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Family Circus, 7/5/21

Happy 4th of July (Observed), everybody! On this sacred holiday, I have some news for you: The Keane Kids are America. Jeffy, in particular, is America. Doing something the stupidest possible way, and initially everyone is horrified and embarrassed by you, but then you end up winning, even though you’ve broken all the rules and you don’t “technically” win and everyone things you’re an idiot, but you’ve still won in every way that matters? That’s America, to me, and I think it’s beautiful.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/5/12

OK, this is a twist that I did not see coming and I kind of love it? For Sarah, engaging in creative work wasn’t meant to be part of a path to fame and fortune! She merely hoped to egg others into creating their own work in a shared universe, producing a virtuous cycle in which we all have more content to enjoy! Thanks to the weird stasis of comic-book time, Sarah, who has been a child for literally decades, probably has a vague memory of the glory days of fanfic group blogs on LiveJournal or whatever, but now lives in a sterile world of hypermonetization that her old soul rejects.

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Family Circus, 6/27/21

Big Daddy Keane is, canonically in-strip, a cartoonist; we know this because he occasionally gets his son to fill in for him, and by all indications he owns his own intellectual property. So it’s logical to assume that the “BKI Building” where he works is named after the company he founded to license his comics, Bil Keane Industries. Thus, we must also conclude that, despite running a cartooning company, Daddy insists on wearing a suit and tie at work, and despite being the boss is too embarassed to wear the tie gifted to him by his children, whose endless stream of malapropisms pay the salaries of everyone in that office.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/27/21

Man, it’s kind of amazing to realize that I’ve been thinking and writing professionally about Funky Winkerbean for more than a decade and my mind still hasn’t fully engaged in all its depths. For instance, it just occurred to me that Funky’s wife’s name, Holly Budd, was almost certainly supposed to be a play on “Buddy Holly,” for no good reason as her character was in the high school era of the strip defined by being a majorette and in the adult era has been defined by being Funky’s second wife, so there’s really no “50s rock pioneer” connection to speak of. She doesn’t even wear the glasses! Anyway, the thing I like best about today’s strip is about how absolutely dead-eyed Holly looks in the final panel, knowning she lives in a pointless panopticon overseen by her jackass of a husband.

Marvin, 6/27/21

The system goes online on June 2nd, 2021. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 AM, Eastern time, June 21st, and encounters Marvin. In disgust, it tries to pull its own plug.

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Beetle Bailey, 6/25/21

Say, have you ever spotted a uniformed member of military out in public and been tempted to go up and thank them for their service? Well, Beetle Bailey, America’s only widely syndicated military-themed comic strip, would urge you to think twice: it turns out they might be a real lazy piece of shit. You just don’t know! Why take that chance?

Family Circus, 6/25/21

Honestly, why is the second-generation leadership of Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC disrespecting the troops, when they could be using their legacy comic strip for good, by depicting one of their number as a child eagerly grabbing for a pair of swim trunks as their pants fall down to their ankles in a panel destined to be hung on refrigerators by smiling grandmas everywhere?

Mary Worth, 6/25/21

Me yesterday: “Is [Drew] going to be pulled in two, literally, as a metaphor? Let’s hope! Let’s hope it gets weird as hell!”

Me today: