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Shoe, 2/1/10

Say what you will about Funky Winkerbean, but at least it’s totally upfront with its non-stop cavalcade of misery. Some strips hide a core of intense gloom that occasionally peeks out from underneath the cheery front end of a gag-a-day strip. Take today’s Shoe, for instance. The Perfesser thought-balloons that “mama said there’d be days like this” as his morning alarm goes off. In other words, he’s already written the day off as terrible in his first few seconds of wakefulness. “Oh, look, I didn’t die painlessly in my sleep. Yep, it looks like it’s gonna be one of those days!”

It’s also possible that the alarm has been going off for hours now, and the Perfesser is simply unable to move close enough to the clock to turn it off, due to some combination of obesity and decrepitude.

Gil Thorp, 2/1/10

Like many an angry, aimless dropout of his generation, Steve Luhm uses sarcasm to get in little digs at his elders that they’re too irony-deficient to catch. “My dad taught me there’s honor in any job if you work at hard at it … even coaching! And you know what’s a good sign that someone’s a hard worker? When they just hand off part of their workload to some other random person at the first opportunity! Anyway, I’ll be sure to thank my dad for that pearl of wisdom.”

Judge Parker, 2/1/10

Speaking of sarcasm, the Judge Parker narration box’s is particularly transparent today. At breakfast, Sam is still talking about Neddy’s live-in boyfriend! Still! The guy just will not shut up about it! Come on, dude, move on into the 21st century with the rest of us, OK?

Curtis, 2/1/10

I admit to being charmed by the enormous unblinking eye on Michelle’s t-shirt today. Curtis’s romantic ardor must be intense indeed, as it would instill a major case of the heebie-jeebies in the soul of a lesser suitor.

Luann, 2/1/10

Wait, they wish they had more time together? Every time we see them in this God-damned strip, they’re endless hashing out the terms of their perfectly gross relationship. Admittedly, each panel featuring Brand and/or Toni is one that doesn’t feature Luann and/or Gunther, but one shouldn’t have to settle for the lesser evil. Why not just retool the strip around Knute, Puddles the dog, Shannon, and Mr. Fogarty, and do everyone a favor?

Mary Worth, 2/1/10

Dear young people everywhere: do not ask either of your parents why he or she cannot forget a past lover unless you want to hear things about his or her past sexytimes that will shake you to your core. Fortunately, Wilbur is such a negative nelly that he goes straight to the arguments while meaningfully adjusting his glasses, though this may only presage tomorrow’s vivid recounting of the mind-blowing post-argument make-up sex. The description will blow Dawn’s socks off, assuming that purple bands of gauze wrapped around the middle of one’s feet can be said to constitute “socks.”

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Funky Winkerbean, 1/5/10

So I’ve been reading the new, retooled Funky Winkerbean long enough to distinguish amongst the various forms of creeping dread found therein, and to have preferences among them, and this here is pretty much my least favorite flavor of creeping Funky Winkerbean dread: Les’s creeping dread about his daughter’s burgeoning sexuality. Summer actually seems against all odds to be a pretty well-adjusted person, but that won’t stop Les from mapping his own awkward, fumbling adolescence onto her. (The rear-view mirror knocked askew by his helmet of hair in the flashback is a nice touch.) While Les should probably be more worried about the terrible, life-ruining car accidents the kids are prone to — just ask Becky the one-armed band leader! — the automobile instead represents to him an avenue Summer can use to escape his suffocating control, and his thoughts drift unbidden to his daughter and some faceless dude in the back seat, hands drifting south, clothes slipping off of young, athletic bodies … and … so forth.

Luann, 1/5/10

Of course, if you really want unsettling car-based sexuality in the comics, you’ve got to turn to the Brad and Toni show in Luann. It’s Toni’s hand gesture in the third panel that really puts this strip beyond the feature’s usual ribaldry, as she seems to be promising to “go under the hood” and manually pleasure Brad’s car in unspeakable ways.

