Post Content

Dennis the Menace, 3/30/21

This is one of those comics where I feel like the joke is convoluted enough that I have to reason it out from first principles. Like, we know Mr. Wilson doesn’t have any friends — we know this with absolute certainty — so I guess the book he’s going through is supposed to be the White Pages, rather than a particularly thick personal address book, even though I’m pretty sure they stopped publishing the White Pages years ago and also the DIRECTORY heading never appeared at the top of the page in the middle of the book for whatever reason. Anyway, who do you think he’s calling? Given that Dennis has upgraded his menacing from “dropping by to annoy Mr. Wilson” to “dropping by with a friend to gawk at Mr. Wilson like he’s an animal at the zoo,” I certainly hope that it’s finally Child Protective Services.

Funky Winkerbean, 3/30/21

I guess the new hilarious “Harry Dinkle has blood running down his face” running gag comes from him biting his tongue when his god-like talent as a band director isn’t recognized by the ladies of this church, who live in a different town from where he taught high school and have literally no reason to know anything about him. That said, the funnier explanation would be that his face is starting to crack due to the pressure put on it by wild swings in expressions like the one we see between panels two and three, and pretty soon it’s going to just slide off the front of his head altogether.

Family Circus, 3/30/21

You may think Big Daddy Keane’s little smile here is cruel, but you have to understand that the minute Billy is large and/or skilled enough to defeat him in single combat, his reign as head of the household — and his life — are over. That day is coming, but it hasn’t come yet, Billy. Not quite yet.

Post Content

Dustin, 3/27/21

For a brief moment, I thought today’s Dustin was an example of that lowest form of comic strip humor: a character in a strip being tasked with making a dumb joke more appealing by reacting to it as if it’s funny, which is it isn’t. But then I remembered that Dustin’s dad is a lawyer! Turns out Dustin’s dad isn’t just an asshole; he also hates his son as much as his son hates his children, which is honestly a best case scenario for the next few weeks of this strip as far as I’m concerned. Let’s get beyond passive aggression into pure chaos!

Funky Winkerbean, 3/27/21

You know what would make this strip a lot funnier? If you could see Harry’s face in panel two, and there were, like, tons of blood flowing out of his mouth and down his chin as he cheerfully declared “I got the gig!” And then panel three was cut out entirely. Well, I’m not sure if “funnier” is quite the right word, but I think we can all agree it’d be better.

Post Content

Six Chix, 3/24/21

One thing I really respect about Six Chix is that it’s not afraid to “go there” when it comes to cryptid erotica. Usually, of course, we’re talking weird Bigfoot smut, but sure, let’s give mermaids a spin! This strip is frankly pretty grim: our poor mermaid is being encouraged to adorn her perfectly normal and healthy single fluke in a parody of the “sexy” garments worn by the land-dwellers on their doubled lower extremities, and is also simultaneously being taunted with the instrument of her own enslavement.

Funky Winkerbean, 3/24/21

Oh, great, one day after I finally work myself up to write a 500 word essay on how putting Harry Dinkle into the current Crankshaft storyline violates the 10-year separation between the two Funkyverse strips, we find out that in fact despite her protests Lillian has been toiling as church organist for more than a decade and the separation is still in place after all! This is clearly an attack on me personally. Anyway, never forget that Harry had to quit his band teaching job because he went semi-deaf, so hopefully this church will be rewarded with some real sub-par organing.

Gil Thorp, 3/24/21

Gotta admit that this basketball season plot about Vic and his MC-ing ways didn’t really hold my interest, but now that Doug Guthrie and Corina Karenna, probably two of the top five more interesting characters currently in this strip, are planning to team up and overthrow the government through a series of daring assassinations, I’m back on board!