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Funky Winkerbean, 4/11/13

So Lisa’s Story has been picked up for direct-to-TV movie fame for big bucks, and I have to admit that I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, I find the unrelenting grimness of the Funkyverse fairly awful, so I suppose I should be glad that some good has actually befallen the characters. On the other hand, Les is smug and intolerable and now I actively enjoy seeing him tortured. So I’m now rooting for this story to end in crushed dreams as Funky Winkerbean plots inevitably do. Sorry, Cayla, you seem nice but then again you married Les so you clearly have problems. I don’t care if the bad thing that happens is Les being forced to rewrite Lisa’s Story in a way that betrays the memory of his beloved dead wife, or if he gets swindled by his agent and loses all his money, or if he and his whole family are killed by a runaway police horse at the movie’s gala premiere; I just want suffering.

Herb and Jamaal, 4/11/13

All right, we know that Herb and his mother in law have a troubled relationship, but I’m very disturbed that she sits silently in the corner of his dentist’s office while he’s undergoing oral surgery, watching, remembering. “You don’t see me, Herb,” she thinks, “But I see you. I see you.”

Mark Trail, 4/11/13

Mark sure is looking awfully confident in panel three about his plan to get his outdoorsy, cabin-dwelling wife and Shelley Thompson, about whom he knows nothing except that she’s rich and doesn’t care for the outdoors, to make friends with each other! “I’ll bet Shelly has the same parts that Cherry has that are different from my parts! I’m sure they will have a lot to talk about!”

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/10/13

A new character came to Hootin’ Holler a while back; I can’t remember how long ago now — months? years? Most residents of the Holler are a mite suspicious of calendars anyhow, tied as they are to the Revenooers tax-collection cycle. But anyway, this kid! His name is Arlo! He’s Jughead’s … cousin, I think? And he’s a damn goody goody. Yesterday he was caught enjoying book-learnin’; today he’s teaching Jughead to enjoy the process of economically productive manual labor. And he wears a tie! Could he be a Revenooer himself? My prediction: either he’ll artfully convince Hootin’ Holler to once again become a productive economic unit, or he’ll be chased out of the community at the business end of a shotgun by the end of the month.

Mark Trail, 4/10/13

Oh boy oh boy Mark Trail! It turns out that Sexy Wes is in fact a major investor in Woods and Wildlife Magazine! And since WWM’s last big advertiser, the pro bass tournament circuit, has pulled out all its money now that Marks has exposed their corruption, that leaves our journalists no choice but to dance to their paymaster’s tune. Which I guess will involve Mark flying to Wes and Shelly’s fussily decorated mansion and personally explaining to her how awesome it is to appreciate the outdoors. (Watch the sparks fly when Mark finds out what sick sex thing “appreciate the outdoors” is code for.)

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/10/13

Haha, so not only did Milton’s cardiologist not tell Milton he was inevitably going to die, he didn’t even bother doing any actual medical-style tests on the patient before filling his head with terror. Still, his negligence works out to Nurse Becka’s benefit. Just in time for the show, she seems to be thinking in panel three, the sexy naked silver-haired millionaire show.

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Slylock Fox, 4/8/13

What must it be like to be Slick Smitty, one of the last few remaining humans in a world of anthropomorphic, mostly bipedal sentient animals? Give him credit for this: he hasn’t retreated into a gadget-crazy fantasy world like fellow survivor Count Weirdly. (Do you think Count Weirdly was ever really a member of the peerage? Does anyone have anything better than a hazy memory of what the social hierarchy was like, in the Before Time?) No, Smitty has decided to integrate himself the best he can into this multispecies world’s economy. Today, his skills have drawn him into the realm of real estate, and we should give him credit for actually trying to sell a house to some lions who are probably just going to tear up the furniture with their razor-sharp claws and then shit everywhere. And yeah, so what if it won’t have a decent view of the lake no matter what time of year it is? Does Slylock really think that a clear view of an icy lake three months a year is some kind of selling point that’s going to add thousands of dollars of value to this cottage and whatever Smitty’s commission is? Let the human have his fun. He’s been through some stuff.

Mark Trail, 4/8/13

Meanwhile, in Mark Trail, a new adventure is underway! Starring Shelly and Wes, two members of the upper crust who couldn’t be less like Mark, what with Shelley’s ambivalence about the outdoors and their propensity to just jump right into the whole physical intimacy business without much provocation, even though Shelly finds Wes’s presence in their bedroom “surprising” for some reason. What happened to that breakfast tray between panels two and three? “Oh no!” Mark would say if he were there. “There’s juice spilled all over the floor! Wait, what are you doing to her face with your face?”

Apartment 3-G, 4/8/13

Normally I’d go on about Margo’s lilac typical A3G shirt-maybe-it’s-part-of-a-dress-who-can-tell being described as “stunning,” but I’m way too amused by the cursory acknowledgement that there is in fact a third roommate in this strip, who can’t be bothered to go to this party because she’s already fallen asleep, probably because she’s so dull that she’s bored herself into unconsciousness.

Herb and Jamaal, 4/8/13

So it turns out that Jamaal has come to see the time he spends with his best friend and business partner as some kind of divine punishment for any number of terrible sins he committed over many, many lifetimes.