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Crankshaft, 2/22/21

So the current Crankshaft plot/running gag involves Crankshaft, who ruined the town ice sculpture contest last year by destroying the ice sculptures with his bus, being randomly selected to be a (the?) judge of this year’s ice sculpture contest. My prediction is that Crankshaft will fall in love with the stark simplicity of this uncarved cube, with hilarious malapropic results that will get readers thinking about the true meaning of “art.” Since the last time the Funkyverse took on the true meaning of art, it involved parents mad that the high school was putting on a cancer-themed play, this will come as a blessed relief.

Mary Worth, 2/22/21

Eve has panic attacks triggered by men’s suits and falling because her husband, who used to trip her deliberately, wore suits. Eve’s dog helps soothe her when she has these episodes … a dog that same husband shot. So who’s gonna soothe the dog, Eve? Who’s gonna soothe the dog?

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Dennis the Menace, 2/21/21

After a solid year of ignoring the coronavirus pandemic and muddling through in its mostly ’50s nostalgia world, Dennis the Menace has decided to abruptly leap into current events with both feet. How would Mr. Wilson — an elderly man whose human contact comes almost entirely from his wife, who he tolerates, and the neighbor kid, who he despises — deal with the isolating effects of social distancing? Well, it turns out the answer is “great.” Not so great for Dennis’s parents, obviously! There’s a reason they let him wander unsupervised through the neighborhood, after all.

Judge Parker, 2/21/21

It’s no secret that Judge Parker has gotten significantly less zany in the post-Woody Wilson era. That’s why I’m very excited about it taking a sharp turn into a new chapter, and that new chapter is: Godiva Danube: Ghost Sexpot!

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The Lockhorns, 2/20/21

I sincerely enjoy the presence of non-Lockhorn characters in the Lockhorns, who often seem to have somehow been drawn into Leroy and Loretta’s social orbit, where they never remain for long for obvious reasons. Take the dude standing next to Leroy here: that is a perfectly rendered facial expression for someone who’s just gone on his first outing with someone he thinks might be a new friend and has had a good time watching a movie, only to be hit with “You know who I hate? My wife.”

Shoe, 2/20/21

For all I snipe at the strip, you gotta give props to Shoe for having a consistent aesthetic tone, and that tone can best be described as “bone-deep weariness.” “Thank you, Cosmo,” Trish says out loud in response to this backhanded compliment, but what her eyes and posture say, very clearly, is “I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes and yearn so, so strongly for death.”

Beetle Bailey, 2/20/21

Honestly can’t decide if the proper response to this one is “Finally, the media reputation the narcoleptic community has yearned for” or “Beetle Bailey: Asexual Icon.”