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Spider-Man, 1/30/18

A lot of the “dramatic” “tension” in this strip arises when MJ or Peter almost accidentally blurt something out that would reveal Peter’s secret identity, and then furiously thought-balloon to themselves that it’s crucial that they not reveal Peter’s secret identity, only to do it again a few days later. Thus I find it pretty hilarious that Bruce’s straight-up slam on Spidey’s Lizard-fighting prowess didn’t prompt a defensive reaction or other giveaway from MJ. “Hey lady, you husband sucks!” [in MJ’s subconscious] Yeah, that checks out, no need to follow up on it or anything.

Also, do you remember Bruce Banner’s beloved catchphrase, “That’s my secret, all the Avengers as a group: I’m always angry!” Well, Newspapaer Spider-Man is here to remind you about it! For more quips like this, check out [consults Wikipedia] Avengers: Infinity War, coming to theaters in … May, probably? Ugh, I’m so tired, guys.

Beetle Bailey, 1/30/18

I’ve come around on this point from where I was a year ago: I now think it’s cool and good that the people behind Beetle Bailey have literally no idea what camouflage is, and apparently think the 21st century U.S. military disguises its soldiers as, like, trees and shit, like they’re going to help Malcom and Macduff take Dunsinane from Macbeth.

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Mark Trail, 1/29/18

Meanwhile, a camping trip is happening not far from Lost Forest, but not, presumably, so close that this cozy domestic scene will soon be disrupted by trained circus beasts or whatever, so I guess this is a new storyline, or a new thread in the ongoing storyline involving bankrupt circuses and Dirty’s plans for revenge and such. The important thing is that this couple is not emotionally prepared for whatever hijinks are about to ensue at them, since they’re clearly hoping for a little R&R — drink beans out of a bucket, hit a log with an axe, that sort of thing. It makes a nice change of pace from the dental lab! I assume that the dental lab in question is where dentists send blood draws and the like for analysis, so it doesn’t even supply the go-go thrills of on actual dental office, where at least you might get to hear a patient try to suppress a scream now and then; but based on their weirdly prominent lines around this lady’s jaw and cheekbones, it might also be a secret laboratory where renegate dentists conduct experimental mouth transplant surgery.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/29/18

Bull’s CTE companion’s “Not in this universe!” rejoinder doesn’t make a ton of sense on its face, but I think the fact that it appears in a panel immediately after a patented Funkyverse photo album flashback is relevant here. After all, while I talk about the Funkyverse all the time, we really know that there are two Funkyverses: the whimsical high-school one that we enjoyed in the ’70s and ’80s, and the much darker one that has emerged over the past two decades. Perhaps some tiny event, as imperceptible as the breeze from a butterfly’s wings but crucial to the nature of reality, caused the original Funkyverse to diverge into two different timelines. In one, the one of joy and happiness, Bull played out his football days and his cartoon skull never felt any ill effects from repeated, cartoonish dings, any more than Wile E. Coyote ever suffered lasting harm from plummeting off a cliff. But that’s not how it works in this universe. Not by a long shot.

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Mort Walker passed away yesterday the age of 94, and the many, many, many people who emailed and tweeted me to let me know are a testament to the huge impact he had on cartooning as an art form and as a business. His Washington Post obituary is a great summary of his life and career, but to me, these are the high points to show how he and the team he built affected the medium:

• “Beetle Bailey was among the first cartoons to mark a shift in the funny pages from the serial strips of the previous decade to the graphically simpler gag-a-day model that predominates today.”
• “He delighted in the history and tricks of his trade and wrote a tongue-in-cheek textbook, The Lexicon of Comicana (1980), in which he described commonly used cartooning conventions. Grawlix were the symbols deployed to convey foul language; briffits were the clouds often found at the end of hites (horizontal lines indicating speed). To Mr. Walker’s amusement, his book sometimes appeared in the art instruction section of bookstores, and his neologisms would pop up in discussions about the art of cartooning.”
• “He eventually found himself in charge of 10,000 German prisoners in a POW camp in Italy. At the end of the war, he helped oversee the destruction of binoculars and watches from an ordnance depot in Naples. His job was to make sure nobody stole anything before it was destroyed. ‘I began to realize,’ he wrote in the memoir, ‘that army humor writes itself.’”

There are many anecdotes around of his good humor and kindness to younger comics artists, and his ambitions for cartooning. He also helped create the workshop model of cartooning, and like many legacy strips Beetle Bailey (which he created) and Hi and Lois (which he co-created with Dik Browne) have long been written and illustrated by the next generation over at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC, so I look forward to making fun of them for years to come. But think of Mort the next time you see a grawlix or a briffit.