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Gasoline Alley, 7/11/17

Ugh, fine, I guess I will supply some cursory backstory on what’s going on in Gasoline Alley, which is that this freaky-lookin’ dude was briefly irritated by two children while fishing because they thought he was weird and scary looking, and probably we’re going to learn some valuable lessons about ugly hermits with hearts of gold and not judging a book by its cover and blah blah blah, but really today’s final panel makes it look like the guy is coolly examining the unconscious kid with his single eye, trying to determine how best to cook and eat him.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/11/17

I feel like the whole “Starbuck Jones is a movie!” thing has spiraled completely out of hand in Funky Winkerbean, as it started with our sad-sack comics-obsessed characters writing for a neglected comic book hero and now they’re giving a presentation at ComicCon as part of its multimillion-dollar marketing push. It would be like if Joe Shlabotnik got called up to the majors and batted .335 and Charlie Brown got hired as his personal assistant during his team’s undefeated playoff run? Anyway, mostly I’m featuring today’s strip to point out that that, in addition to suffering the general indignity of appearing in Funky Winkerbean, famously ginger Conan O’Brien has been transformed into a blond by the syndicate colorists, possibly because they can’t tell that he and Mason Jarre as supposed to be different people.

Family Circus, 7/11/17

Ha ha, yes Jeffy, it’s there to bury the evidence! (Specifically, the evidence that you or your siblings ever existed.)

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Funky Winkerbean, 7/7/17

I don’t want to just throw around my big-shot Hollywood insider knowledge, mostly because I don’t have any, but a “sizzle reel” is in fact … not whatever today’s Funky Winkerbean thinks it is? It’s generally a short video cut together from clips from other things aiming to sell or promote something to producers or casting directors, not the general public. You usually hear the term in connection with actors, who will have a sizzle reel of their best performances available for people thinking of hiring them. For a whole movie, a sizzle reel is something that would be created long before any filming actually took place, often pieced together from short scenes from other films in an attempt to show potential financial backers what the final product might look like. (Here’s one for the 2012 film Looper to give you a sense of how they work.)

Needless to say, movie sizzle reels generally do not include footage from documentaries about washed-up actors playing minor roles in the film, and they definitely aren’t put together right in the middle of what has appeared to be a very long and well-funded shoot. I can only assume that the financial backers of Starbuck Jones: The Movie, after viewing the dailies with despair, have abruptly pulled out, and the producers are desperately trying to find new funding, which they won’t because they have no idea what should and should not go into a sizzle reel.

Pluggers, 7/7/17

My longstanding theory is that Sheila Roo, a kangaroo-lady who suffers the indignity of being rendered in white by syndicate colorists who think she’s a rabbit, is not of true plugger stock, as indicated by her employment at a job that requires a suit and her desire to eat at non-chain restaurants. Today’s piece of evidence is the way she looks at her husband with subtle but withering contempt, possibly because of his dietary habits but also possibly because of, you know, just everything.

Spider-Man, 7/7/17

Meanwhile, Spider-Man is significantly degrading the fire-safety features of a building that never did anything to him.

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Dick Tracy, 6/19/17

It’s not a secret that I have come to miss the days when Dick Locher helmed Dick Tracy, not least for its violent batshit insanity (the many gruesome deaths of the villains are all nicely outlined here by Uncle Lumpy) set against an art style that seemed to verge into German Expressionism. The subsequent strips since the change in personnel, though in theory featuring better art and more coherent plotting, lack the verve of the Locher era. I feel like things have been getting slightly nuttier lately, and today’s panel is as glorious as it is inexplicable. Is Blackjack robbing Paragon Bank, in a crime unrelated to B.O. Plenty’s problem with the institution’s out-of-control mortgage department? Or is Blackjack secretly running the bank, with his army of masked thugs forcing innocents like our mustachio’d bank exec here to illegally foreclose on houses? How do said thugs get their masks to drape just so? Why is B.O. Plenty wearing sleeve garters like a dealer on a riverboat casino? Is the musical notation floating over our characters’ heads part of the bank’s decor, or is it meant to represent the muzak system playing blissfully away while this scene of high danger goes down? I’m looking forward to getting none of these questions properly answered this week!

Funky Winkerbean, 6/19/17

Oh, hey, so it turns out that the thing Jessica was worried Darin would accidentally discover was that … her mom helped her plan a visit for him and Pete to the Flash Museum in Central City! Now, I don’t know all the ins and outs of the world of comics books, but I’m pretty sure that most places that have “museum” in their name well let anybody in to see their exhibits who’s willing to pay the admission fee, so I’m not sure why everyone is acting like this is a huge deal? Maybe because this museum is dedicated to the Flash, an actual superhero that people have heard of, and not Mister Sponge and Starbuck Jones, which are made up and phony-baloney.

Spider-Man, 6/19/17

Don’t worry, Spidey! Despite this being’s designation as an “armadilloid,” he appears to only superficially resemble any representative superorder Xenarthra, the clade that includes armadillos and and anteaters; in particular, the creature lacks the specialized dentition that makes anteaters unique, instead displaying what a scientist might call “a bunch of big teethy slabs.” Nice try using some taxonomy knowledge to get out of having to do superhero stuff! On the other hand, you yourself are not a spider at all, just a super strong dude in a spandex suit, so maybe he can eat you, I dunno. I for one am willing to find out!