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Crankshaft, 5/18/08

Oh, Funkiverse! You can’t help but be cruel, even when you aren’t trying! I know it’s not your fault, what with the multi-week lead time for Sunday comics, but surely this happy Cleveland-area scene playing out on the funny pages the day the Cavs were eliminated from the playoffs will only rub salt further into the wounds of the team’s fans.

Panel from Mark Trail, 5/18/08

This panel, ostensibly about “sharks,” reads more like a plea for understanding from our unseen narrator. After all, attributing human emotions to Mark Trail is a mistake that many people make. He has no concept of mercy, sportsmanship, or affection towards his spouse. All he knows is punching; punching is what a million years of evolution has designed him to do. Why won’t you let him be?

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Mark Trail, 5/17/08

It’s only now that the full idiocy of Mark’s plan is being brought to light: he uses the strongest obscenity in his vocabulary to express his shock and horror at the utterly unforeseen fact that the dognappers have a motor vehicle. “Goodness gracious, I assumed that they would have sedated Andy and put him in a cart or wagon, or perhaps just carried him on a stretcher, and I could have chased them on foot, using this World War II surplus tracking device! If only I had access to an internal combustion engine-drive vehicle of some sort! Oh well, back to the St. Bernard puppy mill.”

Momma, 5/17/08

It my continual quest to acknowledge it when comics that I usually consider terrible make me laugh, I give you this Momma, which made me laugh. My wife’s grandmother lived for a time in a retirement home that had a restaurant, where men were required to wear jackets to dinner and forbidden to wear shorts at any time, so I understand the oldsters’ insistence on propriety. Still, you’d think that Momma would relax a little about a casual dinner at home, though I can see why she’d be disgusted by Francis’s hairy jeans.

Meanwhile the final panel reveals that Thomas’s jaunty straw boater is considered ludicrously overdone even by Momma’s sartorial standards.

Mary Worth, 5/17/08

Is … is Mary hitting on Ron at his mother’s funeral? I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on here. Dr. Jeff is no doubt thrilled that she’s telling random men that she’s “available.”

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Funky Winkerbean, 5/13/08

If I’m remembering correctly, the Tragically Ironic Hearing Loss storyline that led to Harry Dinkle’s retirement took place before the decade-long timejump. Since his constant mopey presence around the house has been driving his wife up the wall since day one, she’s no doubt well and truly insane by now. This may explain why she’s harassing a school board official about her personal problems, or why she feels a need to refer to her husband by his full name, including middle initial, in casual conversation. As Harriet’s already admitted that she’s crazy, I hope the school board president is desperately pressing the panic button under his desk, before she turns violent.

Mark Trail, 5/13/08

We all know that Mark Trail only cares about humans to the extent that they threaten wildlife habitat or get punched by Mark, but even by the standards of this strip the handling of little Madeline’s “condition” is shockingly bonkers. Has anyone involved in the production of this strip encountered the modern medical system in any way, shape, or form? What the hell kind of doctor looks at a comatose little girl, scratches his chin thoughtfully, and then writes PUPPY half-legibly on his prescription pad? The kind that gets generous kickbacks from the American Kennel Club, that’s what kind.

Blondie, 5/13/08

Some clever Photoshopper needs to change the dialog in this strip so that Elmo and his towheaded little friend are simply demanding money from Dagwood and threatening to beat his legs with that baseball bat if he doesn’t comply. It would explain his typical but still odd lope in the third panel.

Family Circus, 5/13/08

“But then, most paper money has been up people’s noses, so it’s kind of a mixed bag.”