Post Content

Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft, 6/7/13

So we’ve been wandering down Funkyverse memory lane this week, encountering of revelations about Lisa and Darrin and Frankie. This had been sort of already described by Funky scribe/puppetmaster Tom Batuik in an interview a few months ago, but: while in previous iterations of the Darrin origin narrative the story was that his conception was consensual if regrettable, we are now getting dark hints that this was not so much the case. This isn’t particularly unrealistic, honestly — as in, lots of people who are victims of acquaintance rape minimize it or don’t tell anyone due to shame or a feeling that other people won’t believe them — though it does also dovetail nicely with the strip’s overall plunge to the bottom of the deep pit of existential despair over the decades. I am a little bit unsettled by the smiles all around in the third panel. “Ha, so our downstairs neighbors stumbled upon your future biological parents right after your bio-dad raped your birth mother! What a kooky coincidence! So now he’s making a reality TV show, you say? How interesting.”

This all raises once again the somewhat awkward question of Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft’s relative chronology, i.e., Funky time-jumped and Crankshaft didn’t, so this incident took place around 30 years ago in Funky, but only around 20 years ago in Crankshaft, but the cultural references in both strips place them in the present, so if the Faircloths seek out Pam and Jeff will they be 10 years older than they are in Crankshaft or what, etc. Crankshaft could have tried to complement the Funky flashbackery, somehow, or it could have just ignored it, but instead it decided to go the most confusing route possible: launching its own flashback story to some indeterminate earlier period when Pam and Jeff had an entirely different downstairs neighbor lady who almost blew up the house.

Mary Worth, 6/7/13

Meanwhile, Mary Worth is about to launch into a much more fun and exciting scenario: a biddy on biddy battle. Mary’s overwhelming desire to see everyone in the world (except for her, natch) paired up in heteronormative couples is almost overwhelming. Do you think she’ll let anyone stand in the way of that? Even the mother of one half of the couple in question? You need to get one thing straight, Elinor: Mary will show no mercy.

Post Content

Curtis, 6/6/13

Usually we blame media desensitization for making The Kids Today numb to depictions of gruesome violence and wanton sexuality, and therefore more prone to accept or even participate in gruesome violence or wanton sexuality. But today’s Curtis presses the argument further, positing that such content more generally kills the human capacity for empathy, leaving Curtis unable to appreciate the human tragedy that has befallen his father’s mildly irritating co-worker. Either that, or he’s been watching CNBC and The Boiler Room nonstop, leaving him inured to instances of financial suffering in particular. But as is often the case with media panic, maybe we should look away from the television screen to find the origins of human cruelty: with vicious epithets like “muttonhead” in common use in the Wilkins household, it’s no wonder Curtis has built an emotional barrier between himself and the pain felt by others.

Judge Parker, 6/6/13

Judge Parker has taken a step away from “Neddy’s friends’ kidnapping crisis may be a grift” to return to its other storyline, “Judge Parker Senior and Mrs. Judge Parker Senior’s marriage is in trouble.” Today we learn the main thing they’ll fight over in the divorce trial: rights to this terrible and almost certainly highly lucrative screenplay.

Post Content

B.C., 6/5/13

So vultures are creepy because we associate them with death, right? Like, they only show up when someone or something is dying, and then they feast on its corpse. We find this horrifying and repugnant! So wouldn’t it be even more horrifying and repugnant if the vulture actually killed a living being in order to leave it in a state that the vulture found palatable to eat? Possibly by using a weapon of some sort it designed specifically for that purpose? How gruesome! That was probably the thinking behind the joke in this strip, and then whoever came up with that joke probably went somewhere and enjoyed a sandwich filled with meat sliced from an animal that wasn’t alive, how could you think about eating a living animal, that’s disgusting.

Speaking of the awful stench of death, it’s a good thing I can’t tell the barely distinguishable cavemen of B.C. apart, because otherwise I might feel more of an emotional attachment to whoever it is who’s suffering a slow, agonizing death from exposure in the first panel.

Family Circus, 6/5/13

At last, PJ’s training is complete! Soon he’ll face off against other competitors in the 25-to-35-pound weight division in … THE BABY OCTOGON.