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Funky Winkerbean and Gil Thorp, 6/19/10

I do bring up the concept “Chekhov’s Gun” a lot in this space — the Russian playwright once noted that “if in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired” — but only because it works so well conceptually with the the painful plotting of continuity comics, in which you always, always see the horror/delight coming. For instance, every cell in every character in Funky Winkerbean is tiny microscopic Chekhov’s Gun, just waiting to burst into glorious deadly cancer. The title character’s own simmering alcoholism serves a similar role, with the question not being if he would backslide into a hateful downward spiral of boozing but when. And now the answer to that when has been revealed to be “twenty minutes after he put his dad into a nursing home.”

But sometimes you don’t see these things coming, and that’s always a pleasant surprise, even if the results are unpleasant for the characters concerned. For instance, I would never have picked Coach Mrs. Coach Thorp as one to drown her sorrows at her coaching failures in booze (though the booze in question is a nice glass of red wine, because she is classy, and a lady). Still, it makes sense, as her husband is pretty much drunk all the time, which is why he doesn’t care that he hasn’t won a championship in any sport in years. He seems pretty happy, so why wouldn’t she follow his example?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/19/10

Longtime readers of Snuffy Smith know that Parson Tuttle, Hootin’ Holler’s only clergyman, is a fraud who plays upon the simple hill folks’ earnest religious impulses to line his own pockets. Thus it should come as no surprise that the ministership of the local ramshackle church is actually a Tuttle clan sinecure, jealously kept within a single family whose members lost their faith generations ago, but refuse to give up a cushy gig.

Ballard Street, 6/19/10

It’s actually pretty rare for me to discuss Ballard Street, as it usually consists of insane people doing inscrutable things in a more or less amusing fashion, which doesn’t leave much room for commentary. As far as I can remember, it never, ever features talking animals of any sort, which makes today’s horror even harder to explain. The people in the comic sometimes dress up in elaborate costumes; are those meant to be people in cowsuits? If so, the business with the “udder” is even more nightmarish than what a plain reading of the strip would suggest.

Mark Trail, 6/19/10

When ordinary mortals lose a pet, they tape signs announcing the fact and the associated reward to lampposts throughout the area where the poor little critter might be. When Mark Trail loses a pet, the local daily paper runs an enormous picture and a two-column story about it in the A section. Why isn’t this on the front page? Was there a nuclear war or something?

Family Circus, 6/19/10

Big Daddy Keane will be using the crayons to depict himself as a member of a non-white ethnic group, so that he can look at the picture and pretend that he is not related to this gaggle of monsters.

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Mary Worth, 6/17/10

The best thing about today’s Mary Worth is that the handsome young man in Mary’s thought balloon has an entirely different hair color than our Dr. Roberts. There are two hilarious possibilities as to why. Perhaps Mary’s mind is starting to go, and she can’t really remember what her acquaintances look like and just gets them mixed up with people she saw on TV. Or maybe the entire Dr. Roberts sequence was a narrative red herring, and she’s planning to match Jenna up with someone else entirely. “I think this sullen young woman and ol’ ‘Black Irish’ Donoghue might make an acceptable couple! Obviously I’ll be saving that yummy doctor for myself.”

The other best thing about today’s Mary Worth is how deeply upset Jenna looks by the turn this conversation has taken. “Wait, wait, is this old bag trying to set me up with somebody? Oh, hell no. I should know better than to make eye contact with anyone at any of these damn geezer parties.”

Marmaduke, 10/17/10

Ha ha, protest all you want, Phil, but Marmaduke demands your utmost obedience and worship, today and every day, lest you end up a meal, like the neighbors that you’ve carefully prepared and served up to him this afternoon. The infant’s femur bone decorating the lid of the serving tray is a particularly gruesome touch.

Mark Trail, 10/17/10

Sassy doesn’t look too concerned by these developments! Perhaps she’s eager for the sweet embrace of death, if the alternative is going back to live with Rusty.

Archie, 10/17/10

Wow, a tire being replaced by a skateboard! That would sure be mildly amusing to see! But you could just show us … Betty and Reggie talking about it … I guess … wait, did this Archie strip actually make me want to see a lame visual gag that I almost certainly would have sneered at, had it just been depicted in a straightforward fashion? Clever, very clever.

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Mary Worth, 6/14/10

Well, thank goodness: the new Mary Worth plot is being heralded by a Charterstone Pool Party, so the world does in fact still make some kind of sense. Kudos to Jenna for spicing things up by shouting potentially sensitive information across a courtyard full of her clients’ friends and neighbors. “I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR REFERRING THE JOHNSONS TO ME AS CLIENTS! BONNIE’S COMPULSIVE SPENDING ON HIDEOUS CLOTHES IN UNDER CONTROL FOR NOW, AND HER HUSBAND HAS GRUDGINGLY AGREED NOT TO LEAVE HER! I STILL DON’T THINK THEIR SEX LIFE HAS REALLY RECOVERED, THOUGH!”

Say, check out Wilbur in the background of panel two! Presumably he’s recovered from the pain of being abandoned by his lying not-son. No longer hiding in his apartment, shoving sandwich after sandwich into his mouth, he’s decided to come out into the daylight, mingle with his fellow condo dwellers, and chow down on a raw potato instead.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/14/10

You know, any comic can show you a character telling another an awkward, unfunny joke; in fact, one might argue that this is one of the things the American newspaper comics pages do best! But only high-quality strips like Funky Winkerbean have the craftsmanship to show you the uncomfortable aftermath of those failed zingers: the confusion, the sheepish smiles, the half-hearted apologies on both sides. Tomorrow’s strip should just be three panels of these two silently brooding over their continued failure to forge an interpersonal bond, despite their game efforts.

Mark Trail, 6/14/10

Panel three’s closeup reveals that “Sally” is clearly just character actor Ernest Borgnine in a not terribly convincing wig — which bodes ill for our mustachioed dog-hating villain. Don’t let Borgnine’s “lovable loser” persona from his Oscar-winning turn in Marty fool you; he’s a decorated World War II naval gunner, so that nosey neighbor and his politician friend may find themselves under attack by ship-based artillery in the near future.

Dick Tracy 6/14/10

Oh, right, Dick Tracy: it still exists, and is still insane, etc. One particularly odd and hitherto unexplained aspect of this storyline is that the play-gone-haywire at the heart of it is being staged at the Science Museum, which is not the sort of place one usually imagines as a theatrical venue. But now we’ve learned the narrative motivation behind this: with the action established at the Science Museum, we’ve been set up for a dramatic conclusion within a restored submarine! Because when you think “Science Museum,” you generally think “historic naval vessels.” Anyway, long story short, that submarine’s deck and walls are about to be decorated with blood, as Dick guns down his antagonist at point-blank range.