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Funky Winkerbean, 6/17/11

Oh, look Les’s mopey romantic life has been derailed by comical misunderstanding! Sure, if you actually go back and look at the Les-Susan smooch strip (which I did, because I have a professional obligation and/or hate myself) it doesn’t seem very likely that anyone would have had an opportunity to snap this little pic, but I say if Les is humiliated, all the better. Maybe Keisha was stalking him, in order to defend her mother’s honor, or just because everyone is obsessed with Les for no reason. Maybe Susan had a hidden camera set up for just this reason, and she sent the pic to Keisha when the time was right. The important thing is that finally someone in this strip is going to be suffering in a way that I find enjoyable.

Luann, 6/17/11

Speaking of enjoyable suffering: ha ha, Brad is about to be fired! I’m sure they’ll explain it as “budget cuts,” but it would be great if he were let go because of incompetence, or just because his personality is considered generally unpleasant by the other firefighters. I’ll bet those checks Toni’s brother gets for being in the Le Mis touring company look pretty darn steady now!

Ziggy, 6/17/11

Ziggy’s brought his pet to a restaurant, and his pet has brought vermin into that restaurant, and now that pet is going to disembowel and eat that vermin right at the table. I’m beginning to understand why the waiters in this strip are always so hostile towards Ziggy.

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Panel from Archie, 6/16/11

I’m terrible for not bringing this news to you earlier, but Henry Scarpelli, who for a long time was the artist of the Archie comic strip, died a couple of months ago. (UPDATE: Uh, as many people have pointed out, that article is from April of 2010 — so I have no idea why the art only changed a few months ago. Maybe he had drawn comics months in advance? Som artists do!) I will always have a warm spot in my heart for him because it was he (I assume) who inserted the occasional Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000 gag into the strip, possibly without the writer really knowing what was going on.

Since his passing, the syndicate apparently came to the conclusion that, what with the huge backlog of timeless Archie yuks available there’s no real reason to pay anyone to create new ones, and has, I believe, been running older strips from the ’90s, which explains why they’ve been even less in touch with today’s youth than usual. (Please correct me if I’m wrong on this point!) Anyway, the older version of the strip was not created by a cybernetic intelligence, but an all too human individual who, if this panel is any indication, spends his days in an isolated cabin, preparing for the day when he will lead the righteous cleansing of our degenerate nation.

Luann, 6/16/11

Yeah, Toni’s brother sure is flake and a jerk! He’s not a fine, upstanding, responsible person like Brad and Toni are. You can tell they’re upstanding and responsible because they do upstanding and responsible things, like trash Toni’s brother constantly, right in front of his daughter.

Apartment 3-G, 6/16/11

Aw, isn’t this nice, Tommie’s mom has come to visit! Too bad Tommie didn’t get some advanced notice; it’s little embarrassing to have her arrive at 3 p.m. and find her daughter and her roommate lying around in an opium haze.

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Gil Thorp, 6/15/11

Do you guys realize that we’re halfway through June and aren’t even close to finding out how the Milford baseball or softball teams are doing, let alone getting ramped up for the Gil Thorp summer insanity that we’ve been denied for the past few years but that’s going to happen this year, I just know it? Instead, the predictable teachers vs. sinister budget-slashing school-board lunatic storyline is rumbling to a predictable conclusion, with protest singer Al-Jo finally discovering that she’s got something to protest. What I find much more interesting is the fact that the strip creators are themselves apparently so bored with the proceedings that they’ve turned to a fractured narrative chronology to liven things up a bit. How did the dude who’s crushing on Al-Jo and whose name I refuse to even try to remember secure that stage and PA system? Let’s have a lightning-fast one-panel flashback to find out! Aaaand then back to the present. This is art, people.

Pluggers, 6/15/11

Pluggers take their mistresses to shitty fast food restaurants, so you can imagine how cheap and depressing their nights out with their wives are.