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Apartment 3-G, 10/12/13

Every long-running drama has a character I call “the Dann”, after Dann Florek of TV’s Law and Order. The Dann’s role is to say or do anything — heedless of consistency, motivation, and common sense — that will advance the plot. Depending on where the writers want to go, it could be: “You know I’ve got your back.” / “I’ll have your badge for this!” / “I stand up for my detectives!” / “The Chief of D’s wants you gone!”, or for that matter, “There’s a funny noise in this room!” / “Who cut the cheese?”, or “Friendship is magic!” Sometimes the writers roll dice or play drinking games to decide what to make him do. It’s a tough gig being the Dann.

“Friendship is magic, dirtbag!”

Pity then poor Marty, Lu Ann’s art student and current Dann-doyenne of Apartment 3-G. Since May, this little whirlwind has gone from oppositional/defiant with the Governor of New York, hyper-vigilant and protective of her sad-sack father Cole, in denial about Cole’s PTSD–alcohol–head trauma–substance abuse–depression–chronic pain–being really stupid issues, intrigued/repelled by “bad girl” Tori, enraged that her Dad concealed his brain tumor from her, bingeing with Tori on booze and smokes, to simultaneously contemptuous of her father and furious with Lu Ann because of, um, the reasons? Oh yeah, and somewhere in there she dyed her hair.

But have all her Dann-ite exertions moved the plot of Apartment 3-G forward even one narrative inch? No, they have not: day after day, it’s still just two people standing in a room talking. I can’t even believe I’m saying this, but I wish Tommie would come back and liven things up.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/12/13

“You may have cheated death, honey, but remain irremediably ignorant! Ha ha!”
“Lady’s got a point, Funky! Hu-yuck, Hu-yuck!”
And there’s your smirk, Josh — the perfect Funky Winkerbean!

Judge Parker, 10/12/13

Parkers are so accustomed to unearned cash they have a private slang for talking about it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/12/13

Rex suspects some of those old Polaroids may have survived the bathhouse fire. Depending on her next move, Becka could be enjoying a long vacation and a big raise, or sharing a shallow grave with Buck. Tread lightly, Becka!

Hey, Josh is taking a week off and I’ll be here through Sunday the 20th. Drop me a line at uncle.lumpy@comcast.net if the site starts misbehaving. Enjoy!

Ooh, Becka. Oh, Becka! Beckabeckabeckabeckabecka!

— Uncle Lumpy

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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.”

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Better Half, 9/19/13

Boy, those sure do sound like sophisticated cockroaches! Just scuttling all over the place, their dark red chitin gleaming in the light, their awful legs somehow capable of wielding tools now, humanity’s only advantage gone in a stroke. Three forks waving about like their antenna, and yet still they can achieve a sort of rolling, lopsided locomotion with their other three legs. The forks plunge into food, into garbage, into feces, into anything even vaguely organic, because the cockroaches can eat all of it. They can eat it even faster, now that they’ve figured out how to use forks. They’re getting bigger. They’re getting stronger. They’re biding their time, but they won’t have to bide their time for much longer.

Mark Trail, 9/19/13

“Personal interest” is supposed to imply that Johnny is on the payroll of some sinister big oil conglomerate, and this implication will turn out to be true, because storytelling in Mark Trail is 100% linear and has no room for narrative feints or misdirection of any kind. But still, Johnny’s real personal interest — his personal passion — seems to lie not so much in loving oil but in hating wildlife. Stupid, stupid wildlife. In the end, he doesn’t care if fracking poisons the water table or if nuclear waste irradiates the forest or if strip mining just peels the entire ecosystem right off the face of the earth, as long as something kills a bunch of animals, and the more quickly the better.

Funky Winkerbean, 9/19/13

One way to write a story is to have all your characters be extremely unlikeable!