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Funky Winkerbean, 5/1/19

Hey, remember last year in Crankshaft when a poor little girl was buying a book on “layaway,” a few pennies at a time, from Lilian’s unlicensed bookstore, so Crankshaft bought it for her, but she turned out to be a little grifter running a scam? I guess “people will respond to basic acts of human decency by attempting to profit off your kindness” is a Funkyverse thing now, which has a different kind of depressing valence than “the universe will snuff out your happiness with arbitrary tragedy.” Not sure where the obvious anger simmering under today’s strip is coming from, unless it’s based on the belief that there’s some kind of lucrative secondary market for signed Funky Winkerbean art, which I can assure you there is not.

Dick Tracy, 5/1/19

Ugh, the whole point of Minit Mysteries is that there supposed to be quick and simple and not … full of just endless text about small town administrative terminology and the minutia of the local criminal syndicate’s org chart. I’m not going to read this, you hear me? I’m not. I’m getting older, I only have a limited amount of brain space anymore, and I need to focus it on what brings me joy.

Gil Thorp, 5/1/19

See, I accidentally learned that the town in Dick Tracy has a “president” instead of a mayor and it made me forget the name of the the reporter who isn’t adversarial towards the Thorps and all they stand for. I want to say it’s … Marcie? Is that right? Anyway, I mostly am here to point out that Marty Moon would never let Coach Mrs. Coach Thorp go off the record to say “Yeah, I’m definitely surprised this team isn’t doing as badly as I 100% expected them to do.” Of course, she also went off the record to say “There’s a swagger and spirit to this team that’s infectious,” which is like a perfect coach sound bite, so really Mimi’s whole media relations strategy is pretty muddled.

The Phantom, 5/1/19

The Phantom is not exactly known for its verisimilitude, but I do absolutely believe that the shadowy guerilla warriors guarding terrorist compounds deep in the African desert spend more time than you’d think dicking around on their phones.

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Six Chix, 4/15/19

Happy Tax Day, everybody! Six Chix is here to remind you that even beloved cultural icons like the Easter Bunny — seen here with a stack of W-9s, 1099s, and 1040 Schedule Cs, denoting his freelancer status — currently live in the precarious world of the gig economy, where traditional labor protections cannot reach.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/15/19

I was going to do a bit about Hootin’ Holler’s place in a sad, post-apocalyptic universe, based on the local post office’s affiliation with the “Newnited States,” but then I remembered that I already did that back in 2010, so instead I’ll just point out that the IRS considers income from barter and criminal activity to be taxable, so maybe Snuffy shouldn’t be quite so relaxed.

Crock, 4/15/19

Speaking of repeated jokes, I was about to say that I was willing to put aside my feud with Crock and admit that I found this strip unironically funny, but then I remembered I did the same thing when it ran last May. I guess I’ve just validated Crock’s decision to run the few funny strips in its vast archives every eleven months or so, because people will enjoy them and probably won’t remember that they’re repeats unless they really dedicate some thought to it.

Gil Thorp, 4/15/19

Oh, I guess this Gil Thorp plotline is about how student-athletes should stay well-rounded and have outside hobbies, like knitting or blogging. Girl student-athletes, I should specify; obviously boy student-athletes need to dedicate all their energy into Mudlark athletics in a desperate attempt to be in the tiny percentage of high school students recruited into elite collegiate athletic programs, so they can dedicate all their energy during college into sports so they can be in the tiny percentage of elite college athletes who end up in the pros.

Mary Worth, 4/15/19

I like Toby’s big smile as she announces to Mary that “poems can be cribbed off the Internet,” like she’s figured out how to beat Big MFA at their own game. She can’t tell Ian, of course, as it would make him realize his whole career path of sharing the wonders of literature with undergrads is a sham, but she’s gotta tell someone.

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Mark Trail, 1/13/19

It’s always been pretty obvious that loresman and aspirational mansplainer JJ Looper was destined to be the villain in this storyline, what with his bad attitude and overall squintyness. Today he has committed the ultimate sin within the Trailiverse by referring to adorable baby animals as “dumb,” when everyone knows it’s the people in Mark Trail who are dumb. Anyway, he’s about to get his comeuppance remarkably swiftly, and presumably after he’s mauled to death by that ocelot Mark and company will just go take what they need from his store and enjoy some low-key, risk-free gold mining fun.

Gil Thorp, 1/13/19

OK, not to go back on my praise earlier this week for Gil Thorp’ scattershot, tell-don’t-show visual/narrative style, but … you can’t have everyone praise Jocelynn’s hat without showing us the whole hat, guys, c’mon. We gotta see the whole hat! We’re only seeing the bottom of hat. How far up does that hat go?