Post Content

Funky Winkerbean, 8/26/13

Oh goodie, it’s been far too long since the main characters in Funky Winkerbean have faced an existential threat that will provide them with an opportunity to wax self-righteously! Since many of Westview’s teachers depend on these subjects’ funding for their livelihood, we should be treated to a delightful melange of “Our children won’t receive the cultural education they need” and “We will be forced to beg for change and live in a cardboard box under the elevated highway on the outskirts of town.”

Much as I support full funding for arts education, I do feel it necessary to point out that lunch is somewhat more important in the hierarchy of needs than the other subjects facing the axe. Don’t worry, teachers, they’ll be enough cash to restore your classes, once the weaker students have been strategically starved to death!

Gil Thorp, 8/26/13

Sorry I sort of dropped the ball on the end of the Gil Thorp summer wrestling storyline, everybody! Gil and Herk had their wrestling match and everyone had a good time and then as he headed out of town Herk called Gil by his real name, implying that his tragic dementia was actually just a wrestling angle and thus bringing the blurred line between artifice and reality out of the squared circle and in to everyday life. But now summer’s just about over, and two local gals are on a mission … a mission for man tip. Haha, just kidding, I’m deliberately misconstruing the dialogue in the third panel so it sounds like they’re talking about a penis, but really if you give your kid a name that is or can be shortened to “Tip” you need to be prepared for this sort of outcome.

Slylock Fox, 8/26/13

Slylock Fox has never been a more shameful and transparent shill for the universal surveillance state than it is today. Remember, everyone, evil-doers might be holding adorable penguins captive in horrifying basement freezer-prisons! That’s why the staff of utility companies need to monitor everyone’s energy usage and pass any anomalies on to meddling fox-cops and/or heavily armed SWAT teams, for freedom.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/26/13

Ha ha, it’s funny because Hootin’ Holler is so impoverished and isolated from mainstream American life that its residents are wholly ignorant of basic civic infrastructure that most of us take for granted!

Post Content

Mary Worth, 8/15/13

Mary’s long depressing walk in the desert with what’s-her-name where they talked about widowhood, which I found so boring that I’m not even bothering to dig up a post to link to, took for-frickin’-ever and I hated every minute of it. But this amazing “talk group”? It can go on for years as far as I’m concerned. Let’s everyone just let loose with some free-form anxiety/complaints! “My kids are out of control and I don’t know what to do!” “I’ve alienated everyone who’s every loved me!” Will Mary be so overloaded with meddling possibilities that she’ll shut down with smoke coming out of her ears, like a computer from the original Star Trek confronted with an elementary logic paradox?

Gil Thorp, 8/15/13

Oh, man, is Gil Thorp going to get in trouble for breaking kayfabe and revealing to the world that pro wrestling is staged? Not sure what the punishment for Gil Thorp the strip will be, but Gil Thorp the guy will be punished by getting into the ring with a man who’s quite physically fit but isn’t mentally all there, and who might have a hard time sticking to the script that they only half-assedly worked out.

Blondie, 8/15/13

Check out those weird circular wrinkles around the base everyone’s neck in this comic. Almost as if they’re wearing a garment the exact color of their skin? It appears that for the past eight years or so, Dagwood has continued his habit of wearing shirts made out of human flesh, and has even convinced the local youth to join his nightmarish death cult.

Family Circus, 8/15/13

If the Keane Kids are going to wander through this sterile, baffling condo complex for days and eventually starve to death, as I assume they will, it’ll be kind of appropriate that they were literally killed by suburban conformity.

Wizard of Id, 8/15/13

Here is a comic about a sexually aggressive dragon, enjoy!

Post Content

Spider-Man, 8/10/13

Say, I like the cut of this Tarantula fellow’s jib, if Tarantulas may properly be said to have jibs. Check out the jaunty mask, cut to reveal the lush facial hair sported by men of his ethnic stereotype, and the long ties in back to accentuate the manly athleticism of his superheroics. Hear his speech, formal and polite even as he applies a savage beat-down to this hapless minion. All he needs is a little guitar riff every time he shows up or someone mentions his name. Costa Verde is lucky to have this guy — I mean, look at the motley, second-rate spider-themed adventurers other nations have to put up with!

There’s a missed opportunity in today’s strip, though: the Costa Verdan’s rifle really should be going <¡PUMM!>. But I suppose Spider-Man isn’t much of a stickler for sound-effects orthodoxy, is it?

Gil Thorp, 8/10/13

For weeks, Max ‘n’ Harry Herkelshimer have been lurching from one sandwich shop to another, talking about food on those rare occasions their mouths weren’t stuffed with it. So we should be glad some wrestling action is finally on the way, I guess?

But Gil’s “plan” sounds even more half-assed than usual, if that’s even possible. Based on his insight that Max “lives in the past” or some damn thing, Gil plans to impersonate wrestler Beau Dandy to give “Herk the Mauler” one last bout before he toddles on off into that dark night. How this would do anything but disorient and terrify an actual Alzheimer’s patient is beyond me, Gil admits he’s just winging it, and Harry thinks he’s nuts. But hey — there are two weeks before the start of football season, and they’re not gonna kill themselves.

Sherman’s Lagoon, 8/10/13

It’s Shark Week, the High Holy Days of the Lagooniverse, but oops!

The Giant Squid in Sherman’s Lagoon is the polar opposite of beloved comic relief characters like Pat Brady, Scrappy Doo and Jar Jar Binks. Squid’s rare appearances in the strip signal that it’s suddenly No Joke At All. And since he’s underemployed here, I recommend putting him on tour. He could thin the supporting casts of joke-a-day strips like Hi and Lois (Dot), Beetle Bailey (Gizmo, Lt. Flap, Killer), and Luann (Delta), then go straight for the leads in Dilbert, Crock, and Get Fuzzy. His work accomplished, he could retire to Funky Winkerbean, where he could find a place downtown and work at Montoni’s. He’d fit right in.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/10/13

Hey Rachel, you living at Wally’s now? I know a squid who might be interested in renting your old place. How’s your son? Enjoying his time down the Memory Hole with Gil and Mimi Thorp’s kids? Say, I know “plucky single mom” wasn’t as much fun for you as “high school sex goddess” — but are you absolutely sure “sad-sack Wally’s foil” is the right move?

Next: Band crap!

— Uncle Lumpy