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Funky Winkerbean, 10/5/20

Hey, remember beloved (?) Funkyverse supporting character Adeela, an Iraqi (?) immigrant who forged an unlikely bond with Wally because they both have PTSD from the same (?) war? Welp, she’s getting deported now, because of a clerical error! Please, my sides just stopped aching from the time you burned down half of Los Angeles, you’ve got to give me some time to relax before you bring this level of laffs back to the newspaper.

Gil Thorp, 10/5/20

I’m woefully underqualified to judge the sports action in Gil Thorp, but … Curtis Charles and his Ballard opponent aren’t so much fighting for position as a potential touchdown pass is heaved their way as just kind of standing there and thinking “Huh, he threw the ball, whaddya know,” right? This really fits in with my firmly held belief that all the games within the Thorpiverse are in fact pretty boring to watch.

Dennis the Menace, 10/5/20

I’m really enjoying how much room Henry and Alice are putting between Dennis and themselves here. “This kid? The one who doesn’t seem to know even the basics of the religion we supposedly profess? Never seen him before, padre.”

The Lockhorns, 10/5/20

I say this with all due respect to The Lockhorns: you may be a longstanding comics page institution, but you do not occupy the same place in the comics world as Garfield and definitely do not have the resources necessary to survive a legal battle with Paws, Inc. I beg you to step back from this before it’s too late.

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Dennis the Menace, 10/3/20

I want to confess something right here on this blog, before the whole dang internet: for many years, until, I wanna say, the mid-to-late ’00s, I assumed a “spin class” was some kind of aerobics thing where the exercise consisted primarily of spinning around in a circle, and it wasn’t until my father-in-law started taking one after his heart surgery that I learned that, like, stationary bikes are involved? Anyway, the point is that Dennis here, a mere child, is managing to pull off some passable menacing that’s reasonably informed by this specific situation here, whereas I was experiencing a dumb Jeffy Keane-level vocabulary misunderstanding until well into my 30s.

Mark Trail, 10/3/20

You know, I made fun of everybody for yelling at Mark for not coming to some boring industry dinner where they hand out pointless awards in an unedifying display of industry mutual back-patting, but I withdraw my mockery because obviously in the Trailiverse the annual Conservation Awards are a nationally televised event on par with the Oscars. I do want to point out, however, that it’s good that the characters presumably can’t hear the narration boxes, because I think Cherry would be pretty hurt to be referred to as Mark’s “friend.”

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Dennis the Menace, 9/21/20

OK, look, Dennis, let’s never mind that Margaret doesn’t even seem to notice you’re there and is heading off on some business of her own. Where on Earth does the phrase “the silence before the storm” comes from? It’s not the actual correct phrase and it also doesn’t repeat the phrasing Joey used in the first panel. Plus it’s not a joke! I’m not even gonna get into the “how menacing is this” shtick right now, I just gotta ask … are you OK, man?

Gasoline Alley, 9/21/20

Meanwhile, these two panels are a real roller coaster, storywise and emotionally! Truly “Ha ha!” is how a congregation would react to a clergyman telling them that today’s sermon will be short, followed by “ooh! ah!” and “wow!” when he smoothly segues into “snakes are mentioned in the bible over 20 times,” which, folks, I may not be an expert in theological oratory, but if I heard the phrase “snakes are mentioned in the bible over 20 times” at the beginning of a sermon, my first thought would not be “oh, this sermon is going to be short,” but rather “ooh! ah! this guy’s gonna tell us about all 20 biblical snake references! wow!” And, honestly, I’d be into it. Obviously we start with the serpent in the Adam and Eve story (and I’d love it he could tell us when that guy started being identified with the devil, because in Genesis he gets cursed by God into leglessness as a punishment for leading Eve astray, and it seems weird for all snakes have no legs because of something the devil did), but I do hope he spends some time on the bad-ass brass snake Moses carried around on a pole that he used to cure snakebites.

Sam and Silo, 9/21/20

Sam’s (or Silo’s? if you think I’m ever going to remember which one of these two is which unless I’m looking directly at a strip where one of them is explicitly addressed by name, you’ve got another thing coming) cat just want out in the extremely dangerous nighttime, for sex. It’s worth it to him! In fact, the possibility he might be mauled to death by a dog just makes the sexual act more intense and erotic! That’s the joke today in Sam and Silo, a comic strip published in, I assume, several family newspapers.