Archive: Rhymes with Orange

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Funky Winkerbean, 10/17/22

Look, I’m kind of face blind in real life, with actual human faces, and so since I’m dealing with a cartoon face here it’s wholly possibly I’m about to give you a big infodump about the wrong person, but I think that’s supposed to be Susan Smith, who in the long-ago pre-time-jump era of Funky Winkerbean was one of Les’s students, who developed romantic feelings for him somehow and then attempted suicide when he didn’t return them, and then years later came back to Westview herself as a teacher, and was of course enraptured by his prose about his dead wife Lisa, then eventually proclaimed her renewed love for him and there was briefly a moment where it seemed like she might be a romantic rival for Cayla (remember, this was a woman who tried to kill herself because she was so in love with Les when he was her teacher and she was a teenager! gross!) and despite some Three’s Company-style misunderstandings Cayla eventually won (“won”) and so Susan slipped quietly out of town. You’ll note in that last linked strip she says she’ll be “first in line to see” the Lisa’s Story movie if anything ever came of it, so maybe she was maybe one of the few who actually saw Marianne’s improbable Oscar-winning performance. On the other hand, the first panel here says that we’re flashing back to “several years ago,” and it definitely seems like she’s about to jump into the river, so maybe she never got to see the movie, a truly devastating final Les Moore-related tragedy in a life that was full of them.

Rhymes With Orange, 10/17/22

Ha ha, it’s funny because St. Peter, who was granted the keys to heaven by Jesus himself, wants to condemn this dog to eternal torture, in hell! Anyway, if you were wondering if you were still going to have to/be able to urinate in the afterlife, Rhymes With Orange is here to tell you: yes.

Judge Parker, 10/17/22

Oh, sorry, Judge Parker readers, we know you were all alarmed that something interesting and exciting seemed to be happening in this strip, but don’t worry: this week we’re getting back to the wall of emotionally fraught post-divorce scold-text that we know is the real reason you tune in every day.

The Lockhorns, 10/17/22

I love this panel because it tells us that there was a brief moment where Leroy experienced a moment of pure, childlike happiness. It was of course immediately followed by pain and trauma. This is the nature of the Lockhorns’ reality. I like the black eye he has because it lets us know that whatever he hit, he hit it face first.

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Marvin, 6/26/22

Look, I get it. Marvin, the strip, wants to “have it all” as a comic strip. That means that it wants to be a strip about an infant, and wants to be a strip where that infant delivers sarcastic one-liners and sasses back to his parents. But that can make it difficult for readers — and, frankly, the strip itself — to get a real firm handle on how old Marvin, the character, is supposed to be, from a developmental standpoint. I mean, here, why would you do whole strip where a mom admonishes her kid about wetting the bed, and yet also makes it clear that said kid is wearing diapers, and thus isn’t potty trained yet? It doesn’t add u– wait, what’s that you say? It’s some sick fetish? A fetish where increasingly elaborate piss scenarios are lovingly described to non-consenting newspaper readers everywhere? And it’s been happening in plain view of everyone, for years. Interesting. Interesting. I’ll keep that one in mind next time I read this strip!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/26/22

Hey, folks, remember June’s beloved Aunt (?) Hildy, who showed up on the family doorstep one day and became a live-in babysitter, and we briefly thought she might be a drunk but then it turned out she just took your occasional unplanned nap, and finally Rex reconnected her with her cheating ex-husband Andrzej, who was also an ex-pro wrestler, and they made up and got back together, sexually, and then she moved out? Anyway, the Street Sweeper plot has finally wrapped up, so I guess the new storyline is going to be to find what Hildy and Andrzej are up to. What they appear to be up to is dying of heart disease, so this should be a quick one.

Rhymes With Orange, 6/26/22

Well, this is it, everyone: consensual nonmonogamy has finally hit the newspaper comics. Sure, it’s a radical comic like Rhymes With Orange today, but can the normal ones like Garfield be far behind?

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Dustin, 4/16/22

Look, I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a comic strip that makes fun of young people who move back in with their parents. We already have strips that make fun of the army, old minor league baseball pitchers who never make the big leagues and end up driving a school bus for a living well past retirement age, and vikings. I’m just saying that if you’re going to write a comic strip strip that makes fun of young people who move back in with their parents, you should have some idea of how young people operate in the world, or at least an editor willing to send you notes like “Young people in the year 2022 do not as a rule wear suits on first dates, particularly on dates where a venue has not been decided on in advance.”

Rhymes With Orange, 4/16/22

It’s Holy Saturday, folks, and your friends at Rhymes With Orange are to remind you not to jerk off onto the Easter eggs, no matter how much you want to.