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Six Chix, 9/1/16

There are 67 days left until the U.S. presidential election, and one of the few things I’ve been thankful for is that there haven’t really been any politics-related blowups in the comments of my site yet. I’m actually not against political discussion per se, but I like to think that my comment section is the last actually good comment section left on the Internet, and that’s because people don’t get into fights there, and if there’s one thing that causes people to get into fights, it’s politics. So maybe steer clear? For more guidance, please see the posting and discussion policies, which basically boil down to, “Don’t start fights with people, and don’t be a dick,” and know that I will ban people on the slightest provocation, I don’t even care. I used to give more leeway on this, but now that we all have access to a million different social media sites on which to fight about politics, I don’t feel like people have even the slightest need to do it here, so, sorry, but not sorry, don’t do it.

I’m actually a fairly political person myself (you wanna hear me make jokes about politics? come to Twitter!), but I try to avoid jokes specifically about electoral politics here precisely to avoid getting people riled up. I also try to avoid non-specific jokes because then you get into fairly toothless “ha ha, the election, it is bad” territory like today’s Six Chix. But honestly, what really bothers me terribly about this strip is that the labelling: it makes it look like the ice bag is the headache, and that you’re causing the headache by putting it on your head. Which, since most people today have never actually seen one of those bags outside of an old movie or TV show, maybe that’s … how the artist thinks headaches work? That’s not how they work, Six Chix!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/1/16

I’m having a really hard time following the stream of thought in today’s Snuffy Smith. My best guess is that the Barlows, with whom the Smifs are engaged in a generations-long feud, stole Bessie. Loweezy and Snuffy talk about this in code: she wants Li’l Tater to remain innocent just a little longer, but Snuffy knows that in Hootin’ Holler, disputes over property are settled in blood, and the sooner a Smif learns that, the better.

Funky Winkerbean, 9/1/16

This is the part of a new Funkyverse descent into misery where I stop resisting and just enjoy the fresh pain the plot is visiting upon longtime characters. In that spirit, I’ll say that I’m very pleased that Bull’s abortive, failed attempt to live out his greatest dream also contributed to the condition that, years later, would destroy his mind before killing him outright.

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Spider-Man, 8/31/16

I love the idea of an Ant-Man who is 100% fed up with any kind of mystifying legends or penumbra around superheroes and villains. “Look, my name’s Scott, Egghead’s name is Elihas, yours is … well, you didn’t tell me, even though I teed up a perfect opportunity for you to do that, and I think that’s kind of rude, but let’s not dwell on it. Anyway, we’re just … we’re just people, OK? People with regular people names. I’m just an ordinary guy, who happens to be able to shrink down to ant size and is wearing a helmet with … God, I don’t even know. I guess those things coming out from my ears are supposed to represent an ant’s mandibles? Except what’s in between them? Like, an olive or something? The whole thing’s absurd. Please, call me Scott, it’s the only thing that tethers me to reality at this point.”

Funky Winkerbean, 8/31/16

I guess, if you’re reading Funky Winkerbean and care enough to squint to see the small text at the bottom of the first panel, you probably already have enough information to properly interpret it: In a couple of weeks, a Rotary Club in Mentor (a suburb in the Cleveland area, which is the home of Tom Batuik and the setting of the Funkyverse strips) is having a “Lisa’s Legacy” run, a real-life version of the in-strip fundraiser/tribute to a character who died of breast cancer, nine years ago. But imagine that you’re trying to parse this without any of that background. It would read like the stuff on some numbers station. “Mentor? Rotary? 9/11? Sir, I believe we’ve intercepted a warning of an impending catastrophic attack.”

Pluggers, 8/31/16

I’m gonna spend a lot of time thinking about the fact that in this panel Elvis is depicted as fully human and not a half-animal beast-man like everyone else in this strip. Is it any wonder they worship his image as their God?

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Judge Parker, 8/30/16

It’s been years since puberty transformed Sophie from a data-obsessing pantsuit-wearing tween genius into a mean girl super-cheerleader. But while she’s been curating her affect for maximum acceptability in school, her core identity — rational, calculating, steel-willed — remains intact. Her plan to win Derek’s heart has been carefully crafted from the beginning. Wars interest her. And today, she’s going to self-talk her way out of a wrecked car. “This is not how you bleed, Sophie. This is not how you die. This may be how Honey Ballinger dies, though. Just move that shoulder belt a few inches to upwards, so it her throat rests right on it with all her weight … she won’t even feel a thing…”

Dick Tracy, 8/30/16

Liberal whiners in the U.S. are always extolling European health care systems, but real American Dick Tracy is here to show us the reality. If he had suffered his injuries in America, right now he’d be in a gleaming new for-profit hospital, but he’s in Switzerland, so he’s getting the best care they have on offer, which is in the home office of some dude who isn’t assertive enough to get rid of his houseguests.

Family Circus, 8/30/16

Wow, so I guess we’re getting a whole week of this, huh? You know, most comics are going broke, and Garfield has never been anything but a marketing vehicle, but I’m kind of surprised that the Family Circus is the first syndicated comic to offer native advertising.