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Funky Winkerbean, 5/25/13

Oh, hey, I guess I’ve been neglectful of the great Darrin/Frankie confrontation because it’s been … kind of boring? Considering the air of menace that surrounded his earlier appearances, Frankie’s ultimate goal — to put together some kind of ill-conceived reality show about his reunion with Darrin (which, say, shouldn’t they be getting footage right now?) seems relatively harmless. The worst of it is that, since all right-thinking people are assumed to loathe reality television despite its massive popularity, this plot gives Darrin and Jessica the opportunity to indulge in righteous indignation, which is my third-least-favorite Funkyverse emotion, just behind smug self-satisfaction and sexual arousal.

Spider-Man, 5/23/13

Kingpin is a busy, successful entrepreneur, and in his best-selling business memoir Faster! Work Faster!, he taught a generation of CEOs how to extract maximum terrified efficiencies from their employees. But recent challenges in Kingpin’s career have demonstrated that there’s more to being a great manager than just cowing your subordinates. In his new book, Not Without My Minions: Why It’s Better To Be Loved Than Feared But Being Fear-Loved Is Best Of All, he explains that organizational downturns can be used as an opportunity to build loyalty in the face of adversity and gather a fanatically dedicated core team who will stick with you when times get tough. Have your personal assistant look for in the increasingly sparse places where books are sold!

Momma, 5/23/13

Ha ha, it’s funny because nobody likes Momma! I sort of expected that the doctor would be cowering in fear of his relentless hypochondriac nemesis, but instead he regards her with an evil grin, delighting in the way he’s unsettled her, which is frankly a much darker scenario.

Mark Trail, 5/23/13

Meanwhile, in Mark Trail, all this is happening, against a background of apocalyptic flame! Do killer grizzly bears really have adorable pudgy butts like in panel three? Because if so, awwwwww.

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Gil Thorp, 5/22/13

Guys, remember when Gil Thorp plots used to be bonkers crazy insane? Well, those days seem to be long past, which is why I have been studiously ignoring the spring plotline for months. Here it is, in a nutshell: baseball player Foley Knox is the son of a lawyer and an aspiring lawyer himself, and his lawyer dad is suing the gas station owner father of another player because some guy fell down while pumping gas there, and Foley is being a dick to the other kid about it, the end. The other kid and his dad are Chaldean Christians from Iraq, and it briefly looked like that was going to be a plot point somehow, but it was dropped in favor of a B plot involving Foley’s delusional romantic pursuit of Darby, the softball team’s star pitcher who has a toddler because she was previously teen pregnant, which was briefly controversial last spring. Anyway, today at last these plots collide when Foley decides to win the heart of his fair beloved by defeating her tortfeasor in judicial combat! This will also fail.

Wizard of Id, 5/22/13

So Wizard of Id, which is usually not funny on any level, actually made me laugh in two distinct ways today? WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? I appreciate the fact that the joke hinges on grammatical ambiguity — haha, you think “[a]re protesting” is a verb in the progressive aspect, but in fact “protesting” is a deverbal adjective modifying “drones”! But what really made me laugh was the sign that just says “NOT COOL”. It’s a sign that you can use at any protest and one that lets everyone know that, yeah, you’re politically engaged, but you’re also pretty chill.

Mark Trail, 5/22/13

Meanwhile, the AMAZING FOREST BEAR INFERNO is still going on in Mark Trail! I’m a little confused by the positions of everybody/thing in this comic, but, comparing the perspective in the two panels, if Cherry and Shelly are looking at the water and the tree is directly behind them, won’t they have to run sort of towards the bears in order to get to the tree? I mean, I get that they’re right on the shore and their options are limited. This is like the time my wife and I were in Stanley Park in Vancouver, and these raccoons emerged from the trees and wanted to go drink from the pond we were standing at the edge of, and they were heading right for us and didn’t seem scared of us at all, and we were in their way but there was no way for us to go that didn’t involve getting closer to them at least to start. Sure, they were raccoons, not bears, and nothing was on fire, but I don’t believe I ever pretended to be a brave man.

Heathcliff, 5/22/13

One of the things I didn’t expect when I recently worked Heathcliff into my comics rotation was the feature’s not infrequent expeditions into the inscrutable. I like this one, even if I don’t really understand it. Ha ha, Heathcliff is voyaging home via hot air balloon! It’s whimsical!

Pluggers, 5/22/13

Yes, I’m sure the automated recording that delivered this platitude really feels bad after this sick burn! Basically, pluggers have very little control over their own lives and will sullenly lash out at anybody about it, whether they can hear them lashing out or not.

Family Circus, 5/22/13

“Billy and Dolly and Daddy and PJ are in the basement, right, Mommy? With all the sand? And time’s up for them? They won’t bother us ever again? Oh, also, this hourglass ran out, I guess.”

Spider-Man, 5/22/13

Spider-Man’s high school science teacher always hoped he’d kill or terribly injure himself in a lab accident.

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Mark Trail, 5/18/13

Girl fight Girl fight GIRL FIGHT!!!

Mark Trail is a pretty punchy guy, as you can tell from this collection of a few of his greatest hits. But Cherry, despite her reputation as a coffee-and-pancake-bearing hausfrau, is actually quite the little badass herself. Our gal can cinch up a pack mule, nail a beer can dead center in mid-air with a rifle no sissy shotgun for her no sir — and look damn fine doing it. As we see here, she can also slap the clear light of reason right back into an effete city-dwelling hysteric overcome by panic over some teensy forest-consuming sea of fire.

Or maybe not? Maybe Cherry isn’t trying to focus Shelley’s attention so much as rebuke her for disrespecting Wes? “Don’t you dare speak that way about your husband, Mrs. Wesley Thompson — what part of ‘Love, Honor, and Obey’ don’t you understand? And my own husband Mark loves these backwoods, ablaze or not: I will not stand for you to call them ‘stupid.'” Maybe behind all her woodsy competence, Cherry really is that traditional hausfrau, impatient for this annoying inferno to end so she can get back to her man’s side where she belongs?

Nah, I’m going with “badass.”

Curtis, 5/18/13

Curtis struck a pose for his class picture so outrageous that even Chutney, despite her lifelong crush on him, doesn’t want a copy. But this strip works another way, too: on the very day Chutney finally decides to put Curtis behind her, he shows up with a photo of himself as a gift. She savors the moment and the memory of what felt like love for so long, then, true to her decision, sends him on his way — a loser in every important sense of the word.

Unfortunately, that would make Barry the strip’s principal character, and I’m pretty sure nobody wants that.

Mary Worth, 5/18/13

Oh man you guys Mary Worth has been such a garden of visual delights lately I can’t get enough of it. Check out the disembodied hand watering Elinor’s windowsill — maybe that’s Beth’s leftover hand from panel two? Speaking of which, our monopod young lovers may as well wrap up their tryst — those bushes have already engulfed Tom’s private parts.

Wizard of Id, 5/18/13

Opening for Bung at the Laugh Zone tonight will be Travis Tritt and Marty Stuart singing The Whisky Ain’t Workin’.” Frankly, it’s not doing much for The Wizard of Id, either.

Family Circus, 5/18/13

“It’s a nice day.”
“I like ice cream.”
“It is pleasant to be outdoors this time of year.”
“Punchlines are overrated.”

— Uncle Lumpy