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Hi and Lois, 7/3/13

Oh my goodness, look at Trixie’s facial expressions in this strip. Congrats, Hi and Lois, for not backing away from the full psychological horror of her sudden and entirely incorrect epiphany! “Oh God, those things … at the end of my feet … they’re alive. They’re alive. And they hunger. I’ve got to feed them! Eat, piggies!” She shoves her feet deeper into the moist, yielding paste in Dawg’s dinner bowl. “Eat!” She’s desperate that they find something to eat. Because she knows that if they don’t, they’ll start eating their way up her foot, and won’t stop until she is entirely consumed.

Heathcliff, 7/3/13

You ever see a cat playing with a toy — batting it around with her paws, swatting it up into the air, maybe holding onto it with her mouth while kicking at it with her feet — and suddenly realize that you’re watching what it looks like when a predator methodically batters its prey to death? Heathcliff and his dad are tossing a dead squirrel around, is what I’m saying.

Six Chix, 7/3/11

There is of course a long comedic history of slapstick violence being meted out to characters, and of anthropomorphic animals mixing the experiences of sentient beings and their real-world counterparts. How can you tell that you’ve pushed these tropes too far to be really successful? When you end up drawing a mangled corpse lying in a pool of human-looking blood and viscera, I would argue.

Dick Tracy, 7/3/11

Welp, I officially don’t understand what’s going on in this Dick Tracy storyline, but at least it’s still dishing out the quotables. “Dr. Sail made me an accessory to fraud! I’ll never get back to the moon!” Ha ha, that’s a tough spot that we can all relate to, amiright?

Speaking of things that are awful: Are you guys aware of FunkyWatch, from the indefatigable Chris Sims? Each month he selects and recaps the most depressing Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean strips from the past 30 days. It’s always worth your time if you’re a Funkyverse obsessee, but this month was particularly grim, and FunkyWatch correspondingly hilarious. Go forth and read it!

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Before the comics begin, a note on last week’s fundraiser! Please read if you contributed! First of all, another huge thanks to all of you! I’ve already written to everyone thanking you, and asking which reward you’re interested in and double-checking to make sure your mailing address is correct. Unfortunately, about 20% of you never got back to me! So, if you haven’t heard from me, because your Paypal account is connected to an old email address or my message went into a spam folder or something, please email me at bio@jfruh.com. If I don’t hear from you by the end of the week, you’ll get a magnet mailed to whatever mailing address is attached to your Paypal account (unless I don’t have a mailing address for you either, in which case you won’t get anything). So please, get in touch!

Funky Winkerbean, 5/29/13

You know, after close to nine years of making fun of newspaper comic strips, I still sometimes discover that I have optimism that can be dashed. For instance, I figured Funky Winkerbean would be able to squeeze a week out of Darrin and Jessica indignantly refusing to participate in Darrin’s bio-dad’s terrible reality show, tops. And yet here we are on the next Wednesday and it’s still happening. Most FW “punchlines” contain at least some token bit of wordplay, no matter how grim, but I have to say that “reality” -> “really stinks” doesn’t quite do it for me. Here, here’s a better version: “The only reality about reality TV is that it stinks almost as badly as the fetid, choking air in the terrible, cruel reality that we are forever trapped in, like flies in a spider’s web.” Too … too long maybe? Not enough room in the word balloon?

Archie, 5/29/13

Man, forget the multiple half-assed jokes in this strip; the dramatic arc I’m interested in is the dog’s. He pushes his head around the corner, spots Archie and Jughead, then takes a deep whiff of Jughead’s pants and instantly falls in love despite the fact that his presence has not been acknowledged at all. Is this li’l lost pup so starved for affection that he’s latched onto the first person who doesn’t threaten or flee from him? Or, more likely, does every single item of clothing owned by notorious glutton Jughead Jones smell strongly of ham and/or barbecue sauce?

Momma, 5/29/13

I know it can be hard to tell sometimes, but Momma is still being produced afresh daily in the current Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Thirteen, as today’s strip makes very explicit. I like the way Momma and Marylou look directly at the reader as they announce this fact. “We can’t believe we’re around in this far-off future era either. Death is coming for us all!”

