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Between Friends, 12/21/22

So Monday and Tuesday’s Between Friends were about one of the families in the Between Friends gang watching the Twilight saga, which, for those young people who aren’t aware, was a popular series of films about sexy teen vampires and werewolves that came out in the late ’00s and early ’10s, primarily remembered now for delivering so much cash to its stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattison that they can now afford to spend time doing weirdo art-house films directed by David Cronenberg and various French people. Monday featured the mother and daughter of the [note to self: look up the names of these people, or maybe don’t if you’re too busy or it seems hard] family lusting after Pattison, and Tuesday was about the father getting excited that he recognized Pattison from the new Batman movie, but now it’s day three and we’ve got to reckon with the question of why on earth a syndicated comic strip would spend time making Twilight jokes in the Year of our Lord 2022. Turns out that it’s because some of us were too busy raising a family ten years ago to get horned up over teen vampires acting out some really regressive sexual and gender roles, OK? Thank god for streaming services that allow us to catch up now! Ultimately the upshot of all this is that it got me to look up where you can stream the Twilight movies, and it turns out the only place is on something called “Fubo,” so if Fubo paid for this subtle sponcon in Between Friends, then congrats, I guess, it worked.

Gil Thorp, 12/21/22

Oh, whoops, it looks like Gil lost the big game to his arch-rival and … wait, we have a last minute-reversal of that call, it looks like Gil is the real winner because he coaches for the love of the game and competition, not because he’s obsessed with winning. Who could have seen this one coming, Gil triumphing over all by being the bigger man, and I mean that quite literally, as panel one makes very clear. “Is someone talking?” Gil asks in panel three, as he gazes over Coach Martinez’s head. “I think I hear something, but I don’t see anyone.”

Curtis, 12/21/22

Hmm, Greg is a stickler for rules and a civil servant to boot, so I’m kind of surprised he isn’t aware that mail carriers aren’t supposed to accept cash tips. Maybe he’s never looked into the regs because, as a DMV employee, this hasn’t really ever come up for him personally.

Family Circus, 12/21/22

Look, I don’t want to say that the Family Circus is just a bunch of clip art mashed over decades-old panels, but … what is going on with this closet door. Why does it look like this? Did the Keane Kompound get featured on some second-tier HGTV show that just shiplapped everything?

Mary Worth, 12/21/22

We’ve all wondered why Wilbur hasn’t yet been formally ostracized by the Charterstone condo board and forcibly exiled to the Outer Wastes. Well, it looks like Mary has learned from Dawn how useful he is as a foil and is now using him to really cut down on the work that goes into her meddling. Instead of needing to come up with bespoke advice for everyone’s specific problems, she can just ask everyone WWWD: What Wouldn’t Wilbur Do?

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Shoe, 12/9/22

I suppose it’s possible that immediately before the action we see here in the strip, Loon was pridefully boasting of his achievements or good qualities to this bird-priest and earned this stern rebuke. But his posture (slouched, staring off into the middle distance, seemingly unaware that the bird-priest is even there) makes me doubt that. From context, it seems like this clergybird is just quoting (misquoting, actually) judgemental bible verses at random. If this is the state of bird Christianity, it’s no wonder that bird Judaism is flourishing.

Judge Parker, 12/9/22

This dude in the vest is some former Sam Driver client whose name I can’t be bothered to remember or look up and who now serves as his guide through the seedy Cavelton criminal underworld. He says it’s too dangerous for him to tell Sam the details he needs, but fortunately for Sam and us he simply cannot let an exposition-prompt such as “like they went after Judge Duncan” pass him by. Sure he could’ve just said “Yep!” while smiling tightly, but who could resist the chance to dish out “Oh, you mean Judge Meth-Head, the judge who loves to buy meth?” gossip to someone who clearly hasn’t heard it yet.

Gil Thorp, 12/9/2

“Look at that! Oh, right, you can’t, because nobody drew it. Well, take our word for it, it was pretty cool.”

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Blondie, 12/5/22

Look, I’ve grudgingly accepted that Elmo, a child to whom the Bumstead family is not related but who nevertheless just kind of hangs out at their house a lot, is a major recurring character in Blondie. But what I will not accept is jokes that are only about Elmo and his life, rather than jokes in which Elmo mainly exists to create opportunities for Dagwood to obsess about food or remark negatively about the kids today and their phones or whatever. You hear me? Nobody wants this. Nobody wants to open the comics pages in 10 years and check out the Sunday installment of Blondie and her Husband Dagwood’s Pal Elmo and think “Gee, Dagwood and Blondie haven’t been in this strip in a while now, have they?” So let’s just put the brakes on this right now.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/5/22

Funky Winkerbean continues to hurl towards its end point in which we learn that Summer was the product of a multi-generational time-travel program designed to cause her to transforms the world with her book about Westview. To that end, the janitor from the future ensured that her parents would reconnect at a high-school reunion. Future history was almost shattered when Les tried out one of the most dumb and convoluted jokes this strip has ever seen, but don’t worry, Lisa liked that sort of thing, I guess. Also, since Lisa only existed to birth Summer into existence, we can all feel better about her tragic death: she fulfilled her destiny and honestly ensuring that Summer had a mopey (and occasionally literally) haunted childhood would help push her towards a writer’s life, rather than becoming dangerously happy and well-adjusted.

Gil Thorp, 12/5/22

As the big game gets started on the field, Marty solemnly flips an AA chip on his own in his beloved wooden crate press box. Do you think Marty or Kaz or any of them ever bother asking Marty how he’s doing, how his recovery is going, whether they can ever be a source of strength or help to him? I doubt it. But he’s just going to keep calling the plays like he sees them, doing the best he can, one day at a time.