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Funky Winkerbean, 7/7/17

I don’t want to just throw around my big-shot Hollywood insider knowledge, mostly because I don’t have any, but a “sizzle reel” is in fact … not whatever today’s Funky Winkerbean thinks it is? It’s generally a short video cut together from clips from other things aiming to sell or promote something to producers or casting directors, not the general public. You usually hear the term in connection with actors, who will have a sizzle reel of their best performances available for people thinking of hiring them. For a whole movie, a sizzle reel is something that would be created long before any filming actually took place, often pieced together from short scenes from other films in an attempt to show potential financial backers what the final product might look like. (Here’s one for the 2012 film Looper to give you a sense of how they work.)

Needless to say, movie sizzle reels generally do not include footage from documentaries about washed-up actors playing minor roles in the film, and they definitely aren’t put together right in the middle of what has appeared to be a very long and well-funded shoot. I can only assume that the financial backers of Starbuck Jones: The Movie, after viewing the dailies with despair, have abruptly pulled out, and the producers are desperately trying to find new funding, which they won’t because they have no idea what should and should not go into a sizzle reel.

Pluggers, 7/7/17

My longstanding theory is that Sheila Roo, a kangaroo-lady who suffers the indignity of being rendered in white by syndicate colorists who think she’s a rabbit, is not of true plugger stock, as indicated by her employment at a job that requires a suit and her desire to eat at non-chain restaurants. Today’s piece of evidence is the way she looks at her husband with subtle but withering contempt, possibly because of his dietary habits but also possibly because of, you know, just everything.

Spider-Man, 7/7/17

Meanwhile, Spider-Man is significantly degrading the fire-safety features of a building that never did anything to him.

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Slylock Fox, 7/3/17

Hmm, I think there’s a lot of backstory here that Slylock isn’t getting in to. QUESTION: If Holly Hippo just wrote this recipe down last night, why is it that she can’t remember any of it today? ANSWER: It’s because she was copying it from a source she no longer has access to — possibly the closely guarded family cookbook of a competitor in the big pie-baking contest coming up! I’m assuming there’s a big pie-baking contest coming up because otherwise why isn’t there “enough time to find the thief”? Enough time for what? What’s the deadline here? Dinner? Is Holly Hippo having a freakout because she can’t cook her stolen pie recipe for tonight’s dinner? There are other desserts for tonight and other nights for dessert, Holly. Hold it together, for the love of Christ.

UPDATE: Whoooops, I somehow failed to see the first sentence of this caption, lol

Mary Worth, 7/3/17

This strip doesn’t advance our current plot at all (unless the photo Mary bought was of Derek and Esme kissing and she plans to use it for blackmail) but obviously I couldn’t pass over Toby in her ’80s finery. The thing I wonder: did Toby know in advance that there would be an ’80s dance party on the boat (possibly it was part of the endless promotional material she browsed online) and pack those clothes, which she still owned from her youth in the early-Madonna era Lower East Side? Or does the cruise line just own a bunch of ’80s gear and let passengers wear them for theme nights, then let them keep them because, ew, cruise passenger dance sweat, gross.

Spider-Man, 7/3/17

Aunt May! Threatening to harm yourself unless your partner makes a grand emotional commitment is a classic act of emotional manipulation and abuse! YOU IN DANGER GIRL

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Dick Tracy, 6/19/17

It’s not a secret that I have come to miss the days when Dick Locher helmed Dick Tracy, not least for its violent batshit insanity (the many gruesome deaths of the villains are all nicely outlined here by Uncle Lumpy) set against an art style that seemed to verge into German Expressionism. The subsequent strips since the change in personnel, though in theory featuring better art and more coherent plotting, lack the verve of the Locher era. I feel like things have been getting slightly nuttier lately, and today’s panel is as glorious as it is inexplicable. Is Blackjack robbing Paragon Bank, in a crime unrelated to B.O. Plenty’s problem with the institution’s out-of-control mortgage department? Or is Blackjack secretly running the bank, with his army of masked thugs forcing innocents like our mustachio’d bank exec here to illegally foreclose on houses? How do said thugs get their masks to drape just so? Why is B.O. Plenty wearing sleeve garters like a dealer on a riverboat casino? Is the musical notation floating over our characters’ heads part of the bank’s decor, or is it meant to represent the muzak system playing blissfully away while this scene of high danger goes down? I’m looking forward to getting none of these questions properly answered this week!

Funky Winkerbean, 6/19/17

Oh, hey, so it turns out that the thing Jessica was worried Darin would accidentally discover was that … her mom helped her plan a visit for him and Pete to the Flash Museum in Central City! Now, I don’t know all the ins and outs of the world of comics books, but I’m pretty sure that most places that have “museum” in their name well let anybody in to see their exhibits who’s willing to pay the admission fee, so I’m not sure why everyone is acting like this is a huge deal? Maybe because this museum is dedicated to the Flash, an actual superhero that people have heard of, and not Mister Sponge and Starbuck Jones, which are made up and phony-baloney.

Spider-Man, 6/19/17

Don’t worry, Spidey! Despite this being’s designation as an “armadilloid,” he appears to only superficially resemble any representative superorder Xenarthra, the clade that includes armadillos and and anteaters; in particular, the creature lacks the specialized dentition that makes anteaters unique, instead displaying what a scientist might call “a bunch of big teethy slabs.” Nice try using some taxonomy knowledge to get out of having to do superhero stuff! On the other hand, you yourself are not a spider at all, just a super strong dude in a spandex suit, so maybe he can eat you, I dunno. I for one am willing to find out!