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Momma, 2/21/13

It’s funny because Momma is down to her last five bucks and her son is a thief.

Funky Winkerbean, 2/21/13

Many, many comic strips have terrible dialogue, but the dialogue in Funky Winkerbean and sister strip Crankshaft is terrible in its own unique way — not from lack of craft or attention (Hi, Crock!), but its very opposite. Stare at a simple line like “How’s your room?” long enough and you’ll start to ask yourself if readers will remember the characters are traveling, or maybe think the question is whether they have enough room, say, to swing their arms or something? Then it’s down the rabbit-hole: “How’s your hotel room?” could be any hotel, so let’s go with “How’s your room in the hotel” to make it clear this Esteemed Figure is staying at the main convention hotel and not some off-strip dive, then plaster “Music Educ Asso  t” on the wall for good measure. Despite all that work — no, because of it — you wind up with overwrought phrases that seem unambiguous, but which no actual human would ever utter: “solo car date”, “dead man’s singles”, or “space heater in the basement” (for “water heater”).

More fundamental is the Quip Fail at the heart of this strip. Hotel ratings use stars, not letters, so “B-flat hotel” makes no sense even coming from a band leader Music Educator. My guess is that the joke started out star-related — maybe Sousa’s The Stars and Stripes Forever? — and then got reworked into its present form. But if “B-flat hotel” is really your punchline, own it, don’t bury it in these wads of bumf. Put it at the end, where punchlines go: “I won’t be staying there much, so I don’t mind a B-flat hotel.” And spare us Beardo’s in-strip affirmation of your character’s dubious wit. Exactly.

Wizard of Id, 2/21/13

It’s funny because it’s not golf.

Crankshaft, 2/21/13

Got that? A joke. Now laugh, God damn you!

— Uncle Lumpy

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Wizard of Id, 2/15/13

I think when you’re correcting the depiction of a Scrabble game played in a faux-medieval magic world in a daily newspaper comic, you’re officially that guy, and lord knows I don’t want to be that guy, so let me just very briefly point out that if you’re going to say the word you just played in Scrabble aloud, you’re probably going to say the point total rather than the number of letters, that you can only play seven letters at a time, and that the Wiz could conceivably be building off of “ex” or “on” or “ion” but even if he is there doesn’t appear to be a a nine-letter word on the board. Also, I know significantly less about the rules of magic in the Wizard of Id than I do about Scrabble, but I do know a little bit about the rules of comics narrative, and I think that if you have a character complaining about the proximity of a magic wand in panel two, said magic wand should at least be visible in panel one.

Crankshaft, 2/15/13

Most of the time when people ask for crossword puzzle help they do give a letter count for what they’re looking for, but the rules of Crankshaft narrative involve everyone talking at cross-purposes and getting irritated at each other, so I’m willing to let this pass.

Mary Worth, 2/15/13

Obviously the coming drama here will revolve around Mary not wanting to leave her comfy Santa Royale home to go to New York and learn how to be a pastry chef, because why would she, but I would certainly enjoy a retooled Mary Worth that focuses on Mary and John trying to make it in the big city. The first episode would revolve around their discovery that $10,000 doesn’t come close to covering eight months of rent in a two-bedroom New York apartment.

Marvin, 2/15/13

Marvin: not just a comic about a baby who soils himself constantly! It’s also about racist dogs.

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Lockhorns, 1/23/13

I don’t like to tell a cartoonist how to do their job … haha, who am I kidding, that’s literally been exactly my schtick on this blog for the past eight and a half years! Anyway, I’m all for just having Loretta telling people about how unhappy her marriage is, right in front of her husband, but maybe this panel would be a little funnier if Leroy were more obviously not paying attention to her? Like, maybe if he were looking at his phone or something. I mean, I guess you could interpret his expression as a thousand-mile stare, a sort of numb mask that settles on his face every time he thinks about how he’d rather be anywhere other than with his wife and do anything other than listen to her, but he pretty much always looks like that so I don’t think it quite drives the joke home the way it should.

Momma, 1/23/13

The first panel of this strip is by far the happiest I’ve ever seen the Hobbs family when they’re voluntarily spending time together. I do have to wonder how exactly Francis “plays” Wheel of Fortune and ruins the experience for everyone else. Does he shout out painfully wrong answers, disturbing his siblings’ and mother’s silent, maniacal grinning? Whatever the case, perhaps he can go commiserate about his banishment with his brother’s wife, who has also apparently been uninvited from Family Game Show Watching Night.

Mark Trail, 1/23/13

“I win because I use the lure that is named after me — the ‘Rod Bassy Killer’! I’m called that because I killed the real Rod Bassy and assumed his identity after selling my soul to the Devil so that he would make me the greatest fisherman alive. Wait, did I say that last part out loud?”

Spider-Man, 1/23/13

Just for the record, since Friday Newspaper Spider-Man has dedicated a single panel to depicting Kraven’s daring escape and 11 panels to depicting these morons standing around talking to each other.

Wizard of Id, 1/23/13

I was going to object that a witch, of all people, shouldn’t need to consult a fortune teller for a glimpse into the future, but then I remembered that I’m already on the record as doubting witchy powers, so well played, newspaper comics industry.