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Funky Winkerbean, 6/23/10

So why did Funky bravely step back from the precipice of alcoholism last week? Obviously it was so that, when he was inevitably killed by a distracted driver on his way home, he wouldn’t even have the sweet taste of liquor on his tongue to console him in his final moments. BONUS MISERY: Someone will have spotted him coming out of the bar, and everyone will assume that he drunk-drove himself to death, bringing shame to his family and his memory.

Luann, 6/23/10

Accidental Gunther nudity: totally predictable. Gunther’s three-foot long ribbed worm-cock: not predictable at all, and really quite unsettling.

Panel from Spider-Man, 6/23/10

Peter Parker: Portrait of a hero!

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Hi and Lois, 6/15/10

I will admit that, weak little bit of 1950s-era wordplay though it is, the fact that Hi and Thirsty’s employer is named “Foofram Industries” or whatever amuses me. However, before today’s strip, I had always just assumed that the company was some generic and modest white collar concern. This strip seems to indicate that, even before this planned merger, Foofram is corporate giant, with employees filling two skyscrapers, one of which is decorated with the enormous word FOOFRAM, proudly proclaiming the founder’s name to pedestrians below and to the Fooframers in the other tower. (Do you think that both buildings have FOOFRAM signs, so that employees in both buildings are constantly reminded of the man to whom they owe fealty?) Anyway, I think at this point it goes without saying that I hope that the post-merger combined company keeps the Foofram name. It’s a very strong brand!

Beetle Bailey, 6/15/10

Although its only the shoe-chewing whose aftermath we see, the “mess” in “mess up his floor” is clearly code for peeing and/or defecating. And yet Otto is wearing undershorts! Is Sarge so dim as to think that wearing pants magically potty-trains a creature? Because it doesn’t, Sarge. Just think of how full those boxers must be! Sarge is a terrible pet owner! No wonder Otto looks so sad.

Spider-Man, 6/15/10

Oh, look, it’s a set-up for one of the very worst kinds of Spider-Man plot developments (yes, there are worst kinds): some pointless thing sends Peter Parker into a downward spiral of inadequacy and sullenness vis-à-vis his relationship with his wife and his perceptions of his own masculinity. Whee! We’ll have much time to dwell on this, but for the moment I just want to point out that both Parkers are !ing in panel three, which I find cute.

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Spider-Man, 6/11/10

Just as Spider-Man the character within the Spider-Man newspaper strip is a pathetic failure at whatever he attempts, so too is the Spider-Man strip itself! For instance, surely one of the whole purposes for its existence (somewhere on the list below “entertain millions of readers around the country,” something else it doesn’t do properly) is to help build awareness of and affection for the Spider-Man brand, along with the brands of other major characters and properties owned by Marvel and its corporate parent, Disney. Thus, you’d expect that the strip would be tasked to do its small part to add to the marketing blitz for the Iron Man sequel, the release date of which was presumably set months if not years in advance. But it turns out that on May 7, the day Iron Man 2 hit movie theaters nationwide, Peter was being wowed by his wife’s ability to operate a camera. No, the Spider-Man strip is only jumping into the game five weeks later, because doing anything better than a half-assed job at anything would be wholly incongruent with the strip’s general vibe of ineptitude.

Blondie, 6/11/10

I would argue that the less Blondie does to draw attention to the Bumsteads’ bizarre living-room layout, the better. Still, I suppose this strip — in which Dagwood, tired of staring numbly at a screen while his wife faces away from him, tries and fails to figure out a more amenable position for the two of them — is some kind of coded story about their fading sex life.