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I hope you will forgive a brief intrusion that aims to point you at some things in which you might be interested? First, there are two Kickstarter projects that might appeal to you — contribute now to both make these things happen and pre-order their results!

• The first is Super-Powered Revenge Christmas, the comic book based on the play based on Christmas. The play and the comic book (but not Christmas) are in part the brainchild of MST3K/Rifftrax hero and friend of the Comics Curmudgeon Bill Corbett!
• The second is I Was A Teenage Michael Jackson Impersonator, a graphic novel by the always amazing Keith Knight, of K Chronicles fame!

Meanwhile, for absolutely no money, you can follow me on these social media sites, as I am duty-bound to remind you at the beginning of each month:

• Twitter
• Facebook fan page
• Google+
• Tumblr, which also serves as an ordinary blog, which you can subscribe to via RSS

I put the same material up on pretty much all of these, so really you should just pick the service you like best and subscribe to that one. Or none! I won’t be mad! (Just disappointed.) I’ll also link to new Comics Curmudgeon posts daily from each of these, so perhaps you will find them a good way to keep up with the blog? Anyway, feel free to use the comments here to describe how dumb all social network sites are.

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Funky Winkerbean, 4/2/12

Let’s enjoy all the ways in which the dialogue in this strip serves to explain the plot and fails to mirror humans actually talk, shall we? “Why is Funky here?” may be the reader’s reaction to the strip’s title character’s sudden appearance, but that probably wouldn’t be the blunt, immediate response of Funky’s best friend’s teenage daughter (though we may give her some leeway due to general teenage sass and/or her justifiable disgust at Funky’s existence). Panel two is quite the doozy of exposition, though! One would of course assume that, having already packed her bags, Summer is well aware that she’s taking a class trip to Washington, D.C. And under normal circumstances one would also assume that she would have known for some time that her father and (future? did my mind maybe erase the elaborate Les-Cayla wedding, to protect me?) stepmother would be there making sure she wasn’t making out with random dudes in a secluded spot in the Jefferson Memorial or whatever. But maybe Les’s stratospheric self-regard led him to believe that his daughter would want to spend time with him on her trip, and thus this is supposed to be some special surprise for her? Les and Funky continue smirking smugly after Summer disabuses them of this notion, no doubt because they know from experience that the teenage years Summer is so eager to escape now will in retrospect be the least miserable time of her life. They know that in the Funkyverse the adulthood that Summer craves so much is really a long, bumpy road leading through pain to death. (The bumps in the road are tumors.)

Dennis the Menace, 4/2/12

Since Joey’s illiteracy is I believe fairly well established in this strip, it seems uncharacteristically menacing for Dennis to have read him what’s scrawled on his prank-sign. Joey’s uncontrollable weeping at the thought of his only friend moving away seems about right, though, as does his inability to grasp the concept of an April Fool’s Joke after repeated explanations.

Archie, 4/2/12

Ha ha, nice try, Archie, but Riverdale’s rigid class structure isn’t going to break down on Mr. Lodge’s watch!

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Crock, 4/1/12

Hey, check it out, everybody, it’s a vaguely competently executed joke about a more or less topical subject, in Crock! Naturally, it involves a character turning his back on God, just as his isolated fort is about to be overwhelmed by a murderous enemy army.

Beetle Bailey, 4/1/12

It seems that Cookie has found a way to work out his complicated feelings about Sarge. Presumably the day when the cook serves up not just Sarge’s image, but Sarge himself, rendered as “Sarge-Loaf,” is not far off, and no doubt his resentful troops will consume his flesh with the same manic glee.