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Heathcliff, 6/17/13

Lots of people like cake, you know. Really like cake. Very few of them use this like of cake as the ideological basis for an independent cake-empire, which declares its separation from the insufficiently cake-worshipping polity to which it previous owed allegiance and then presumably goes on to aggressively impose cake-adoration on its unwilling neighbors. Heathcliff, as ever, does not do anything by half measures.

Crankshaft, 6/17/13

Oh, goodie, it’s been months since Crankshaft journeyed to New York to make vaguely New York-themed puns! But first, in today’s third panel, we’re treated to the precise moment when Pam gives up on trying to make her dad love her.

Spider-Man, 6/17/13

“With the Kingpin in custody” is kind of an obscure way to say “Now that we’ve finished having surreptitious beach-sex, let’s talk loudly and ostentatiously about our supposed romantic entanglements with women,” but I don’t want to tell you guys how to live your lives.

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Funky Winkerbean, 5/25/13

Oh, hey, I guess I’ve been neglectful of the great Darrin/Frankie confrontation because it’s been … kind of boring? Considering the air of menace that surrounded his earlier appearances, Frankie’s ultimate goal — to put together some kind of ill-conceived reality show about his reunion with Darrin (which, say, shouldn’t they be getting footage right now?) seems relatively harmless. The worst of it is that, since all right-thinking people are assumed to loathe reality television despite its massive popularity, this plot gives Darrin and Jessica the opportunity to indulge in righteous indignation, which is my third-least-favorite Funkyverse emotion, just behind smug self-satisfaction and sexual arousal.

Spider-Man, 5/23/13

Kingpin is a busy, successful entrepreneur, and in his best-selling business memoir Faster! Work Faster!, he taught a generation of CEOs how to extract maximum terrified efficiencies from their employees. But recent challenges in Kingpin’s career have demonstrated that there’s more to being a great manager than just cowing your subordinates. In his new book, Not Without My Minions: Why It’s Better To Be Loved Than Feared But Being Fear-Loved Is Best Of All, he explains that organizational downturns can be used as an opportunity to build loyalty in the face of adversity and gather a fanatically dedicated core team who will stick with you when times get tough. Have your personal assistant look for in the increasingly sparse places where books are sold!

Momma, 5/23/13

Ha ha, it’s funny because nobody likes Momma! I sort of expected that the doctor would be cowering in fear of his relentless hypochondriac nemesis, but instead he regards her with an evil grin, delighting in the way he’s unsettled her, which is frankly a much darker scenario.

Mark Trail, 5/23/13

Meanwhile, in Mark Trail, all this is happening, against a background of apocalyptic flame! Do killer grizzly bears really have adorable pudgy butts like in panel three? Because if so, awwwwww.

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Gil Thorp, 5/22/13

Guys, remember when Gil Thorp plots used to be bonkers crazy insane? Well, those days seem to be long past, which is why I have been studiously ignoring the spring plotline for months. Here it is, in a nutshell: baseball player Foley Knox is the son of a lawyer and an aspiring lawyer himself, and his lawyer dad is suing the gas station owner father of another player because some guy fell down while pumping gas there, and Foley is being a dick to the other kid about it, the end. The other kid and his dad are Chaldean Christians from Iraq, and it briefly looked like that was going to be a plot point somehow, but it was dropped in favor of a B plot involving Foley’s delusional romantic pursuit of Darby, the softball team’s star pitcher who has a toddler because she was previously teen pregnant, which was briefly controversial last spring. Anyway, today at last these plots collide when Foley decides to win the heart of his fair beloved by defeating her tortfeasor in judicial combat! This will also fail.

Wizard of Id, 5/22/13

So Wizard of Id, which is usually not funny on any level, actually made me laugh in two distinct ways today? WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? I appreciate the fact that the joke hinges on grammatical ambiguity — haha, you think “[a]re protesting” is a verb in the progressive aspect, but in fact “protesting” is a deverbal adjective modifying “drones”! But what really made me laugh was the sign that just says “NOT COOL”. It’s a sign that you can use at any protest and one that lets everyone know that, yeah, you’re politically engaged, but you’re also pretty chill.

Mark Trail, 5/22/13

Meanwhile, the AMAZING FOREST BEAR INFERNO is still going on in Mark Trail! I’m a little confused by the positions of everybody/thing in this comic, but, comparing the perspective in the two panels, if Cherry and Shelly are looking at the water and the tree is directly behind them, won’t they have to run sort of towards the bears in order to get to the tree? I mean, I get that they’re right on the shore and their options are limited. This is like the time my wife and I were in Stanley Park in Vancouver, and these raccoons emerged from the trees and wanted to go drink from the pond we were standing at the edge of, and they were heading right for us and didn’t seem scared of us at all, and we were in their way but there was no way for us to go that didn’t involve getting closer to them at least to start. Sure, they were raccoons, not bears, and nothing was on fire, but I don’t believe I ever pretended to be a brave man.

Heathcliff, 5/22/13

One of the things I didn’t expect when I recently worked Heathcliff into my comics rotation was the feature’s not infrequent expeditions into the inscrutable. I like this one, even if I don’t really understand it. Ha ha, Heathcliff is voyaging home via hot air balloon! It’s whimsical!

Pluggers, 5/22/13

Yes, I’m sure the automated recording that delivered this platitude really feels bad after this sick burn! Basically, pluggers have very little control over their own lives and will sullenly lash out at anybody about it, whether they can hear them lashing out or not.

Family Circus, 5/22/13

“Billy and Dolly and Daddy and PJ are in the basement, right, Mommy? With all the sand? And time’s up for them? They won’t bother us ever again? Oh, also, this hourglass ran out, I guess.”

Spider-Man, 5/22/13

Spider-Man’s high school science teacher always hoped he’d kill or terribly injure himself in a lab accident.