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Funky Winkerbean, 12/6/20

“What if we had a character make a bad joke and then other characters point out that it’s a bad joke? That makes a good joke, right?” is of course a classic Funky Winkerbean bit, but I have to admit I don’t fully understand how it’s playing out here. Is the non-Mindy portion of the gang divided into rival “Mopey Pete is funny” and “Mopey Pete is not funny” factions? Is the simultaneous “HA! HA! HA!” meant to be read as sarcastic, mocking barks? Or is Darrin the only one here willing to speak truth to power? (Or, since everyone here works at a failing comics company, I guess that should be “speak truth to utter powerlessness.”)

Mary Worth, 12/6/20

Sure, the resolution of this plot seems to indicate that Brandy and Tommy’s love is strong, but that Billie Holiday quote sure undermines that, doesn’t it? I guess Brandy can just turn her love on and off like a faucet, based on what her therapist tells her! You better tread carefully, Tommy.

Dick Tracy, 12/6/20

Welp, I guess the spider plot is over, folks! I’m now very excited at the prospect of seeing Dick Tracy shoot some hippies, though probably not as excited as Dick is at the prospect of shooting some hippies.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/6/20

GOSH, YEAH, IMAGINE IF YOU DIDN’T LIKE BUCK BUT STILL HAD TO SEE HIS DUMB FACE IN, SAY, THE NEWSPAPER ALL THE TIME

JUST IMAGINE IT

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/4/20

For those of you who don’t know the history (and really, why would you), this comic strip started out as Barney Google, in 1919, and the titular character was a sharp city slicker, but then the strip aimed to cash in on the Depression-era vogue for hillbilly humor already being exploited by Li’l Abner, so Barney went and visited his pal Snuffy Smith in Hootin’ Holler, who by the 1950s had become the strip’s main character, with increasingly infrequent visits from Barney Google. The current creative team brought back Barney in 2012 in his first appearance in 15 years, and he’s appeared intermittently since, but this week he’s actually taken Barney and company back with him to the city, which raises the question: we all know that this strip’s main setting is a grotesque, distorted caricature of rural life, but what will its take on urbanity be? Well, it appears to be people dancing in brightly lit clubs with floor-to-ceiling windows that make them visible from outside, where various draft animals rear about grotesquely on dirt streets, so, in other words: accurate.

Dick Tracy, 12/4/20

Meanwhile, in Dick Tracy, another decades-old strip whose depiction of everyday life is composed of multiple layers of continually updated nostalgia, one of our villains has terribly injured himself in a sewer while the other is about to be killed by his own giant spider, which he keeps captive for venom-milking purposes. How sad is Dick going to be that he doesn’t get to shoot anybody? Maybe he’ll shoot the spider, but his heart won’t really be in it.

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Dick Tracy, 11/26/20

Remember a few days ago, when I suggested this Dick Tracy plot would end with its bumbling villains drowning in a sewer? Well, in fact, one of them fell down a ladder in a sewer and terribly injured himself and was abandoned by his compatriot, who then inexplicably drove their getaway van up onto a sidewalk, causing the (unlocked?) rear doors to pop open and the valuable meteorite inside to plop unceremoniously out onto the street, which I have to admit is much, much funnier.

Six Chix, 11/26/20

American Pie, the teen sex comedy that broke all kinds of taboos by featuring a teen boy fucking a pie, is now more than 20 years old, so it’s no surprise that it’s now getting a gender-swapped reboot, in which it’s now an adult woman who fucks a pie, but also she and the pie enter into a long-term committed relationship, and then she brings the pie home to her family for Thanksgiving, and her family eats the pie, which you have to admit is a lot darker.

The Lockhorns, 11/26/20

Many Americans are pretty sad this year because they’re spending Thanksgiving with just their immediate family or perhaps alone. But if you’re in that position, console yourself in the knowledge that it really is just for this year, whereas Leroy and Loretta have Thanksgiving together alone with the person they hate the most (for Leroy that’s Loretta, and vice versa) every year, in this featureless void, for the rest of eternity.