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Apartment 3-G, 4/19/14

Well, this thing has finally wended its way to wherever the hell it is it’s going! And that hell is: Tommie is going to “work” through the grief of her fiancé dying in a plane crash by “working” as a vet tech! She used to “work” as a nurse, which is not the same thing as a vet tech, but Jack is a large animal vet and humans are a kind of large animal, so probably she’ll do fine, and anyway she got fired for being sad about her dead fiancé, which strikes me as slightly illegal? Hopefully she’ll get “paid” for her “work”! And hopefully Jack won’t continue to be super mean to her? This all seems super emotionally healthy, A+++ grieving, good job, everybody.

B.C., 4/19/14

Ha ha, these talking turtles are planning to … kidnap and enslave that talking bird, for its eggs? I’m not in favor of that, and in addition would like to point out that turtles also lay eggs.

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BALTIMORE AND ENVIRONS! If you enjoy fun, come to this comedy show starring me and other funny people, tonight? Or, you know, just enjoy this week’s comment of the week:

“Artists may come and go in Mark Trail but the product placement for Brylcreem® is grandfathered in.” –Oregonian

And enjoy these runners up!

“I’m profoundly grateful to Bob Weber, Jr. for not using the word ‘selfie’ in today’s Slylock Fox.” –Congo Bill Bailey

“Are there no male cats in the Slylockverse? Is this why poor Cassandra has to throw herself at dogs and foxes, violating the very laws of nature?” –Digger

“Right now, we might be witnessing some of the most creative and experimental comic strip writing of our lifetimes! James Allen first chooses two peculiar words or phrases, then spins his storytelling web outward from there. Innovative to say the least! Like today, for example, where he takes two of your Grandpa’s favorite joke terms for farting, ‘ol’ growler’ and ‘noisy geese.’” –Chareth Cutestory

“Wait, isn’t that Alan Parker standing next to Abbott? I sure loved his book. Abort the mission!” –AhClem

“Woody Wilson loves me, and that is why he gave me this perfect distillation of the essence of Judge Parker. The cocoon of oblivious privilege wrapped around the main characters, the unconscious sense of invulnerability that arises from unearned success, and the delightful lunacy of Alan’s ‘Don’t they know we’re having a wedding here?’ as though it were self-evident that Romanian arms dealers willing to circle half the globe for vengeance against the man who ruined their business and their lives should care about the marriage of mouth-breathing, incompetent Harvard legacy admission Randy and the lithe D-cup of gleefully murderous rage who managed to capture his vague and unreflective affections. The impossibility of being absolutely and completely certain that the artist or writer are not in on the joke and writing an extended Marxist critique of contemporary America. I don’t usually cry at weddings, but this time I might make an exception.” –Master Softheart

“Does Mary spend her days listening at the door, waiting for an anxious footstep so she can ‘casually’ wander into the hallway at just the right time? Or perhaps she crouches on the floor, sniffing until she catches the sweet perfume of desperation wafting under the door, which will summon her presence.” –bourbon babe, unbuckled

“You can always tell when death is the subject at hand in Dick Tracy. The trenchcoat and hat emit an aura of darkness that cloaks their current host. Soon, yes soon, they will feed.” –dmsilev

“And just like that, totally out of nowhere, Beetle Bailey finally pulls its big reveal. The reason the strip has been stuck in the WWII era for the last 60 years is that Beetle was killed in the war, and has been carrying on as a ghost all along. This realization comes to him suddenly, right in the middle of a conversation about pets, and suddenly the illusion drops and the afterlife reveals itself for what it truly is — an empty, nearly featureless void.” –Brad

“Iris is pretty far from okay. She just entertained the possibility that Wilbur understands something about life that she doesn’t. This is a man who still does not know how a DVR works.” –Joe Blevins

“You know your mail order prescriptions are held up at a FedEx Smartpost upstate when you want to jump into the screen and start punching Stanley just because his stupid, stupid face is stupid.” –Lily Sincere

“Cherry is finally getting some affection after all these … I assume ‘decades’ of being married to Mark and you can tell from the look in her eyes that it’s taking all of her strength to not burst into flames of lust right there.” –Roto13

