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Blondie, 11/24/19

I don’t know why, but it bothers me so much that Dagwood refers to “giblet pawns” but the pieces in question very obviously do not look like organ meats at all! They just look like regular turkeys! Almost as if this strip, like most legacy comic strips, isn’t actually the creation of a single credited artist, but is rather put together assembly-line-style by hired hands, and one person wrote the joke and then the artist got the script and was like “no way in hell I’m going to draw weird turkey liver things, fuck that noise, I am not paid anywhere near enough.” I do appreciate that the drumstick-king isn’t just a drumstick, but actually a drumstick with a turkey face on it, which is some real body horror business, and also it’s wearing a crown and a wig. Just in case you thought the artist was a slacker. They’re clearly not. But giblet pawns were just a bridge too far.

Shoe, 11/24/19

hey

hey guys

hey you know what

y’all are birds

and birds

don’t give birth to live young

they

lay

eggs

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Beetle Bailey, 11/23/19

Real Beetle Bailey-heads know that General Halftrack has a driver, and his name is Julius, although I don’t think he’s appeared in the strip in a while; the only place I can find him in my archives is here, in what appears to be a gay panic dream sequence from 2004. A mere gap of 15 years is of course nothing to the deep lore of Beetle Bailey continuity, though I suppose it’s possible that he was reassigned to a more important job as part of Pentagon budget cuts; still, I assume that mostly this joke is about how the folks Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC finally heard about Uber and could’t wait to use it as a punchline.

Blondie, 11/23/19

Speaking of hilarious tech punchlines: you guys heard about this bitcoin thing? It’s electronic moola! You could buy [tries desperately to think of a cool high-tech thing a kid would like] a … drone? … with bitcoins, that’s for sure! Helpful tip: if your joke hinges on something being a high-tech novelty, but that thing was already a punchline in Snuffy Smith four years ago, it is no longer particularly novel.

Crankshaft, 11/23/19

Here it is, Thanksgiving weekend, and the boys are “enjoying” some good old-fashioned football! Remember when Crazy Harry laid out the rules of happiness in the Funkyverse, which are that you can’t ever feel happy because if you do the universe will make you regret it? I thought about that watching Jeff clinging anxiously to that unopened bag of chips there. A normal person would open the chips and eat them to enjoy time with their family. But that sounds like fun, and fun is the one thing none of these sad sacks is allowed to have.

Mary Worth, 11/23/19

Ha ha, how cool and fun would it be if your friend set you up with someone, and then that person got really drunk before a date and made just a complete theatrical ass of himself, and when you told your friend about it, they were just like “Oh, wow, yeah, that definitely sounds in character for him, this person I suggested you become romantically involved with!” Would you stay friends with this person? Would you ever speak to them again?

Mark Trail, 11/23/19

BAD NEWS: Mark Trail and company have still not encountered even a single yeti.

GOOD NEWS: Mark Trail and company are fleeing from a landslide while wearing … snuggies? Let’s say snuggies. More on this development as events warrant.

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Folks, next week is a holiday Friday, and even though I’ll be posting as usual, I’m still giving you a week longer than I normally do to prepare yourself for the Internet Read Aloud, my live Internet-themed comedy show, in Los Angeles!

It’s gonna be lit, much like a Christmas tree and/or menorah! Here’s the Facebook event!

And here’s the comment of the week!

“So that’s Miss Buxley, which makes sense since Sam and Silo is a Mort Walker strip, except according to Wikipedia Walker did the writing not the art, and also he stepped away from the strip in 1997, leaving the strip entirely to Jerry Dumas, who died in 2016, and then the strip ended ‘circa 2017,’ which raises the question, how am I reading the thing that I’m reading? At a certain point do legacy strips simply start reproducing themselves like an out-of-control sourdough starter?” –matt w

And here are your hilarious runners up!

“Why does Curtis have a cell phone? Do you know how many packs of cigarettes Greg could buy for the price of a cell phone?” –ZeroWolf

“Curtis is setting himself up to fail the next pop quiz, not knowing how many instances of the word ‘gab’ to write down for the answers.” –Just John

“That crocodile is called Colin. All crocodiles who wear T-shirts and shorts are called Colin, and are the last upholders of the ‘innocent boys at play, suffering wholesome ailments like grazed knees or toothache’ ethos. I hope the criminal dog respects that worldview, cos if he decides to take hostages Colin will be the first to go.” –‘mantha

“There’s a certain ominous quality to ‘I know a place where everyone goes.’ He means Hell, right? He’s definitely talking about Hell.” –Joe Blevins

“Pausing for only the briefest moment, Dolly pointedly ignores her brother’s heretical ignorance. Patience, she thinks to herself, patience is a virtue. Under her new world order, Jeffy will be the first to go.” –Austria

“‘I need some space right now.’ ‘But I am space! Length, depth, and width, all taken up without any real content! Please, that I physically exist is my best attribute!’” –pachoo

“Hi puts his garbage out on the curb at the last possible minute, instead of doing it on the night before, to keep his neighbors from seeing all of Hi’s discarded liquor bottles and porno magazines during their evening strolls. His expression this morning is appropriate for someone who has just learned that his efforts have been thwarted by incriminatinggarbage.com.” –seismic-2

“I hope we find out that Wilbur is involved in a midnight breakdancing gang.” –Foodar

“Maybe I’m a food snob, but I definitely would not order anything off the ‘secret menu’ of a diner where the food is being prepared in a part of the restaurant that is clearly where the restroom should be.” –Brad

“ In your rye (or white or wheat)/ Your rye (I put lunchmeat)” –Dan

“This boombox must be at least 20 years old, playing a tape that’s probably closer to 30 or even 40, as water slowly seeps into its interior. Not only must it sound awful, I can’t wait for the tape to jam and get chewed up, leaving Wilbur desperately trying to wind it back it in with a pencil as Estelle sighs and goes back to bed.” –Schroduck

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine rain splashing on Wilbur’s mopey face while he holds a boombox — forever.” –Ettorre

“I choose to believe Wilbur picked this song about how nice it is to get rained on on purpose, to make it look like he scrambled to find any song with rain in it to underscore how very tragic it is to be standing in the rain holding a stereo to apologize to your beloved and didn’t stop to think any further than that. He knows how pitiful he is, and he knows pity is his best chance with Estelle, and he’s taken the pity play to the next level.” –Amelie

“The total lack of background in Family Circus isn’t laziness. It’s the formless void the world would occasionally collapse into back in 1978, when Thel bought those pants. The only things in the void are Thel, Jeffy and the bowl of gruel. No way is she letting go of the gruel.” –Downpuppy

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