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Crankshaft, 5/31/21

So Crankshaft has spent the last month dwelling on the Valentine Theater and how the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t done it any favors, financially, and because this is the Funkyverse, where not just people die but dreams as well, there’s not going to be some magical It’s A Wonderful Life ending where everyone chips in and the theater is saved. Nope, it’s going out of business! And apparently Max and Mindy live there too, oops, maybe in like an apartment upstairs but also maybe they and their baby just sleep in the seats at night and eat popcorn for dinner. A thing that occurs to me about this is that when there was the big Funkyverse LA-burns-to-the-ground crossover event in Funky Winkerbean last summer, one of the threads was that Max’s dad Jeff, ten years older than he is in Crankshaft, was obsessed with finding shooting locations from his favorite silent movie The Phantom Empire, aka Radio Ranch, and you’d think at some point during that whole drama he’d have had time to reflect about how his son’s movie theater had gone out of business a decade earlier, possibly because it apparently showed nothing but that movie all the time, who can say. Anyway, I appreciate that Max’s final act as owner of the movie theater aims to directly spite the neighborhood that quite frankly did not support his business enough for it to survive.

Beetle Bailey, 5/31/21

Speaking of our honored dead, it’s Memorial Day, when America mourns those who died while serving in the military. Today’s Beetle Bailey is here to remind you that this holiday does not just recognize those who were killed in combat. It also honors those who gave their lives to help along their commanding officers’ golf game. Maybe somebody should’ve thought this through? Maybe?

Blondie, 5/31/21

OK, look, I’ve come to accept that Dagwood has a real twisted thing with his boss where they obviously hate each other but also have a parasocial relationship and sometimes hang out outside of work, and in the course of that sometimes their long suffering wives are dragged along to make a double date out of it. But I refuse go along with the idea that somehow this makes Cora Dithers and Blondie friends! Refuse, do you hear me? There’s absolutely nothing about this joke that wouldn’t have worked with Tootsie! This was unnecessary and inappropriate and I resist it!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/31/21

“Also, I mean, have you talked to her? It’s probably pretty boring.”

Six Chix, 5/31/21

Ahh, wouldn’t it be cute to imagine that various dried pasta types are like a family, and they grew up together back at the factory, and they’re having a big reunion on your kitchen counter, right … before you …

oh no

oh no

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Six Chix, 5/6/21

Folks, Six Chix sure loves its cryptids, and I for one am on board! The strip long dwelled on a single subject: “What if Bigfoot were sexually attractive?” But now the strip has started branching out, onto subjects like “What if a human captured a mermaid and she eventually resigned herself to living with him?” and, today, “What if a rat were big?” I think I might like this one the best. Ha ha, look at that rat, everybody! He’s so big! And friendly. Only in New York!

Crock, 5/6/21

Ladies, you know how it is: you come home to find your husband visibly intoxicated and sitting atop a literal pile of garbage. This is such a cliche that in order to make a comic strip about it, you’d need to put a fresh new spin on it. Like, say, what if you were to use the world of computers as a metaphor? Eh? What if your house were some kind of computer system, which would make your drunk, disgusting husband malware of some sort? Eh? That’s how computers work, I think? I’ve never used one, but I’ve met people who have.

Funky Winkerbean, 5/6/21

HARRY DINKLE: [hears the word “mascot”]
HARRY DINKLE: [visualizes the mascot at the school where he used to work]
HARRY DINKLE: “I definitely am familiar with the word ‘mascot’ and its meaning!”

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Six Chix, 3/24/21

One thing I really respect about Six Chix is that it’s not afraid to “go there” when it comes to cryptid erotica. Usually, of course, we’re talking weird Bigfoot smut, but sure, let’s give mermaids a spin! This strip is frankly pretty grim: our poor mermaid is being encouraged to adorn her perfectly normal and healthy single fluke in a parody of the “sexy” garments worn by the land-dwellers on their doubled lower extremities, and is also simultaneously being taunted with the instrument of her own enslavement.

Funky Winkerbean, 3/24/21

Oh, great, one day after I finally work myself up to write a 500 word essay on how putting Harry Dinkle into the current Crankshaft storyline violates the 10-year separation between the two Funkyverse strips, we find out that in fact despite her protests Lillian has been toiling as church organist for more than a decade and the separation is still in place after all! This is clearly an attack on me personally. Anyway, never forget that Harry had to quit his band teaching job because he went semi-deaf, so hopefully this church will be rewarded with some real sub-par organing.

Gil Thorp, 3/24/21

Gotta admit that this basketball season plot about Vic and his MC-ing ways didn’t really hold my interest, but now that Doug Guthrie and Corina Karenna, probably two of the top five more interesting characters currently in this strip, are planning to team up and overthrow the government through a series of daring assassinations, I’m back on board!