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Mary Worth, 1/14/19

Why, what’s this? It seems that the case of the smitten student just got a little more complex. If I’m interpreting that thought balloon correctly, Jannie isn’t overcome by lust for Professor Cameron at all, but is rather just buttering him up for her own inscrutable purposes. Is she planning on kidnapping him for ransom? On stealing his organs? On … getting a better grade than her work alone would merit, exactly as Toby suspected all along? Ha ha, isn’t everyone going to feel silly when that turns out to be the case! Anyway, this dude is probably her actual boyfriend. You can tell he’s more desirable to a young woman than Ian, because he knows about hip new bands like the Rolling Stones.

Gil Thorp, 1/14/19

Oh, man, this Gil Thorp storyline appears to be about how the tyranny of student confidentiality laws are shackling honest adults who need the right to humiliate children in public, to protect their reputation, and I for one am I here for it! In the meantime, please enjoy Kaz aggressively pointing at Gil to drive home his “point” that B/Robby Howry’s youthful transgressions are fair game in this PR battle.

Pluggers, 1/14/19

Obviously the joke here is that pluggers have grandchildren who don’t have a firm grip on typical human lifespans and/or the dates of major historic events, but I’m choosing to believe that this panel takes place after a future bloody civil war in which pluggers were on the losing side. They believed they’d have an inherent advantage over the big-city types, but it quickly became clear that their ramshackle automobiles and sedentary lifestyles were not the military assets they assumed them to be.

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Pluggers, 12/18/18

This is something you don’t usually hear me say, but I like the cut of this elder she-plugger’s jib! I particularly like that you can tell that her grandchildren left literally minutes ago and she’s already wining out. Is she going to bother picking up any of their junk before getting blotto? She sure isn’t! Is she worried about drinking red wine while wearing white pants? She gives not a single solitary shit! This ecstatically drunk grandma is definitely one of my top ten pluggers of the year!

Mary Worth, 12/18/18

It’s going to be fun seeing how close Mary can get to the question she actually wants an answer to — “So, are you guys still fucking on the regular or what?” — without coming out and saying it. In the meantime, I’m just going to enjoy the incredibly tiny plate that muffin is sitting on in panel two. You don’t expect Mary to just hand over a muffin without a plate, do you? She’s not an animal.

Crankshaft, 12/18/18

They say consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, but I’ve never claimed to be anything other than petty and small, so I’ll say this: it drives me crazy that the Funkyverse contains both weirdly named psuedobrands like “McArnold’s” but also actual brands like Amazon. It forces me to conclude that Amazon paid to be mentioned in the strip, or, more likely, that McDonald’s paid not to be mentioned.

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Blondie, 12/12/18

I believe that Dagwood is a true food fetishist, in the sense that he doesn’t just enjoy the act of consuming food in and of itself, but has so centered it in his personality that he’s developed various paraphilias around it. So yeah, he’s gonna want some elaborate role play with his Christmastime pizza delivery, but here’s the thing: sex workers generally charge more as their clients’ tastes get more exotic, and this scenario is no different. You want someone to come down your chimney with pizza (not a euphemism, this is literally what Dagwood wants, this is what he’s been thinking about all day, ever since he spotted the pizza delivery guy in his Santa suit last night and wrote down the number on his car), you’ve gotta pay come-down-your-chimney-with-pizza money.

Crankshaft, 12/12/18

Speaking of people who won’t be coming down your chimney, the “joke” of the current Crankshaft arc is that Crankshaft was running late and didn’t have time to change out of the costume from his mall Santa gig before arriving at his bowling night, which, fine, but … the beard? Surely he could just take off the beard? I was thinking maybe he had affixed it to his face with spirit gum but that seems like far more commitment than Crankshaft has ever put into anything that wasn’t spiting his fellow man.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 12/12/18

Now, I’m not an artist or a scientist but I was kind of curious about what was going on from an anatomical perspective in that stall and this is what I came up with:

So you heard it here first, kids: pencils shit standing up!

Funky Winkerbean, 12/12/18

Ahhh, I love Holly’s mom’s expression of slowly dawning disappointment! That’s the face of a woman who just minutes ago thought, incorrectly, that she was about to get laid.

Pluggers, 12/12/18

You’re a plugger if there’s absolutely no way you’ll be able to complete your list of menial tasks before you drop dead.