Post Content

Funky Winkerbean, 1/7/09

I have absolutely no idea why Becky the One-Armed Band Director looks so horrified in panel two when she thinks that Band Director Emeritus Harry Dinkle is about to launch into an impromptu lesson on preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. If one of my high school band practices had been interrupted by an old man rambling away on the subject (“Let me tell you the most important thing my CO told me before we hit the beach at Normandy: For God’s sake, put a rubber on it! That’s how I managed to screw my way through every French cathouse in every town we liberated without my pecker falling off!”), it would have been the best band practice ever; certainly it would have been a more useful and relevant use of our time than attempting to master yet another Andrew Lloyd Weber medley. I can only assume that, as a Funky Winkerbean authority figure, Becky is required to supervise a certain amount of misery in her charges; she’s afraid that Harry is going to head off that chlamydia epidemic that’s raging nicely through the woodwinds, along with a couple of unplanned pregnancies that she’s counting on in percussion.

Judge Parker, 1/7/09

It appears that Heidi the sexy, trigger-happy cop is going to make a final attempt on Sam’s bemused, detached charms, possibly in one of Phoenix Sky Harbor’s parking garages. You know, I’ve finally figured out what Judge Parker’s ladies-love-Sam plots remind me of: the classic Billy Wilder film The Seven Year Itch, in which the protagonist, left alone in his sweltering Manhattan apartment as his wife and son head to the country on vacation, entertains all manner of sexual fantasies about his comely neighbor Marilyn Monroe and other women — almost all of which involve him coldly rejecting them as they fling themselves at him. I remember thinking when I saw it that it was unspeakably perverse, but Sam is so dull that he sucks all the thrill out of it.

Slylock Fox, 1/7/09

4) If you see a supposed surgeon advancing on you in full clown makeup, I don’t care how sick you are, get the hell out of that hospital now. Answer: True, true, for the love of God, kid, run!

Post Content

Apartment 3-G, 12/23/08

Oh, Margo! I’m not sure who you’re trying convince. I think it’s pretty clear that you’ve already spent lots of time “exploring” your future husband’s “private domain.”

It’s obvious that I’m talking about Eric’s penis, right? Good.

Anyway, I’d like to say right now that when I finally get around to starting a band, our first album will be called This Isn’t Snooping It’s Serious Business. It will feature the hit single “My Future Husband’s Private Domain.”

Funky Winkerbean, 12/23/08

I tried — I really, really tried — to not think about the last few days (weeks? it seemed like forever) of Les freaking out about his teenage daughter’s budding sexuality as he assessed the sluttiness of her various potential Winterfest outfits. But now that he will apparently be watching her every move on the dance floor, watching with eagle eyes to determine just how far her or her date’s hands venture towards the Forbidden Zones, I feel like I can ignore it no longer.

Naturally, Les will justify his control freakery by reference to his beloved dead wife Lisa, whose sex parts were not under her father’s constant vigilance and who therefore had a baby as a teenager. This blast from his family’s past has led Les to the obvious conclusion — that all women are whores, and that their reproductive processes must, for their own good, be kept under strict control. Whee, this dance is going to be awesome!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/23/08

Sure, because if there’s one thing that helps toddlers sleep well at night, it’s the knowledge that they’re being looked down on by some terrifying grinning space-demon who can see their every move.

Post Content

Crock, 11/18/08

You know, I’ve become accustomed to being unamused, irritated, or actively angered at the jokes in Crock; but I’m a little unsettled at being completely befuddled by the jokes in Crock, as I am today. Passing over the oddity of someone insulting an immobile desert plant for spending all day in the sun, what on earth are we to make of the cactus’s riposte? Is it meant to mock us for driving, as if the only way to get out of the sun is to drive to shade? Is “sitting all day at four bucks a gallon” a reference to all the time we sit in our cars, which is a choice we make, whereas a cactus must spend the day in the sun due to biological necessity? Is there a heretofore unexplored traffic problem around the Foreign Legion outposts in the Maghrebi desert?

Anyway, normally I’d see something like a giant orange cactus and think “Ha ha, another colorist screw-up!” But in this case, I think it might be an attempt to distract the reader from the nonsensical punchline.

Mark Trail, 11/18/08

Oh my God, if you work at a newspaper, and/or have access to newspaper layout software, and you can create a fake newspaper front page like the one in panel one — with FAMOUS CONSERVATIONIST RESCUES RACCOON screaming across six columns of type, and an enormous picture of Mark and Sneaky, and what appears to be some kind of sidebar story in the rightmost column (“Mysterious ‘Rabbit’ Unrepentant, Soggy”) — then you will be my personal hero. Well, one of my personal heroes, anyway, because right now my personal hero is Jack Elrod, for not letting this story end with a single punch but rather setting up further punching opportunities by having our two villains join forces. I’m particularly in love with the image of Charlie cruising around the rough part of town (or the local gas station, whatever) looking for a raccoonnapping yokel with a chip on his shoulder and a bruise on his jaw.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/18/08

The next two to four weeks of Funky Winkerbean, in a nutshell: HOLY CRAP GIRLS PLAY SPORTS NOW smirking, foreboding

Crankshaft, 11/18/08

The next two to four weeks of Crankshaft, in a nutshell: HOLY CRAP GIRLS DRIVE BUSES NOW smirking, terrible puns