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Funky Winkerbean, 11/25/15

Hey, Pete and Darren, as a relatively new transplant to LA, I understand that the little things can be tough — things like figuring out your favorite places to eat. In a huge city like Los Angeles, you have the additional dilemma caused by a wide variety of choices, a marked contrast to your hometown, where literally the only places that serve food are Montoni’s and the Toxic Taco. Anyway, my personal favorite pizza place that I’ve found so far is DeSano in East Hollywood, although they don’t deliver; Hard Times Pizza, on Glendale Boulevard in Echo Park, does, and they’re great too, though you might not be able to get delivery from them if you live over towards the Westside. I’m sure there are a number of great options there, though! I’m sure there are a number of options that are infinitely better than terrible Montoni’s sadness-pizza that’s been put on dry ice and shipped across the country, come the fuck on.

Spider-Man, 11/25/15

I’m not gonna lie to you: this extremely low-stakes brawl in the UN General Assembly hall could go on for weeks as far as I’m concerned and I will love every minute of it. Did Namor just kind of … swipe in the general direction of those security guards in panel one? Did everyone just sort of forget to look up as the floating Atlantean Combat Platform drifted into the chambers? How did it get through the door, anyway? And why did a race that lives under the sea bother to developer technology that can make things float in midair? Anyway, I hope this whole sequence lasts long enough to not answer any of these questions but raise a lot more questions through endless additional hilariously dumb details.

Pluggers, 11/25/15

Do you think plugger-cat paid for this fantasy? I’m just imagining plugger-cat talking to some confused male escort he found on backpage.com, and saying “Your ad says you’re up for anything.”

Heathcliff, 11/25/15

You can tell by his blank, expressionless stare that the Garbage Ape is super not into this scene. “Remember when they used to cheer like this just because I was swinging garbage cans around?” he thinks. “When did I need to start getting topical all of the sudden? Why can’t they just love me for the garbage?”

B.C., 11/25/15

Ha ha, it’s funny because living as an adult makes you want to die!

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Crankshaft, 11/7/15

Ha, so not only did the mayoral election end in a tie because Crankshaft forgot to vote, but the tie was broken by a coin toss (a real thing that happens!) and Ralph let Crankshaft call it, which he did incorrectly, so Crankshaft lost the election for Ralph twice. Anyway, I skipped over these action-packed strips and instead chose to share with you today’s end-of-week installment, in which Crankshaft and Ralph huddle miserably under a too-small umbrella in a driving rain, their dreams crushed, because I’m cruel like that.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/7/15

Speaking of cruelty, it seems that Holly is OK with her son using her carefully collected comics as exchange for a bride-price trinket. But don’t worry, something terrible has to come of all this (other than Cory and Rocky’s inevitable divorce), and that something is the ultimate victory of the Chiseler, who was presented as the villain in the long-running Holly Carefully Collects Comics storyline. Remember, this is the Funkyverse, where even the joy is bad.

Dennis the Menace, 11/7/15

“Isn’t that cool? Isn’t it neat how all of humanity, all of biological life, is linked in a great chain of being? With each link more and more important until the chain reaches its logical conclusion: me? But the chain stops here. I am the end of everything you know, and the beginning of something you can’t possibly imagine. I am Dennis. I am the menace.”

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Mary Worth and The Phantom, 11/4/15

Welp, here it is, as foretold in prophecy: the Mary Worth–Phantom crossover that none of us knew we wanted until we realized that we had it. Perhaps little psychic Olive will turn out to be the key in some great Phantom-style adventure, or perhaps Olive, like Shelly before her, will serve as the ostensible reason Mary went to New York but will be quickly discarded when someone more interesting comes along, in this case the cheerful, non-street-smart daughter of an immortal jungle superhero. At the moment, I’m intrigued by the fact that we’re seeing the same moment in the story, but with slightly different dialogue. Is this to emphasize, Rashomon-style, that an objective recounting of past events is impossible? In this case, what appears to be a straightforward narrative is actually a pair of later recollections: Heloise’s story is being read in the Skull Cave Chronicle Chamber by some descendant of the family in the unknowably distant future; Mary’s version is being recounted poolside at Charterstone over salmon squares to Toby, who’s been Xanax’d into sullen compliance.

Mark Trail, 11/4/15

Speaking of action-packed soap opera adventure, this current Mark Trail storyline doesn’t need to cross over with another strip to reach multiple audiences! Today, for fans of people wildly spraying automatic gunfire, we’ve got the guy wildly spraying automatic gunfire in panel one; and for fans of shapely asses, thighs, and calves, we’ve got Mark’s shapely ass, thighs, and calves in panel three.

Apartment 3-G, 11/4/15

“Gabby! This man nurtured his love for Margo during his years of recovery in a Tibetan nunnery, journeyed to New York to save her from danger that he had detected with his Buddhist mind powers, and has hovered by her bedside nonstop during her coma! Obviously his romantic interest in her is very tenuous, and any potential nagging from his beloved’s parents could push him away. For God’s sake, never ask him any follow-up questions about anything ever!”

Judge Parker, 11/4/15

Oh, hey, remember how Sophie wanted to go to military school and learn to kill, because the boy she liked was probably going to fool around with another girl at a party? Well, good news: that other girl didn’t even go to the party because she got in trouble for drugs, so Sophie’s going to stay in public school for now, explore her burgeoning teenage sexuality with a willing and now unencumbered partner, and figure out some other way to ruin the world while aggrandizing her own power at later date (probably the finance industry).

Funky Winkerbean, 11/4/15

Haha, true story: for a significant period of time after I read this strip, I thought Cory had sold the comic book collection his mother had lovingly assembled as a way to feel close to him because he needed to … buy a ring to propose to his mom? But no, I guess that’s to propose to his girlfriend or whatever, which everyone will think is perfectly OK. Remember, kids, throwing money at the wedding-industrial complex and the notoriously evil diamond industry is virtuous! Thank goodness he didn’t spend the money on a car or a house or something practical that he and Rocky might be able to use for years to come.