Mary Worth, 1/5/10

One person whose awkward sexuality I personally can’t get enough of is Wilbur, obviously. Most of us would have a lot of conflicted emotions if we discovered that we had an adult son we had never met, of course, but Wilbur mainly seems to be having sexy intrusive thoughts about the boy’s sexy dead mother. Those huge blue eyes … that unnaturally long neck … that weird bunchy collar … who could ever forget a face like that? Well, Wilbur could, as you can see when all of his reveries about his lost love are compared:

With the different facial features and neck lengths on display here, I think you’d be hard pressed to recognize these as the same woman. The only thing they seem to have in common is a tendency to list to the right, perhaps as a result of some kind of inner ear disorder. I’m now guessing that Wilbur was such a prolific seducer in his youth that he honestly doesn’t remember who this “Abby” character was, and the “demon” he needs put to rest is his uncertainty over which of his many lovers bore the man who showed up on his doorstep.

Mark Trail, 1/5/10

Of course, Mark Trail is where we should go to escape from human sexuality of any sort. I particularly love today’s new-adventure-launching installment, as it nicely encapsulates the sort of dream state that defines most Trailian narrative. “Oh, my old friend called me earlier? I’ll just pick up this phone right here at the table and talk to him. Hello, Leonard Nimoy!” “Hi Mark! Did you know that you have an ‘outdoor reputation’? You do, and it can solve problems! Why don’t you bring you and your reputation over to out here, which is far, far away from your wife?”

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Mary Worth, 12/7/09

Believe you me, I plan to follow the Exciting Tale Of Wilbur’s Bastard Son very closely, at least right up until the point when against all odds it manages to become boring (which, this being Mary Worth, could happen at literally any moment). Today’s hilarity comes thanks to Wilbur’s complete and utter lack of filter. I think that most single fathers, if confronted with the possibility that their youthful man-sluttery had living, breathing, school-tuition-requiring consequences, might attempt to compose themselves a bit and have a coherent narrative ready before breaking the news to their college age daughter. They might even try to figure out if the story is true first! But not Wilbur. “Aw, jeez, I think I knocked some broad up, back in the ’80s!” he yelps, no doubt to Dawn’s horror and disgust, as he compulsively rubs his clammy head-skin for comfort.

Mark Trail, 12/7/09

What an awesome time it is for soap opera strips, when poor Rusty pinned under Mark’s four thousand pound station wagon only merits second place in our thoughts! With man’s toolmaking skills down for the count, Mark will be forced to use the lessons he’s learned from nature. “Rusty, you’ll need to make like a trapped fox and chew off your own foot! Quickly, before the pelicans mistake you for a dying fish and attack!”

Gil Thorp, 12/7/09

Meanwhile, Coach Thorp is on the horns of a dilemma! It seems that he’s under pressure to kick notorious public drunkard Duncan Daley off of his team. But Duncan needs the structure and routine of playing football! It’s all that’s holding him together! *cough* Also he’s Milford’s best player *cough* I particularly enjoy today’s panel two, which appears to be footage from the hidden ceiling-mounted camera Gil used to capture Coach Fazio’s moment of humiliation for repeat viewing later.

How can Coach Thorp avoid such a fate? Well, we might start by not calling Prisoner Daley a hypocrite. I mean, are we terribly shocked that the sort of guy who would commit a jail-worthy offense might also be the sort of guy who would instigate a prison fight? I think Gil needs to take the “fighting a bad influence” approach. “Duncan’s brother told Duncan to stay out of trouble. Duncan’s brother is a convicted felon! Do you expect him to take the advice of a jailbird? He had to drink that beer!”

Hi and Lois, 12/7/09

Speaking of drunken teenagers, Chip appears to be in some kind of substance-induced coma! Obviously Lois’s main concern is to get him somewhere out of sight.

Luann, 12/7/09

Each of Luann’s suitors has to have some unspeakably perverted fetish, and now we know Quill’s: elf porn!