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Crankshaft, 12/6/17

Every year Crankshaft takes a job as a mall Santa, and every year he’s a sullen dick about it, like he always is about everything. This year the mall closed down, though, and Crankshaft felt bad about that, presumably because he missed being cruel to children. Now it appears Lillian has hired him to play Santa in the unlicensed book store she runs over her garage, which as far as I know has never had a customer, so I guess she just wants him to sit there scowling in the suit all day while she putters around, which I dearly hope is not a sex thing.

Mary Worth, 12/6/17

“I just made a very expensive purchase and our entertainment budget is a bit crimped at the moment. On a completely unrelated note, what would you say the resale value of, just to pick something at random, all of our kitchen appliances would be?”

Funky Winkerbean, 12/6/17

I bet when you give this tour in Memphis, when you get to this part you have old white people loudly finishing your sentences for you and trying to change the subject a lot.

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Mark Trail, 11/30/17

FACT: Chris “Dirty” Dyer is a notorious animal poacher who enjoys nothing more than dismembering majestic, endangered beasts for his own profit.

FACT: The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus was in its final years mired in numerous controversies regarding its mistreatment of elephants and other animals.

CONCLUSION: Chris “Dirty” Dyer was from a young age a sociopath who reveled in grotesque animal-torture entertainments.

ALTERNATE CONCLUSION: Chris “Dirty” Dyer was a normal young boy who had his ability to feel empathy for animals deadened as he watched cruel circus taskmasters heartlessly treat noble elephants as unfeeling objects while the audience members around him jeered.

FACT NOT RELATED TO THE FOREGOING BUT STILL IMPORTANT TO NOTE: The “Tingling Brothers Circus” definitely sounds like the porn parody version version of the Ringling Brothers Circus.

Mary Worth, 11/30/17

Hmm, so what I’m taking away from Iris’s dialogue in panel one is that she may not be as familiar with as wide a variety of sex acts as Zak might be accustomed to with his younger partners, but the ones she does know she knows very well, as she plans to show Zak repeatedly until Tommy gets back from Goleta 48 hours from now, Mary’s passive-aggressive notes slipped under the door about Charterstone’s noise regulations be damned.

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Mary Worth, 11/26/17

This is typical wrap-up Sunday Mary Worth with no plot forward motion, but I have to admit to being intrigued by the quote-of-the-week, putting a phrase that probably millions of humans have uttered into the mouth of former British Prime Minister John Major, who probably said it at some point. Does this presage future plot points? Will Wilbur return to Santa Royale and discover that Mary Worth, the “Iron Lady of Charterstone,” is becoming less and less popular, and manage to maneuver things so that he becomes condo association head (surprise!) despite having publicly backed Mary throughout the whole process?

Gasoline Alley, 11/26/17

I think there’s a lot to say about how Thanksgiving, which once represented an occasion to thank God for bountiful harvests in an era when nationwide food scarcity was an ever-present threat, slowly became an orgiastic, gluttonous rite as we moved into a less religious age of mechanized agriculture and endless food surpluses, and that shift is reflected in our iconography of the holiday. But until I get around to writing it, just enjoy today’s grotesque celebration of the season, in which armed turkeys intend to murder Slim and feast on his flesh and organs.

Dennis the Menace, 11/26/17

Sure, this is a trip about how much Dennis can’t wait to drink and party like a grown-up, but definitely the most menacing part is how the boldface in the final panel indicates that Henry is 100% stage whispering, clearly intending to let Dennis know that in his opinion the birth of a child is the death of fun.