Post Content

Funky Winkerbean, 11/25/21

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! If you’re looking for something to be thankful for, maybe you should give thanks that you don’t have Funky Winkerbean’s entire family showing up at your front door and explaining to you who they all are, for some reason, as if it were very vital for readers at home to get a full accounting. I have to wonder if the Funky team has forgotten that Mort, the sex creep in Harry’s band full of old people, is supposed to be the same person as Morton, Funky’s dad? The band member in this month’s “Mort from Harry’s band is horny for Lillian” sequence sure looks like Funky’s dad in the “Funky’s dad is horny for Holly’s mom” sequence from December 2018:

And maybe it’s just the angle, but Funky’s dad’s head looks pretty differently shaped today? Plus why would Funky feel like he has to introduce his dad to Harry, since his dad is in Harry’s band? I guess it’s possible that, having put his dad in a home specifically so he could think about the old man as little as possible, Funky has not bothered to keep up at all with his dad’s hobbies or activities.

Gasoline Alley, 11/25/18

Gasoline Alley also went in for a crowd scene, but in a way that is frankly a lot less tasking for me. Do I recognize these people as mostly Gasoline Alley characters? Yes. Could I name them? Some, but definitely not all. Does the strip insist on telling me what they’re all named, because it’s a good bet that I’ve forgotten and it wants me to double down on remembering them? No, it doesn’t, and I appreciate that.

The Lockhorns, 11/25/18

Speaking of things I’m thankful for, I remain thankful for the acidic purity of The Lockhorns. A lesser strip would depict a character burning furniture for heat, whereas this one depicts a character burning furniture out of spite.

Post Content

The Lockhorns, 11/15/21

I’m really loving Leroy’s little bar cart here. You never know what room in the house you might be in when you abruptly need to theatrically pour yourself and a friend some hard liquor as you start griping about how much you hate your wife, so it’s good to be able to easily wheel your cocktail supplies from place to place.

Dennis the Menace, 11/15/21

“Get it, old man? What Christ was to you in your long-ago day, cable television is to me in this brave new world! TV is my lord and savior! Pretty menacing, eh? I could be obsessed with YouTube videos on my parents’ phones like a normal five-year-old, but instead I worship television that you pay $150 a month for and it comes on at a specific time of day, like I’m 55 and have never been ‘good with computers.’ That’s pretty menacing too, in its own way.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and Gasoline Alley, 11/15/21

I’m not sure if there’s some kind of upcoming anniversary involving one or both of these absurdly long-running strips that has prompted them to simultaneously acknowledge one another, and I don’t care to do the research to find out. I choose to believe that this is just the equivalent of two people who are by far the oldest at a party clocking each other and giving one another a silent nod of acknowledgment. Anyway, it’s too bad Jughaid is unaware of Archie Comics’ Jughead Jones, himself a character who’s been around almost as long as the Hootin’ Holler cast of Snuffy Smith, because I’m sure a lot more people are familiar with him than they are with Sheezix, at least until Gasoline Alley finally gets a CW sitcom of its very own. On the other hand, Jughaid is lucky that he and his fellow Holler residents exist forever in an ageless comic-book time, unlike folks in Gasoline Alley, who are trapped in a hell where they age in real time but their strip will never be cancelled and they will never be allowed to die.

Hi and Lois and Hagar the Horrible, 11/15/21

Bowls of barf? Vikings tossing a severed pig’s head around, for fun? Looks like this is the week when Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC realized that nobody really cares what you put in the newspaper anymore, and they’re gonna run with it.

Post Content

Crock, 11/1/21

I’m going to take a break from my long-running feud with Crock to offer some helpful humor advice: in the third panel here, Crock and Poulet should be looking into a toilet. I know, I’m usually not a big proponent of toilet humor on this blog (see for instance the 395 posts I have written over the past 15 years about the comic strip Marvin) but I think it’s an important tweak that would help make this punchline, which is about desert bandits breaking into fort’s plumbing, easier to parse. In its current form, the strip is relying on the reader’s ability to interpret Crock art and their general investment the world-building of the Crockiverse to correctly identify that well in the final panel, and I’m sorry, but I just think that’s asking too much of average person, who is doing their best but quite frankly has a lot on their mind right now.

Gasoline Alley, 11/1/21

Aww, the cute talking bears are back in Gasoline Alley! They’re peeking in the window of a Halloween party and remarking on all the “food” inside, by which I think we can all agree they mean people. “Wish it was inside me!” says the adorable baby bear, referring to his desire to tear human flesh from human bone and swallow it in great bloody chunks.

Crankshaft, 11/1/21

If Crankshaft is going to inflict this level of sub-pun on us, I appreciate that he at least looks dead inside as he does it. “Get it? Branch? Tree? A branch is part of a tree? Look, I don’t want to be here any more than you do.”

Mary Worth, 11/1/21

Oh snap it’s gonna be Wilbur vs. Ed Harding, The Reasonably Handsome Veteranarian That We Know Absolutely Nothing About for Estelle’s love, and immediately Ed becomes the prohibitive betting favorite!!!

Dennis the Menace, 11/1/21

“Heh, heh,” thinks Martha. “Every day his menacing skills grow more powerful. And soon, whether George is in the madhouse or in the grave by his own hand, I’ll finally be free.”