“Now if I’d just been born with a functioning rectum I’d be fine, but, no, there’s no place for the food I take in to go. I just keep swelling like a balloon. An increasingly necrotic balloon full of filth. Guess I could look a lot worse, huh?” –Christopher

“If this were a CSI episode, the killer would be the person who shows up early in the investigation and acts all helpful, and then you don’t see or hear from them until the big reve–oh my God Les Moore killed John Darling!!” –TheDiva

Today’s Funky Winkerbean looks like storyboards for a video assignment made by the most misguided film student ever. ‘OKAY, WE OPEN AND SHE’S PUTTING AWAY SOME CAMERA EQUIPMENT AND HE’S FEEDING THE BABY BUT NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE BABY CUZ HE’S TALKING TO HER. THIS WILL MAKE SENSE LATER. THEN WE CUT TO AN EXTERIOR SHOT OF THEIR APARTMENT. YEAH I KNOW, ‘ESTABLISHING SHOTS’ USUALLY GO FIRST BUT TRUST ME, I’M ONTO SOMETHING HERE. THEN WE CUT BACK INSIDE, THE INTERIOR IS ALMOST COMPLETELY DARKENED AND BOTH CHARACTERS ARE SMUSHED INTO THE FRAME WITH A COMPLETE LACK OF SPATIAL AWARENESS.’ So yeah, ‘fuck Funky Winkerbean’ is what I’m saying.” –Irrischano

Luann: “Such masterful dark foreboding. Of course they’ll remember this night forever, at least those who survive. Though semi-vegetative, Luann will still remember the bloody cummerbund and realizing that Quill’s head was the wrong way round vividly. Rosa, until her dying day, will awake regularly, shrieking Gunther’s name and trying to rake the imaginary brain matter out of her hair. On the good side, the strip will now be called Tiffany and we will have a likable protagonist for the first time in the history of the strip.” –Everything Is Better with Monkeys

“So the joke here is that Francis is high, right?” –pugfuggly

“I understand now. Mossman is serving 25 to life for killing John Darling, Jessica’s father, and life without the possibility of parole for not killing Les Moore, humanity’s bane, when he had the chance.” –Mikey

“I hope her meeting with Plantman is something like Silence of the Lambs. ‘Tell me about the bushes Jess.'” –Dartpaw86

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! And we must give thanks to our sponsors:

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Funky Winkerbean, 4/18/14

Oh, whoops, it looks like Jess did read Les’s book after all. It’s just that she thought she could make a documentary that would explore the motivations behind her father’s murder without talking to her father’s murderer! Which seems … like it wouldn’t have worked very well? We learn by doing, I guess!

Anyway, given the air of understandable seriousness in this strip, you’re probably finding the phrase “aka the Plantman” kind of jarring. Well, thanks to faithful reader/novelty Twitter handle owner BatLesMoore, I can now reveal to you the strip where John Darling’s killer tried to take out Les:

Funky Winkerbean, 8/4/97

I have literally no idea what led up to this or followed it — presumably we’ll learn more later in this storyline — but it’s an interesting look at the Funkyverse as it transitioned from zany and whimsical to realistic and grim. Which is a nice way of saying it’s completely bonkers! Les is being tied up and held at gunpoint but a guy dressed up as a plant! I am now very much looking forward to Jess’s jailhouse interview with this maniac. The first question I’m eager to see answered: is he allowed to wear his plant costume in prison, for “religious reasons”?

Another important thing to note about that old strip is that the killer is Peter Mossman, not Pete Moss, and his alter ego was Plantman, not the Plantman, so maybe it’s more accurate to say that Jess skimmed Les’s book.

Momma, 4/18/15

So Momma is hanging out with … Tina? Or some other random young woman who’s never been in the strip before and never will be again? Whatever, the important thing to note is that Francis is so excited about his “theme music” that he’s vibrating like a tuning fork. Psychotic breaks from reality that cause you to believe you’re on a TV show and an unseen audience is watching and enjoying your every move can be fun, kids!