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Family Circus, 10/29/13

You can criticize the Mommy and Daddy’s decision to keep the Keane Kids forever bottled up in the Keane Kompound, with the resulting stunting of their psychological, intellectual, and physical development obvious in every Family Circus panel. Still, you have to marvel at how even in their stunted circumstances, their imaginations soar. Sure, they’ve been denied contact with any biological texts outside of Genesis 2:20, but that hasn’t stopped them from coming up with their own charming and whimsical explanations for what they observe of the natural world. What would their parents say if they could hear their precious children’s simple just-so story? Probably it would involve scouring the Kompound for hidden radios to try to stop any further knowledge of “Halloween” reaching the children.

Funky Winkerbean and Pluggers, 10/29/13

Haha, it’s Tuesday a day of a week, so here’s a couple of comic strips making ham-handed jokes about Facebook! Rachel (her name’s Rachel, right? it’s actually remarkably difficult to find a complete list of Funky Winkerbean characters online) is trying to engage Funky on how he’s coping with Cory, his disappointment of a son (stepson? I’m honestly kind of pleased with my inability to pull up Funkyfacts from memory), being deployed in Afghanistan. As you can tell from Funky’s disgusted facial expression, he doesn’t want to talk about it! Yesterday he claimed that he’s never been on Facebook because “I’m an adult” (fun fact: the average age of a Facebook user is 41). Today he expressionlessly make a joyless sup-pun about how Skype, another technology he can’t be bothered to deal with, allows soldiers in a war zone to still feel connected to loved ones back home, and perhaps hold onto a little bit of their sanity. As long as those loved ones aren’t Funky Winkerbean, anyway! Funky has no desire to learn about fancy screen-phone whosits. Funky is also incapable of feeling affection for another human being, so what would the point of talking to him even be.

Pluggers, in its typical way, is taking a much simpler route to a laff. Whether you’re talking about a scary “web site” on the computer thingie that we guess we have to look at if we want to see the grandkids’ pictures now, or an actual physical book written by nerdlingers who think they’re smarter than us, “facebook” makes us sleepy! Zzzzz.

Archie, 10/29/13

How terrifying must it be to be poor, simple Archie Andrews? Imagine being so acutely aware of your own intellectual limitations that you live in constant terror of your mind being erased by some awful cerebral event, but too dumb to know what what such an event might feel or sound like!

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Lockhorns, 10/23/12

Never let it be said that long-running legacy strips don’t occasionally enjoy innovating! For instance, today’s Lockhorns brings us a new perspective on Leroy and Loretta — specifically, a perspective about nine inches above their bedroom floor, for some reason. Normally I think of the Lockhorns as being fairly short and squat, but today we experience what it would be like to be a tiny, tiny creature over whom they loom menacingly!

Family Circus, 10/23/13

I can’t even tell you how happy I am that Jeffy has a sweatshirt (t-shirt? it’s hard to tell, given his freakishly stumpy arms) that just says “JEFFY” across the front in big letters. Do you think it’s so that in case he forgets who he is, he can look down and be reminded, both by his name written there and by all the chicken grease stains?

Dennis the Menace, 10/23/12

“Drowning, that’s how I’d kill a man,” Mr. Wilson had said. “No fuss, no muss, not a lot of messy blood,” Mr. Wilson had said.

Pluggers, 10/23/12

Danger, Pluggers, danger! The only reason anyone from fancy-pants New York City would write into you would be to make fun of your readers and their horrible fashion sense! Do not use their suggestions in your comic! Also, you have terrible crippling osteoporosis.

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Hi and Lois, 10/11/13

This is the first Hi and Lois I can remember laughing at unironically in months. Maybe ever? What really does it for me is the look of complete horror on Dot and Ditto’s faces in the final panel. Sure, they might squabble over the best way to make chocolate milk, but their methods are still tethered to reality. They aren’t insane. Their expressions are those of two people really looking the full depths of madness in the face for the first time in their young lives.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/11/13

A character develops symptoms of a potentially fatal illness while participating in a memorial walk for another character who succumbed to a different illness after a long fight, while a third character makes a dumb bit of wordplay? This is almost the perfect Funky Winkerbean strip. If only someone had been smirking!

Family Circus, 10/11/13

“Just so you know, if your words are going to be written out and printed in the newspaper for people to read, you’d better hope that whoever does the writing knows the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’, because otherwise you’re going to look pretty dumb.”