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Funky Winkerbean, 10/13/20

Those of us fated by the gods to read Funky Winkerbean daily just have to accept the fact that there was a brief window at the very beginning of the strip’s history when it was actually fun and wacky, and understand that character names like “Funky Winkerbean,” “Bull Bushka” (RIP), and “Les Moore” are relics from that earlier, zanier time, even though now we have to somehow deal with sentences like “Funky Winkerbean is slowly dying of prostate cancer” or “Bull Bushka had CTE and committed suicide by driving off a cliff.” But if you’re going to do grim-ass plots like “Adeela is going to be deported due to a bureaucratic mixup,” for the love of Christ do not introduce a brand new character with an on-the-nose punny name like “Amicus Breef.” Get it, because he’s a lawyer! Ha ha!

Pluggers, 10/13/20

I’m sorry this plugger subscribes to a sad newspaper that can’t even afford wire service stock photos of celebs for its celebrity birthday list, but I also sincerely believe that lots of pluggers everywhere are the last ones left making Borat voice “MY WIFE” jokes.

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Hagar the Horrible and Beetle Bailey, 10/12/20

Hope you had a good weekend, everybody! Hagar and his band of grinning Vikings are going to murder these two in their bed. Sarge, meanwhile, is going to murder Beetle with a tank, though it’s not clear if he’s going to disintegrate his body by firing an artillery shell at him at point blank range or just crush him to death under the tank treads.

Mark Trail, 10/12/20

In happier news, it’s new-look Mark Trail day one, y’all! Wow, just last week Mark was getting a big fat raise just for winning some dumb industry award he didn’t even show up to collect, but now he’s off in the woods handling snakes and desperately trying to come up with some viral TikTok content that the kids can relate to. Sad!

Gil Thorp, 10/12/20

Oh hell yeah it’s another Wing-T storyline!!!! You might remember way back in 2007 when one of the shittiest Milford football teams in living memory sort of threw in the towel halfway threw the season and spent a lot of time practicing the Wing-T, an old-timey trickeration play, in total secrecy, to prepare to unleash it at just the right moment. They did, eventually, and it turned out to be boring and confusing, but whatever, this isn’t your father’s Wing-T they’re practicing now, it’s the Delaware Wing-T, which means, uh, there’s no taxes on it or something? More on this story as it develops.

Pluggers, 10/12/20

Gotta say, I’ve been reading Pluggers for more than 15 years and never once in all that time did it occur to me to think about whether the plugger chicken-lady had scaly orange chicken legs under her pants or if she was just basically a humanoid with a chicken head and covered with feathers. But now? Now that I know the answer? I’m going to think about it every God-damned day for the rest of my life.

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Mark Trail, 9/22/20

Oh man, Woods and Wildlife editor Bill Ellis is just having a fuckin’ meltdown that Mark would even consider tending to his wounded dog instead of flying into New York for the big Conservation Writer of the Year banquet at the Waldorf Astoria. Doesn’t Mark know how much is riding on this? The notoriously cutthroat Conservation Writers of America society will just not give you the award if you don’t show up in person to accept it, so they’ll hand it to the runner-up (some guy from Ranger Rick, probably?) and then Bill, Woods and Wildlife, and their publisher (a disreputable hedge fund that bought the W&W intellectual property at fire sale prices from the Hearst Corporation in 2015) can kiss all those sweet CWotY pageviews and subscription renewals goodbye.

Dick Tracy, 9/22/20

Ha ha, teen girls! This weird professor, who is literally wearing fangs right now, is definitely not into the vampire lifestyle, which he just brought up to see if you were as not into it as he was, even though, as he can’t emphasize enough, it’s all safe and consensual. Here, read these pamphlets and check out these websites! If your opinions about modern, progressive vampirism change, don’t hesitate to get back in touch.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/22/20

CONFIDENTIAL TO BUCK: If the lost revenue from your convention circuit sales is offset by the fact that you no longer have to pay the expenses associated with your convention circuit sales, your business may be, to use a technical term, “unprofitable.”

CONFIDENTIAL TO MINDY: The idea that someone would be glad to be stuck in the house with Buck is not believable. Is this a hostage situation? Are you in danger? Blink twice if you need help.

Pluggers, 9/22/20

A plugger romantic dinner is when a wife constantly begs to go eat somewhere that isn’t fast food, just this once, and her husband finally agrees but he’s really passive aggressive about it all evening.