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Funky Winkerbean, 6/25/14

Here’s where I am with Funky Winkerbean, emotionally: I like it when the characters suffer. I mean, it’s going to happen whether I enjoy it or not, and for whatever reason I’m not going to stop reading the strip, so why not go along for the ride? It certainly helps that most of the characters are thoroughly unlikable anyway and therefore seem to deserve their fate; there tends not to be a direct connection between jerkwad behavior and suffering, but it’s nice to see everyone getting their karmic comeuppance.

What I don’t like is a particular and pernicious subset of Funkyverse suffering, which is when one of the characters suffers because he or she is simply too good, too righteous, for this fallen world. More often than not it’s the insufferably smug Les who earns this sort of martyrdom, which just serves to make him simultaneously more depressive and more self-satisfied. In this current plotline, Les is learning that when he sold the story of his wife’s painful death to a basic cable network for a substantial sum of money, he was expected to tailor the script to the conventions that the network’s audience has come to expect. Today, this sad-sack basic cable executive is explaining that, while Les is of course a great artist — perhaps the greatest artist who ever lived, though that’s a question for another time — everyone who runs and watches the cable network is a low-class garbage person who won’t be able to appreciate Les’s artistry. Les suffers, you see, but he suffers because he’s so much better than everybody else.

This plot would be enraging enough even if we hadn’t actually gotten a glimpse of Les’s script, which, it turns out, isn’t a beautiful work of art at all but rather a clunky tear-jerking slab of treacle with which he is far, far too pleased. But still, the important question remains: why aren’t people giving Les fat checks to write exactly the strain of sentimental death-porn that he wants to write, and then leaving it untouched, out of respect, even though everyone will hate it?

Beetle Bailey, 6/25/14

Interesting theory, Miss Blips, but that’s actually a crude depiction of Hexastom, the six-mawed hell-beast to whom you’ll be sacrificed at tonight’s coven.

Crock, 6/25/14

Kids today, refusing to die for nothing in some pointless colonial war! Whatta bunch of losers!

Heathcliff, 6/25/14

Heathcliff’s owner-lady just looks miffed over a fun family outing ruined. But his owner-man and owner-kid — well, that’s the stare of people who’ve seen some things. The bellowing of the majestic sea giants, the fast-moving fork with its razor-sharp tines, the violations of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and basic decency, the blood, so much blood…

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Six Chix, 6/24/14

Hey guys, here’s a comic that … I’m pretty sure is supposed to have a joke in it? Except it doesn’t seem to have a joke in it. Just a lady who feels that, due to her educational status and cultural position, she’s supposed to be better acquainted with the canon of Western literature than she is. And she feels bad enough about it that she’s willing to pay a therapist to listen to her talk about it. Which isn’t funny? It seems to not be funny. Maybe the way her therapist is looking at her with open contempt is the joke? It’s not very funny either, but it’s moderately funnier than the other thing.

Mark Trail, 6/24/14

TRUE FACT: Despite being adorable-looking and the subject of a popular and condescending tabletop game, hippos are actually super aggressive and dangerous and will just straight-up attack people for no reason at all. So I dub this Mark Trail depiction of wanton hippo violence accurate! I’m more dubious on the question of whether any African humans are actually named “Taurus,” however.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/24/14

Future rich dowager Sarah Morgan just heard the two most important sentences of her young life so far: “You’re allowed to do anything I want” and “If the museum wants my million bucks, we do it my way!” Mrs. Pierpont is writing on her little pad of paper, but Sarah is the one who should be taking notes.

Herb and Jamaal, 6/24/14

In order for the extremely mild “punchline” of this strip to work, it needs to be vaguely surprising when Jamaal compares his feelings for a jar of sourdough starter to the romantic attraction one would expect him to feel for a human woman. However, any such surprise is completely precluded by the frank and shocking scene of man-on-glassware intimacy depicted in panel three.

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Slylock Fox, 6/23/14

OK, sorry, yes, Patty Opossum put her ring in the soup, blah blah, but I really can’t get past the fact that Patty wants her soup in … a bag? I mean, I get what the implication is, but all I can visualize is the snooty French waiter-dog just straight-up pouring that whole bowl into a paper bag and making a sloshy, oozy, mess, which will soon burst open, leaving a huge soup-puddle, and a diamond ring sitting right in the middle of it. Slylock and Max know what’s coming, and are leaning forward is silent anticipation.

Better Half, 6/23/14

Better Half update: Stanley’s descent into madness continues as he takes the phrase “you’re your own worst enemy” far too literally.

Family Circus, 6/23/14

Ha ha, Billy, your mom is just throwing some generic “Flakies” at you before she gets in her car and drives away forever. Do you really think there’ going to be a lunch? Sucker!