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Funky Winkerbean, 3/6/21

In real life, very few people are annoying on purpose, and the question of whether you think they’re annoying is a subjective one. In fiction, though, even in a world where many discount authorial intent, we can still try to puzzle out the question of whether a character is supposed to be annoying or not. Certainly as a normal human, I’ve found this lady’s endless reference getting insufferable, and have assumed that’s the intended reading of the character; but today we learned that she also got Les’s “kemo sabe” joke, a reference we’ve been told repeatedly in the strip that it’s bad not to get, actually. So is this lady good, because the best thing one can do in life is get references — specifically, whatever references Les is laying down in relation to his dead wife, Lisa? Or is it just true that all of us, reference-getters and reference-non-getters alike, are basically irritating? I fear the latter may be more true to life.

Gasoline Alley, 3/6/21

Today’s Gasoline Alley, meanwhile, has a simpler and more fundamentally joyful message: these two are gonna do iiiiiiiitttttt

Hi and Lois, 3/6/21

Hey, were you interested in maybe seeing the dress that’s at the center of the joke in this comic strip, since comic strips are a visual medium? Well, tough: this is the last daily strip of the week to get through, and all that golf is frankly not going to play itself.

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Gasoline Alley, 3/3/21

I am at this point very obviously committed to my specific bit, which is that I comment on every day’s comics right after I read them, having no idea what the future holds for that strip, in order to replicate this website’s origin story, which is that I would make jokes about the comics to my wife every morning over breakfast until she told me to make a blog about it. But sometimes doing things that way means I miss slow-burn developments in the comics. Like, take for instance, Gasoline Alley. Today’s strip involves a man returning a pair of glasses to a woman after they accidentally fell into his shopping basket at the supermarket. Ah, you’re probably thinking, this is the beginning of a romantic meet-cute! In fact, this is latest “twist” in grueling storyline about this lady losing her glasses while shopping that’s been going on for three weeks, and in a sense I’m sorry I haven’t been bringing it to you blow by wildly undramatic blow. Go back and read the last month or so, if you think your heart can handle it!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/3/21

Wow, looks like Rex is going to have to add another entry to his list of “Seemingly anodyne phrases meant that are meant just to fill time but actually end up unpleasantly extending a conversation.” This one is going to result in him having to talk to a second person, so it gets a little red star next to it.

Dennis the Menace, 3/3/21

I’m a big fan of Mr. Wilson’s completely gobsmacked facial expression here. “Did he just try to eat that coin? Is he that stupid? Is my nemesis that stupid? And what does that say about me?”

Funky Winkerbean, 3/3/21

Les isn’t just history’s greatest caregiver; he also watches sports in the correct way, for virtuous reasons, unlike you, you filthy, depraved animal.

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Six Chix, 2/1/21

OK, fine, I admit it, you don’t do a whole manifesto on your comics blog to the effect of “I’m doing commentary, it’s not like I don’t understand what the joke is supposed to be” unless you’re a little concerned that there are times where you don’t understand what the joke is supposed to be, and, I’ll admit: today’s Six Chix is one of those times. The main joke here is about the “it’s the journey, not the destination” cliche, where the lady is painting a journey, realized in concrete form by her painting a plane full of people on a journey, but … is the joke also that the plane is hanging there in midair indefinitely to have its portrait painted? Or did that aspect of how planes and paintings work not intrude into the creative process of this strip? I’m really getting myself into a lather about how irritated and/or amused I should be here.

Dennis the Menace, 2/1/21

This seems like Alice is passing on a compliment to her son, but in fact, in an indirect way, she’s complimenting herself and her husband, because for once they both managed to refrain from saying anything really cruel and cutting about her old college friend that Dennis could misunderstand and repeat in front of her. Good job, Mitchell parents! Dennis still has a menacingly high level of self-regard, though.

Gasoline Alley, 2/1/21

Oh, I’m sorry, did you read about how Slim and Clovia needed a new dryer back on December 29th and think to yourself, “Surely they’ll have this transaction wrapped up by February”? You fool. You absolute moron. How could you be so naive? You make me sick.