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Funky Winkerbean, 11/25/21

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! If you’re looking for something to be thankful for, maybe you should give thanks that you don’t have Funky Winkerbean’s entire family showing up at your front door and explaining to you who they all are, for some reason, as if it were very vital for readers at home to get a full accounting. I have to wonder if the Funky team has forgotten that Mort, the sex creep in Harry’s band full of old people, is supposed to be the same person as Morton, Funky’s dad? The band member in this month’s “Mort from Harry’s band is horny for Lillian” sequence sure looks like Funky’s dad in the “Funky’s dad is horny for Holly’s mom” sequence from December 2018:

And maybe it’s just the angle, but Funky’s dad’s head looks pretty differently shaped today? Plus why would Funky feel like he has to introduce his dad to Harry, since his dad is in Harry’s band? I guess it’s possible that, having put his dad in a home specifically so he could think about the old man as little as possible, Funky has not bothered to keep up at all with his dad’s hobbies or activities.

Gasoline Alley, 11/25/18

Gasoline Alley also went in for a crowd scene, but in a way that is frankly a lot less tasking for me. Do I recognize these people as mostly Gasoline Alley characters? Yes. Could I name them? Some, but definitely not all. Does the strip insist on telling me what they’re all named, because it’s a good bet that I’ve forgotten and it wants me to double down on remembering them? No, it doesn’t, and I appreciate that.

The Lockhorns, 11/25/18

Speaking of things I’m thankful for, I remain thankful for the acidic purity of The Lockhorns. A lesser strip would depict a character burning furniture for heat, whereas this one depicts a character burning furniture out of spite.

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Dick Tracy, 11/24/21

It really tickles me to think that the various deformed criminals of Dick Tracy have their own fairly normal lives, from which they are occasionally called away in order to do bizarre crimes. Poor Mumbles was a date! He was having a great time with a nice girl! Now he’s gotta follow up on something some other guy screwed up? It’s not right! He doesn’t even get a gimp mask to conceal his identity!

Mary Worth, 11/24/21

Oh, man, Mary’s heavy-lidded expression in panel two as she contemplates who she can foist Wilbur onto is truly chilling. “Hmm, who do I know who completely hates themselves, who just has literally zero self-esteem, who’ll look at Wilbur and say ‘Yes! This is what I want. This is what deserve.’”

Shoe, 11/24/21

“Ha ha, get it? But seriously, Cate Blanchette murdered Elijah Wood, it’s real messed up actually.”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/23/21

I think it’s completely legit to say, “Hmm, when this strip’s child character sold a book for a lot of money to a museum somehow and then she and her baby sitter ended up as members of a brutal mob clan as a result, that was kind of weird; I want to do a book story but have it be more realistic.” I really don’t think you should keep drawing attention to the fact that you’re doing it, though? There is, I think, an extremely limited group of people who are thinking “Hmm, this is the second version of a book story they’ve done in this soap opera comic strip and it’s different from the one they did in 2014,” and I’m pretty sure all of them read this blog and are not looking to be told how to feel about it by a character in the strip. (They’re looking to be told how to feel about it by me, Josh Fruhlinger, the tastemaker of the funny pages! They should feel weird about it, in my opinion, in case that hasn’t been clear so far.)

Funky Winkerbean, 11/23/21

Sometimes I don’t remember characters or plotlines from long-running continuity strips, and while this might mean I’m not as good at my job (“job”) as I should be, it probably also makes me a healthier, more normal person who can preserve precious brainspace for other things, or so I keep telling myself. Anyway, I honestly have no real recollection of the Dinkles having a daughter named Halle, but I don’t think Harry does either, since his wife has to tell him what her name is and why she won’t be there for Thanksgiving. Of course, since “settlement school” refers to charitable institutions founded in Appalachia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries before public schools became available there, so I’m not sure what Harry’s wife is talking about with this “Italy” business. Maybe there’s no such thing as Halle! Maybe this is just two sad people with dementia talking to nonsense to each other! It would explain a lot, in Funky Winkerbean!

Mary Worth, 11/23/21

Oh my goodness, what kind of pet is Wilbur, in the depths of his self-pity, going to decide he deserves? A bird? A snake? A rock?