Hi and Lois, 5/29/13

Little known but important motivation for attaining verbal skills: they’re needed to demand constant reassurance that we aren’t completely unlovable.

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Oh my gosh you guys! Comics panel hero Matt Crowe, in awe of Comics Curmudgeon readers’ generosity, has agreed to create enough additional Judge Parker and Rex Morgan, M.D. refrigerator magnets to cover the overwhelming demand we’ve experienced. But it’s the final day of the Spring 2013 Fundraiser, so contribute $15 or more now to receive your very own one-of-a-kind comics keepsake. Thank you, generous readers! And hurry!

Sherman’s Lagoon, 5/16/13

Lead characters Sherman the shark and Fillmore the sea turtle have been furloughed from Sherman’s Lagoon due to sequestration budget cuts, leaving Hawthorne the annoying crab and Ernest the generic fish to pick up the slack. Now when I type “Sherman’s Lagoon site:” (just before adding “wikipedia.org” obviously), the Google helpfully completes it as “Sherman’s Lagoon site down”, so maybe Ernest made good on his implied threat to crash the servers?

Anyway, I’m not sure Sherman’s Lagoon will be improved by laying off its main characters, but a lot of other comic strips sure would: imagine 9 Chickweed Lane with Solange the cat free of the other characters’ insufferable yammering, or Mark Trail relaunched as a suave urban romance between Bill Ellis and Kelly Welly — stiff competition for Apartment 3-G, I bet!

It could happen: after all, Snuffy Smith elbowed Barney Google out of his own strip long ago, and Funky Winkerbean‘s eponymous “hero” isn’t much more than an overweight, depressed walk-on anymore. Likewise, Blondie has pretty much morphed into Dagwood, and Sally Forth into Ted.

Badass pirate-fighter Savarna could easily replace the Phantom, who is frankly turning out to be a real wuss. And who wouldn’t prefer reading Terrible Actress Mary Jane Parker to The Amazing Spider-Man? Rebooting Crankshaft as Pam and Jeff could show us the tender rebirth of marital love after the deaths of hated, intrusive parents. Crime-fighting gardener Carlos Alora in Charterstone Confidential could document the seedy underside of America’s retirement communities without some old bat second-guessing his every anguished, ethically dubious move. Helga the Wïdöw could inspire us with the daily struggles of a proud, resourceful woman against the murderous oppressive Viking patriarchy. And finally, clearing all the characters out of Crock (retitled Empty Sahara) would give us a welcome visual and mental break every day.

Hi and Lois, 5/16/13

Awe-struck by the miracle of Creation, Ditto Flagston professes his atheism.

Apartment 3-G, 5/16/13

The Governor of New York is a desperate stalker who talks like a six-year-old and doesn’t need to be in Albany for anything important, no siree. Lu Ann will be right down.

Judge Parker, 5/16/13

Ah, wars interest Sophie (and judging by her jacket she’s backing Team Mali) — but money interests Sam. And he seems pretty darn upset that sometimes it takes months to work out a ransom! Surely a smart lawyer should be able to fix that — think, Sam! There must be a way to accelerate ransom negotiation and delivery to increase hostage-inventory turns and drive up cash flow. Reverse-auction Web portal? Third-party escrow service? Exchange-tradable ransom futures?

All that seems like far, far too much effort to our Sam. No doubt he’ll just fall back on the strip’s traditions and have secretary Gloria Sanchez draft a letter: “Dear Kidnappers — I am Sam Driver of Spencer Farms, Parkerville ST. I have not yet received from you a large suitcase filled with cash, for no reason. Please correct this situation at once! Sincerely, Sam Driver, Esq. PS. My pal Randy Parker says hi and thanks you for his cash.”

“Fedex that tonight, Gloria. Phew, that was a lot of work — Hey Abby, is dinner on yet, or do I have time for another nip of that Shiraz?”

— Uncle Lumpy