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Mary Worth, 6/1/16

Guys, I’m not very good at yoga, but I’ve been doing it semi-regularly, at home with videos and in classes, for nearly a decade now, and I can assure you that the amount of yogi smack talk that happens is minimal. Also, I mean, I don’t mean to doubt the yoga prowess of mustachio’d part-time substitute art history instructor Harlan Jones, but I’ve been trying and failing to do crow pose for nearly the whole time I’ve been practicing yoga, and taraksvasana seems, like, a lot harder, so I don’t think he’s gonna master that in one night? Don’t push yourself too hard, friend! Your body is your best teacher: if you feel a sharp pain, stop, pull back, try again later! I actually dearly hope Dawn discovers Harlan’s twisted body in his apartment days from now, after he accidentally breaks his back by taraksvasanaing too vigorously, and the lesson learned is that when you make a new connection you should always abandon all your other friends to hang out with them all the time.

Family Circus, 6/1/16

I’m not really sure what Dolly is getting at here. God is enlightening us … about the nature of electricity? I’m honestly more concerned about her body language, as she seems to just be blathering soothing nonsense to him to lure him somewhere, possibly the top of a tall, metal pole.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/1/16

“And it’d be crazy if I had to kill you, to make sure that you didn’t shoot your big mouth off about this! Oh, these gun fingers? I’m making them for, uh, no reason at all.”

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Mark Trail, 5/31/16

OH SNAP, it’s that time again in this Mark Trail adventure: the time when a young lady misinterprets an innocent act of life-saving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as an adulterous romantic advance on Mark’s part! Remember, when you’ve stopped breathing due to a build up of water in your lungs, the first thing you’ll feel as you regain consciousness due to someone else forcing air into your respiratory system is languorous erotic delight, right before you puke up a bunch of fluid. Anyway, I can’t decide what I like more: Mark’s bug-eyed startlement at feeling a woman react to his touch with arousal, or his grim-faced explanation that, yes, he is indeed legally bound to another human in the contract that our society calls “marriage,” and he’s very, very happy about it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/31/16

Oh, whoops, it looks like even with its new writer, the Rex Morgan rule about the Morgans always getting free money at all times is still in full effect! The juxtaposition between the sad, dark past when children were forced to watch their favorite comics burn at the whims of puritans, and today, when Rex is rubbing his chin and smirking and thinking about how much money he could get for these smutty comics, is a delight.

Funky Winkerbean, 5/31/16

Finally, the Zodiac Killer has come out of hiding and has cryptographically announced his intention to kill again — right here in Centerville! The best part of this time jump discontinuity is that whenever Pam or Jeff are irritating in Crankshaft, we can console ourselves with the knowledge of their eventual grisly end.

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Crankshaft, 5/22/16

The Funkyverse seems to have taken my proclamed indifference to its chrono-narrative shenanigans as some sort of challenge. “Oh, Mr. Fancy Comics Blogger Man, it doesn’t bother you that Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft take place ten years apart, and yet both also take place in an eternal Comic Book Time present, which right now in both cases is a recognizable 2016? Well, what if we do a fractured-time narrative around Rose’s death in Crankshaft, and we keep prefacing every strip with narration boxes like ‘One week ago…’ and ‘Three weeks ago…’, but we do it over the course of nearly a month, so it becomes increasingly muddled what the chronological reference point is? How about that, huh?” Well, OK, fine. That would bother me. That would bother me quite a bit, actually!

Funky Winkerbean, 5/22/16

Funky Winkerbean, meanwhile, presents me with a simple pleasure: knowing that, while Les thinks he can glimpse daylight at the end of the decade-long hell-tunnel that is his chosen profession, he’ll actually be stuck in place spinning his wheels endlessly until this strip hits its next time-jump, which will no doubt catapult him past his brief joy upon retirement and straight into whatever his next depressing life stage is (old age and death, I would hope).

Mary Worth, 5/22/16

Oh, look, it’s Mary Worth’s first appearance under the new Sunday strip artistic regime! I give her two thumbs up; the cowl-neck sweater is a particularly appropriate choice. Less appropriate is Dawn’s assertion that obviously she’s not in love with Harlan, but if she were, would that really be so bad? After all, Cher once fell in love with a bitter, sullen Nicolas Cage in a movie, and that worked out fine!

Judge Parker, 5/22/16

Since Neddy abandoned her old person sweatshop idea, the world has clamored to know: how will the Spencer-Drivers get rich now, at taxpayer expense? Well, it looks like this is how!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/22/16

Congratulations to the animals, for finally figuring out how to drive the Morgans out of the countryside!