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Crankshaft, 4/9/17

So, today’s Crankshaft only makes sense to people who understand all the weird nooks and crannies of the Funkyverse’s decades-long chrono-disjunctive narrative arcs, and, due to my many sins, I am one of those people, and as a punishment I guess I’m going to explain it to you? See, this takes place a decade in the past compared to Funky Winkerbean, and so Les is still hawking Fallen Star, his book about the murder of John Darling, who was the father of his soon-to-be-in-this-timeframe-dead wife’s biological son’s future wife. He spent years researching this book, which revealed that John Darling was killed by Plantman, as depicted in the final installment of the failed Funkyverse strip John Darling. The book was a financial failure! But Lillian, who has gone to this seminar on how to write a book only to encounter an author so unaccomplished that he held a book signing in the illegal bookstore she runs in her attic, is full of reassuring sentiments. Don’t worry, she says to Les: someday you’ll write something special, once your wife dies of cancer — like, I don’t know, the very book that appears in the first panel??? Anyway, the lesson here is that if you want literary success, you can’t write about just anyone dying, it has to be about someone you really love.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/9/17

Meanwhile, in the Funkypresent, it turns out Les is spending the energy he’s supposed to be channeling into yet another book about Lisa into primate-terminology-banter with his current, alive wife. C’mon, Les, the misery porn’s not going to write itself!

Mary Worth, 4/9/17

You know, the thought of going on a cruise has never really appealed to me, but the first couple panels here show me some of the charm. Who hasn’t wanted to yell at Florida from a safe distance away? “FUCK YOU, FLORIDA,” is what I’d shout. “YOU FUCKIN’ SUCK.”

Meanwhile, Toby is getting awful philosophical in the last panel. It’s true that you never know what tomorrow may bring! Maybe it’ll bring some guy out of his mind on nicotine withdrawal, just stabbing everyone who gets in his way on the no-cigs hell-cruise that destroyed his will to live! Who can say!

Shoe, 4/9/17

It turns out Roz, a major character in the long-running syndicated comic strip Shoe, is bisexual! This is an intriguing revelation, but it’s not an excuse for running a strip without a punchline of any sort?

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Gil Thorp, 4/6/17

I guess the Gil Thorp baseball season non-FOIA storyline is going to be about the mysterious history between Ryan Van Auken and Pete De Windt, but for my money it’d be a lot more fun if they just decided to create a marketing blitz around their shared Dutch heritage. You know, posing for pictures wearing wooden shoes and sticking their fingers into holes in the local water-control infrastructure, that sort of thing. Think of the nicknames! The “Dutch Connection!” The “Erasmuslijn!” The “Flemish Block!” [Gil calls a press conference] “Look, guys, these are kids, and I’m not sure how we were supposed to know that was the name of a far-right Flemish nationalist party in the ’80s and ’90s.” [Gil calls another press conference after a Marty Moon investigation finds extensive posts from mudlark_van_auk3n and petedeWIN on neo-nazi and Dutch supremacist message boards] “Look, guys…” [Gil closes his eyes and holds the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger for a long time without saying anything]

Mark Trail, 4/6/17

Wouldn’t it be great if Mark walked away from this kidnapper’s attempt to rope Mark into his crimes and we just never heard from him or his victim ever again? “What a strange man I met at the airport, Johnny!” [They spend the next eight to twelve weeks taking a census of black-footed ferrets]

Mary Worth, 4/6/17

Look how incredibly jazzed Mary and Toby are about the cruise ship crew not immediately losing their luggage within hours of their coming aboard! Their expectations are set extremely low, and which is always the best way to approach a vacation experience. They’ll almost certainly be pleasantly surprised when a norovirus fails to kill them!

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Mark Trail, 3/31/17

Whoa, whoa, whoa there Mark Trail, after boring, interminable days of black-footed ferret and prairie dog survey talk and even more boring, interminable days of Mark taking Rusty fishing and promising to take Rusty and Cherry on a trip to Mexico at some unspecified time in the future, which was so boring and interminable that I didn’t even bother discussing it here, we have some abrupt whiplash as we’re suddenly thrust into the seedy, violent South Dakota underworld. I guess Johnny and Mark are going to do less ferret/prairie dog counting and more punching and/or avoiding getting shot! It would be “too bad” if they fell victim to gunplay.

Gil Thorp, 3/31/17

Wait wait hold up: Ken Brown’s mom is the same judge who put erstwhile Most Unpleasant Mudlark Barry “Darth” Bader’s dad in jail last year? Frustratingly, I didn’t post any of the strips where she appears, but I’m pretty sure this is her, plus how many Mudlarks could possibly have judge moms, anyway? Sure, she her name is “Hiatt,” not Brown, but a liberal feminazi who refuses to take her husband’s name is exactly the sort of judicial activist who thinks an upstanding businessman who maybe had a drink or two should go to prison just because he killed someone with his car.

Beetle Bailey, 3/31/17

Man, if you need a quick primer on the priorities of the staff of Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC, compare the loving, idyllic representation of a golf course in panel two to the featureless void that is General Halftrack’s office in panel one.

Mary Worth, 3/31/17

“Oh, you welcome all helpful hints?” asks Mary. Her eyes glow a dull red. “You’re voluntarily requesting helpful hints from me,” she says. Her jaw unhinges and the top of her head flips back, revealing an infinitely black maw. “I have so many helpful hints to give you. So many.” A terrible fluttering of filthy wings blots out first all other sounds and then the sun, yet somehow they can still hear her. “SO MANY. SO HELPFUL.”