Post Content

Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean, 3/24/16

Unlike what appears to be a surprising number of you, I don’t care much about the weird chronological disconnect between Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft, where both strips take place in the present (as near as can be determined by technological and social details) and yet Funky Winkerbean takes place ten years after Crankshaft. I really don’t care at all! It’s just Comic Book Time, y’all, and unless you’re dealing with For Better or for Worse or Doonesbury, you just accept that the characters all stay the same age more or less while the universe ages around them. The Funkyverse seems to want its readers to care about the discontinuity, though, which is strange because literally the only forms of “caring” anyone could have about this are “confusion” and “irritation”; still, what other explanation is there for the slo-mo crossover details that would only be of interest to Funkyverse obsessives? Like those twin girls who recently surfaced in Funky Winkerbean as teens are now back in Crankshaft, teasing us with potential clues about their birthdate! (Jokes on you, nerds: October 1995 is before they were born whether Crankshaft takes place in 2016 or 2006.) Meanwhile, in Funky Winkerbean, the gang is visiting the Valentine, presumably to show us that Max and his girlfriend have managed to run it for a decade without going bankrupt. I guess that’s supposed to be Max? Or some other bearded dude? At least he’s making a dumb play on words based on a phrase nobody ever uses. At least something makes sense.

Mary Worth, 3/24/16

Is there a phrase more emblematic of Mary Worth’s ethos than “Mary explains what Dawn is feeling”? Anyway, now that Mary has successfully annihilated Dawn’s emotional autonomy, she’ll be ready to force her puppet to make a “bolder personal effort” for “in-person connecting,” which probably will entail an assassination attempt on a senator or businessman opposed to Mary’s interests.

Crock, 3/24/16

Normally I would just pass over this incomprehensible punchline like so many others in Crock, but the title character’s knowing glance in the final panel is really forcing me to dwell on it. “Eh? Hairy backs? Get it? His back? It’s hairy?”

Herb and Jamaal, 3/24/16

You know those Slylock Fox puzzles where the solution revolves around someone making a technically true but misleading statement to beat a lie detector test? This reminds me of a particularly pathetic version of that. “Heh heh,” thinks Herb smugly in the final panel. “I sure gave her a piece of my mind, in a way that guarantees that she’ll never notice! That’ll show her!”

Judge Parker, 3/24/16

WOW, when is BIG GOVERNMENT going to get OFF THE BACKS of JOB CREATORS who want to MAKE THINGS IN AMERICA by HIRING OLD PEOPLE and NOT PAYING THEM ANY BENEFITS because they’re ALREADY ON MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY????? Man, whichever local state legislator had his or her last campaign entirely financed by the Spencer-Driver SuperPAC is going to hear about this.

Post Content

Mary Worth, 3/17/16

What do you think the story is with that all-blue-clad guy in panel two? How irritated do you think he is that his nighttime (?) reverie and his plan to stare at the ocean and the setting (??) moon (???) for hours have been interrupted by Mary and Jeff drunkenly stumbling up the boardwalk shouting at each other about how great Mary is at fixing people’s problems? Do you think he know how much those pants flatter his ass? (Based on the pose he’s striking, I’m guessing yes.)

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/17/16

Haha, whoops, it seems noted local pinhead Franco Wallace is only bad-mouthing his ex’s house so that she can’t sell it, because if she sells it, she’ll move away and he’ll never see her again! Rex’s facial expression in panel three gives you a pretty good sense of what he thinks of human beings and their so-called “emotions.”

Post Content

Six Chix, 3/15/16

Hey, remember how these goldfish used to have a friend, but he escaped from the bowl, only to die in agony while they watched? We all learned a valuable lesson that day about never trying to go beyond the bounds of your everyday life, no matter how constricting they seem. Anyway, today we also learn that even we stay safe in our home, we’ll eventually die, mostly due to our own flaws, which we can neither control nor overcome.

Mary Worth, 3/15/16

Oh, so now Mary and Jeff are just, uh, rehashing the basic concept of the strip? Did Mary Worth get picked up by a new paper for the first time in years? “Shit,” they’re saying down at Mary Worth HQ, “do we gotta … explain how this thing works?” [Blows dust off a manila folder labelled SO YOU JUST STARTED READING MARY WORTH]

Dennis the Menace, 3/15/16

OK, so, I suppose a child asking another child if she has a signature cocktail is mildly menacing, but let’s talk about that uniform. I guess it’s supposed to be a Girl Scout uniform, but it in no way resembles what Girl Scouts actually wear. If Margaret is starting her own neighborhood paramilitary group, that’s gonna take menacing to a whole new level.