieve, I guess it’s OK for me to express my disappointment that we’ve missed Mr. Wilson’s loving descriptions of all the tortures Dennis the Menace’s damned soul will be experiencing, in hell.

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Spider-Man, 5/11/10

O cruel twist of fate! Here our hero, the Amazing Spider-Man, is betrayed by that which he loves the most: television! He always dreamed of the day when his image would appear on the fantastic glowing picture box in his living room, but now that it’s arrived, it’s just making him confront his financial inadequacies. Perhaps Peter will take this opportunity to educate himself about the rapidly consolidating corporate-controlled media landscape — presumably the Globe-Herald and this local TV station are owned by the same company, and whatever freelancing agreement Peter signed gave that parent corporation the right to use his work across all of its properties. Maybe Spidey’s next battle will be to make readers more aware of alternative, independent journalism, in print or online! Ha ha, just kidding, he’s going to stay at home and sulk and not even go see Mary Jane’s show, wah wah wah, poor Peter Parker, nobody loves him.

Dennis the Menace, 5/11/10

I’m not exactly sure why this is supposed to be either funny or menacing. Perhaps Dennis’s parents have thrown him out of the house into the pouring rain for his general bad behavior, and now he represents the social menace of child homelessness?

Apartment 3-G, 5/11/10

Apartment 3-G really brings home to me how much I make quick assessments about people’s age and social circle from the way they dress. This usually works well enough in the real world, but when you’re dealing with a cast of characters whose wardrobe appears to have been meticulously copied from mid-’60s issues of Redbook, you’re left sort of at sea. Are the A3G girls supposed to be 25? 40? 55? 25-year-olds involved in an elaborate cosplay subculture? Who knows! What I’m trying to say is that Lu Ann may well be a 12-year-old. It would explain a lot.

Marvin, 5/11/10

In happier news, Marvin is about to be mauled by a vicious dog.

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Slylock Fox, 5/5/10

Boy, Slylock sure is grim this week. First it’s animals getting maimed in car wrecks, now it’s “which of these adorable beasties is closest to death”? The short lifespan of the opossum actually fits in nicely with the little story being told, too. The villain of whatever petty mystery Officer Turtle is trying to solve isn’t the accusatory raccoon, the terrified beaver, or the obviously stoned bear. No, that angry opossum did it, because when death is always hovering right over your shoulder, you do some crazy things just to feel alive. What’re you gonna do, copper, throw me in jail for life? Doesn’t matter to me, I was never going to get to see my kids grow up anyway.

Mark Trail, 5/5/10

With Cherry abandoning him to gussy herself up, Mark has been left with Doc and Rusty, truly the dregs of the Lost Forest social scene. The final panel illustrates why Rusty won’t be allowed out in the barn: his hideous visage will panic the horses.

Dennis the Menace, 5/5/10

Those terrifyingly thin ankles indicate that Dennis has managed to induce a serious eating disorder in his mother with his little bathroom pep talks. Menacing factor: +1.