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Funky Winkerbean, 11/16/21

Remember how after the big post-Lisa’s-death Funky Winkerbean time jump, all the promotional material around the strip said it was going to push its aging cast into the background and focus more on a whole new set of teen characters to get back to its roots as a high school trip? Well, that very obviously never happened, possibly because it turns out that the average age of a newspaper comics reader is well within the range of Social Security eligibility, a group that intensely hates and fears teens. To cater to that demographic, the strip appears to be paying more and more attention to the generation older than the original cast. Like Funky’s dad, for instance! You remember him, right? His whole deal is that he’s enfeebled to the extent that Funky put him in a home, but he’s also very horny? This church choir story just took a turn, is what I’m saying, a horny, horny turn.

Dustin, 11/16/21

You ever wonder if Dustin’s family gets so sick of Dustin’s dad that they just tell him he has to leave and be insufferable at someone else for a few hours? Well, turns out they do, I’m pleased to report!

Beetle Bailey, 11/16/21

Remember earlier this year, when we learned that in addition to being an amiable moron, Zero is a terrifyingly efficient killing machine? Well, today we find out that he thinks shooting someone in the head is what sex is! Ha ha, look how satisfied he looks in panel two.

Gil Thorp, 11/16/21

How “enh” has this fall’s Gil Thorp plot been? We’ve finally got to the big twist, and it’s that … Tevin has been receiving qualified care from a professional therapist, and that helped him more than YouTube hypnosis! You can tell the kids are as bored as we are because they’re just stone cold going nuts about it, or maybe just because someone is standing on a table. “Hold on, Karl,” says Coach Kaz says. “Someone using a piece of furniture for something other than its intended purpose? This is interesting!”

Mary Worth, 11/16/21

oh my god it worked Wilbur scared off Dr. Ed with his aggressive karaoke violence, I don’t know if I’m furious or very impressed

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The Lockhorns, 11/15/21

I’m really loving Leroy’s little bar cart here. You never know what room in the house you might be in when you abruptly need to theatrically pour yourself and a friend some hard liquor as you start griping about how much you hate your wife, so it’s good to be able to easily wheel your cocktail supplies from place to place.

Dennis the Menace, 11/15/21

“Get it, old man? What Christ was to you in your long-ago day, cable television is to me in this brave new world! TV is my lord and savior! Pretty menacing, eh? I could be obsessed with YouTube videos on my parents’ phones like a normal five-year-old, but instead I worship television that you pay $150 a month for and it comes on at a specific time of day, like I’m 55 and have never been ‘good with computers.’ That’s pretty menacing too, in its own way.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and Gasoline Alley, 11/15/21

I’m not sure if there’s some kind of upcoming anniversary involving one or both of these absurdly long-running strips that has prompted them to simultaneously acknowledge one another, and I don’t care to do the research to find out. I choose to believe that this is just the equivalent of two people who are by far the oldest at a party clocking each other and giving one another a silent nod of acknowledgment. Anyway, it’s too bad Jughaid is unaware of Archie Comics’ Jughead Jones, himself a character who’s been around almost as long as the Hootin’ Holler cast of Snuffy Smith, because I’m sure a lot more people are familiar with him than they are with Sheezix, at least until Gasoline Alley finally gets a CW sitcom of its very own. On the other hand, Jughaid is lucky that he and his fellow Holler residents exist forever in an ageless comic-book time, unlike folks in Gasoline Alley, who are trapped in a hell where they age in real time but their strip will never be cancelled and they will never be allowed to die.

Hi and Lois and Hagar the Horrible, 11/15/21

Bowls of barf? Vikings tossing a severed pig’s head around, for fun? Looks like this is the week when Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC realized that nobody really cares what you put in the newspaper anymore, and they’re gonna run with it.

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Crock, 11/14/21

Crock has a long-running bit about how there’s a talking chicken who’s always on the verge of being cooked and eaten by the strip’s Legionnaires, but I don’t think they’ve ever implied before that this chicken has magic powers, beyond the ability to speak English (or, depending on how you think the Crock world-building works, French that’s getting translated into English for the American reading audience). Anyway, for some reason it’s really amusing me to think that the POOF between the last two panels is not meant to represent a genie’s summoning spell, but instead elides a sequence where the chicken manages to procure booze, a fast car, and a willing woman for the fort’s cook through non-magical means, like persuasion or calling in a bunch of favors or something. Would the fact that he’s a talking chicken make these tasks easier or more difficult for him to accomplish? Discuss.

Dennis the Menace, 11/14/21

Based on the title of today’s strip, I first assumed that Mr. Wilson was planning to launch a hip-hop career, and then I saw the WANTED poster and figured maybe we were about to learn that he was a criminal and he’s been on the run from the law this whole time. But no, it just turns out that all of his wife’s friends know he’s an asshole.

Hi and Lois, 11/14/21

Ha ha! It’s funny because nobody in Hi’s family wants to spend time with him, not even his baby!