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Funky Winkerbean, 8/16/18

At some level, I am sympathetic to the dilemma facing Funky Winkerbean here. We live, after all, in a world where it’s almost impossible to avoid transnational brands. Even a generation ago, Funky and Holly might’ve been likely stopping off at a public rest area to have a picnic lunch; but today even most state-run rest stops are just food courts with a collection of national fast food franchises, and many people avoid them and just head straight for whatever cluster of chains awaits just off any interstate exit. The options for the chronicler of daily life on the road in 2018 are to depict the brands in a matter-of-fact way, and thus serve essentially as an unpaid marketing arm for a megacoporation, or to avoid referring to any particular real company, and risk ruining the sense of verisimilitude. Or, you know, you could take the tack today’s Funky Winkerbean does, which is to build a whole joke around one specific company’s consistently bland omnipresence, but then instead of using the company’s actual name you use a fake name that nevertheless lets everyone recognize the company you’re actually talking about. I wouldn’t advise you to do that, but you definitely could!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/16/18

That’s right, everyone, in the Decalogue YWHW commands His people to “not have any other Gods before me.” Yet in Las Vegas, we are all helpless for the God of Excess, impelled to bow down before the glowing neon and the crass, gargantuan architecture! Roz’s hairdresser is guilty of the sin of idolatry! And, uh, I guess she did one of the sex ones, too, probably.

Spider-Man, 8/16/18

Uh oh, looks like the Golden Claw-Kingpin partnership is running into the sort of snags that often arise when two organizations come together as equal partners with no clear lines of authority or decision making. Looks like Kingpin is going to have to follow up Murder By Committee with another best-selling management tome, Too Many Thugs Spoil The Murder: Why Gang Alliances Need To Establish Clear Delineation Of Responsibility So They Don’t End Up Shooting Someone And Then Setting Them On Fire For No Reason.

Six Chix, 8/16/18

Not sure what I’d say if I accidentally picked up a lit candle, guzzled hot wax, realized after it had seared its way halfway down my gullet what I had done, then vomited it up only to realize in horror that the wax was solidifying in my esophagus, leaving me with a hardened dangle of wax down my chin that I would no doubt paw at with increasing desperation until I asphyxiate, but to my mind “Oh for gosh sakes” would be a little too mild!

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Mary Worth, 7/26/18

Mary’s “I am aware” is pretty hilarious in and of itself, obviously, but it also gives me a great opportunity to remind you of when Mary first became aware of Tommy’s anti-social tendencies, when she smelled him smoking his marijuana cigarettes, through Charterstone’s apparently interconnected ventilation system:

Mary Worth, 9/12/04

Mary came over and was extremely passive aggressive about it, but it’s nice that everyone involved has let bygones be bygones! And really, Mary lives in a state where recreational marijuana is legal now and, thanks to Comic Book Time, at this point she’s at the younger end of the baby boom generation, so she’s probably pretty chill about that kind of stuff! Not the meth, though. It’s gonna take another decade or three for her to be down with meth.

Six Chix, 7/26/18

So the therapist is a chair? The chair that normally a (human, non-furniture) chair would sit in? And the patient is a chair? BUT the couch the patient would normally sit on is not an animate furniture-being. Or is it? OH GOD IS IT FURNITURE FOR FURNITURE, IS IT A LIVING FURNITURE-SLAVE, THIS IS A NIGHTMARE

Beetle Bailey, 7/26/18

There are plenty of Beetle Bailey strips where General Halftrack is angry or confused or depressed, but the fact that he’s so very ecstatic here, like this is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him, may be the saddest thing of all.

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Six Chix, 7/2/18

Panel 3: “Gastroenterologist”

Dick Tracy, 7/2/18

OK, I am legit super stoked about this story, partly because I’m just sure it’s going to catch us up on the Space Coupe of Doom last seen in 2013 heading to Jupiter carrying Mysta-fabricators Dr. Sail and Dr. Ghote in the hands of the solar system’s worst pilot. But mostly I’m stoked because I remember the Chester Gould Moon stories from the late ’60’s and early ’70’s, and that shit was lit, yo. So we’re all in for a treat, at least until Sawtooth, the Green Hornet, Blackjack, one or more of the Margies, the Brush, Posie Ermine, or any of the countless other loose ends turns up again.

Sherman’s Lagoon, 7/2/18

Assuming they can get Alberto the triton snail there to both get chomping and overcome his painful awkwardness with the lady snails, Sherman and Megan are going to save the Great Barrier Reef! Responsible stewards of a complex ecosystem, or selfish hoarders of their supply of edible tourists? You be the judge!

Hey, they’re Great Whites! Maybe they can help us choke down Walt Wallet!

Spider-Man, 7/2/18

“Wow, that one guy I never heard of is really that other guy I never heard of! This changes everything!”

Zits, 7/2/18

Ahem, young lady! Jack Dorsey, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk all wish to have a word with you. Mark Zuckerberg is strangely silent.

— Uncle Lumpy