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Funky Winkerbean, 8/22/21

Continuity comic strips are actually a great example of how you can have a long-running narrative art form with very little narrative tension. Nevertheless, Funky Winkerbean does have one primary source of narrative friction: namely, that Les is a sainted figure who everyone has to acknowledge as a good guy and work to make good things happen for him, but also the universe is a fundamentally dark and hostile place and nothing truly good ever happens to anyone. I guess today’s strip is showing us how we’ll navigate between those two poles: Lisa’s Story: The Movie will be mostly ignored by the yammering, moronic masses who don’t understand how moving it is when a man’s wife dies of cancer but he finds the strength to move on, but the right kind of people will watch it at America’s few remaining art house theaters and be moved, and won’t that be the most important thing? Not from the perspective of the people who invested in this movie, or for anyone’s career who worked on it, but from it is from Les’s perspective, which is the correct one.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/22/21

Speaking of the absence of narrative tension, there’s a lot you could say about the last few years of Rex Morgan and its absence of narrative tension, but one thing you can’t say is that it skimps on good reaction faces. Today Michelle moves from “carefully neutral as she worries what she’s gotten herself into,” “real genuine horror as she sees something the Facebook moderators should’ve removed immediately,” “bone-weary disgust at someone posting a picture of themselves wearing a t-shirt adorned with grotesque sex slang or maybe a racial slur,” and “grudging admiration for what hairspray can do.” We salute you, Michelle, and certainly hope your animated visage helps the seven or so people at your wedding maintain interest in the proceedings.

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Family Circus, 8/21/21

I have already shamefully admitted that I kind of like Billy when he’s being surly and aggressively ignorant, so this this panel is a real treat. The best part, though is how bored and antsy everyone else looks as well. Even Daddy is yawning while he’s trying to read about erosion or whatever! Billy’s just saying what we’re all thinking!

Gil Thorp, 8/21/21

“I just turned down a boring-ass sports story, which is normally the sort of thing we’d print, but it wasn’t a boring-ass high school sports story, so I figured it wasn’t right for us, even though — and I can’t emphasize this enough — we’re supposed to be a real grown-up newspaper, not the high school journalism club or anything like that. Anyway, it’s Saturday, so I assume there’s a new plot starting next week! Maybe it’ll be high school sports related!”

Pluggers, 8/21/21

Pluggers have no idea what time it is or where they are or where they’re going or when they’re supposed to get there, and that’s OK! Their journey is valid and I respect it.

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You want this week’s top comment? You got it, buddy.

“I’m actually super-impressed with the couch. Yes, it’s drawn super-low and weird… but the cartoonist OWNS that by making the guy look super-uncomfortable with his knees drawn up high, and an awkward look on his face. It’s not that it’s a badly-drawn couch, it’s a well-drawn bad couch.” –RoofPig

You want runners up? You got those too!

“How is Mason Jarre not being sarcastic here? ‘Hi folks, I’m the star of a billion-dollar space action franchise, and I’m on my way to a bangin’ wrap party for some Lifetime Channel cancer porn I shot during my lunch breaks! And look who’s with me! The writer who gets the based on credit! Not even the actual screenwriter! I was going to show you the production assistant, but he’s working his other job at Starbucks.’” –Banana Jr. 6000

“Hmm. So if a nationally syndicated comic strip is acknowledging Instagram, that must mean it became irrelevant at least a year ago, maybe more. Sorry you had to find out this way, Instagram.” –Joe Blevins

“‘Mason Fans?’ Mason Fans?! JARRE HEADS” –Dan

“Oh, snap! I hope Bemidji’s social media team is ready for the flood of interest generated by this wild twist!” –Powers

“We’ve survived a fire and a plague making this movie! But we refused to take the hint that the Almighty did not want this movie to exist and we produced it anyway! May God have mercy of all our souls!” –Ettorre

“It really seems like Crankshaft wouldn’t be buying checks online. I picture him going to the bank bright and early instead, intent on paying for his new checks with one of the last of his old checks. Because banking online? That’s how they getcha.” –made of wince

“Wilbur, I would wager any amount of money that Kitney Houston over there is a– No, wait, that Whitney Mewston over there is a– NO WAIT HERE IT IS, that Dolly Purrton, thank God I got that out of my system, that Dolly Purrton over there is a better singer than you.” –els

“Investigate every possible cause or motivation behind the fire? He should start with the fire’s acting coach. ‘Okay, your motivation in this scene is that you really, really hate this B&B. The sheets were only 200 thread count, and the French toast was soggy.’” –Peanut Gallery

“So the presumably deep-pocketed mayor just accused them, without evidence, of being arsonists on live television. Sam and Abbey would sue, but that might lead to courtroom drama, and we all know a strip called Judge Parker can’t have any of that.” –Where’s Rocky?

“For once the weird empty aesthetic of this strip actually works in its favor, in that those two definitely look like they’re having messed-up hallucinations in a crack den.” –pugfuggly

“Obviously Wilbur deserves to die, but also, what kind of idiot thinks ‘This cat is making too much noise, I will lock it up in a room where it doesn’t want to be?’ Has he ever met a cat?” –matt+w

“Very unfortunate that this Crankshaft strip happened to go out the week Afghanistan fell, since any other week a guy cracking wise at scenes of death and devastation in a faraway land would presumably be in perfectly good taste.” –Schroduck

“Cats kill by going for the neck. Normally they try to break the spinal cord, but all Libby needs to do is tear through Wilbur’s larynx and she will have killed all his hopes and dreams.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“My only fear here is that Wilbur is going to learn a lesson at the end of all this. I don’t want him to learn a lesson. Like God hardening the pharaoh’s heart for the final plagues I want the fullness of justice to be brought down on him.” –BananaSam

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