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Funky Winkerbean, 5/5/15

I vaguely remembered that this “band box” business has been in the strip before, though I’ve apparently never discussed it on my site. A little Google searching to try to find out more led to a pretty horrifying discovery, though: Luigi’s is a real pizza place in Akron, Ohio, and it’s not only the model for Montoni’s but actually boasts about that on its web site. Luigi’s mentions the band box on its site, but for a picture, you need to go to the Funky Winkerbean Wikipedia page, where it’s under the “comic book connections” heading, for some reason. Anyway, the band box presumably plays old-timey music, and it’s probably gotten more and more wobbly and off key over the years as Funky has desperately tried to keep its archaic mechanisms functioning. Just imagine its tinny, irritating background music adding another layer of unpleasantness to your visit to Westview’s Only Viable Business™! Do you think Funky can get it to play mariachi music for people to listen to while they eat their Cinco de Mayo pizza special? (The Cinco de Mayo pizza special is a pepperoni pizza with a jar of store-brand salsa dumped on top of it, or maybe a jar of store-brand mayonnaise.)

Mary Worth, 5/5/15

“I must’ve seemed like a stalker! You know, the way I tracked you down, years after our relationship ended acrimoniously, once I decided to win you back at all costs, and then I found out where you lived without asking you, and then rented an apartment there, and showed up right outside your door with no warning! Just doing the sort of things that stalkers do! I must’ve really seemed like one! I didn’t plan on coming on so strong! It was just a powerful reaction that I couldn’t or wouldn’t control!”

“And I didn’t plan on being so emotional! I should’ve been more rational. Methodical. Say, let’s drive far into the woods where nobody can hear you scream, shall we?”

Archie, 5/5/15

How are you celebrating National Cartoonists Day, everybody? Cartoonists are celebrating National Cartoonists Day by drawing their favorite characters having hot three-way makeouts. Some of them are even getting those drawings published!

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Mark Trail, 5/4/15

Oh, sure, the forest is burning to the ground, but that doesn’t mean Mark and and Wally can’t take some time for a little beaver-trapping antics, which, frankly, I wish we had gotten to see over the next six to twelve strips rather than just having them elided between panels one and two here. Still, I’m definitely intrigued by Mark’s eagerness to get those beavers home to Rusty. Like, he really wants to get some beavers home to Rusty. Dude’s got humane traps in his car at all times. Did he realize that he’d encounter some beavers on his adventures today? No, but you never know when good luck’s going to strike.

Not really sure why Mark feels compelled to mention Rusty at all here, to be honest. I’m assuming he’s either going to feed the beavers to Rusty or feed Rusty to the beavers.

Dennis the Menace, 5/4/15

Wow, Dennis, thanks a lot for making me (a) immediately think to myself “Hey, Big Bird doesn’t fly,” (b) imagine Big Bird climbing up onto the roof of the Mitchells’ car and squatting there, and (c) Googling “does big bird have a cloaca”. A-plus menacing today, I mean it.

Judge Parker, 5/4/15

“So she wants to conquer space, right? Conquer space for the French? I don’t pay much attention to current events but my understanding is that’s how it works.”

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Crock, 5/3/15

Though Crock is pretty obviously supposed to take place in some version of the French Foreign Legion in some version of colonial North Africa, it’s pretty rare to get explicit clues like the French tricolor flying from the fort here. Today we learn that in a desperate attempt to hold onto its crumbling empire, France is employing child soldiers! Shame!

Blondie, 5/3/15

As excuses to hide a secret extramarital affair go, I would rate “oh no I was working on a complicated jigsaw puzzle with my male friend and we lost track of time look ha ha here are some puzzle pieces in my pocket, I’m definitely not making this up” as fairly unbelievable.

Mary Worth, 5/3/15

This week in Out-Of-Context Quotes From Inappropriate People That Arrived In Mary Worth Via Brainyquote.com Probably: self-described “transgressional fiction” author Chuck Palahniuk, most famous for writing Fight Club! Very excited to learn at the end of this two-week trial period whether Adam is a figment of Terry’s imagination or vice-versa.

Judge Parker, 5/3/15

Oh, hey, in all the excitement over Sophie’s dreams of warlordship, I forgot to mention how the whole confrontation with Dalton turned out! How it turned out was this: Sam offered to set up some kind of Skype connection so that Dalton could watch his daughter get married, and Dalton sheepishly calmed down. Now Abbey will have to pretend to enjoy watching this poor-person affair on the trailer park’s TV, assuming Sophie doesn’t decide to bomb it from space.