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Family Circus, 7/18/19

There’s a common joke that little kids act like they’re on drugs sometimes because everything — even fairly basic human biological functioning — is new and strange to them. I don’t know if drugs are quite the right metaphor here, but I appreciate the extent to which heavy-lidded Jeffy is just luxuriating in the sensation of sweating, which most adults find somewhere on the spectrum between uncomfortable and gross. Not Jeffy! His body is magically creating water out of nothing, and keeping him cool in the process, and he can’t get enough of it. It’s like taking a refreshing shower, except he’s the shower! Ahh yeah, that’s the stuff.

Mark Trail, 7/18/19

Oh, snap, JJ! Looks like you followed the boring “conventional wisdom” that if you point a gun at a person at point-blank range, they’ll more or less do what you say, because you can pull the trigger in just a split second and they don’t want to be killed. But Mark Trail doesn’t worry about any of that business! Mark Trail knows his unerring fists are faster and more powerful than any pistol! Mark Trail is always ready to powerfully twist his torso and knock out evil-doers an instant, no matter if they’re fully bearded or just lightly stubbled! Remember, to stop a bad guy with a gun, you need a good guy … who’s Mark Trail.

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Six Chix, 7/17/19

I really have to admire the amount of absurd world-building packed into this single panel. What you have here is a very small fishbowl, containing three fish, two of whom are mobsters (right? that’s what the implications of the dark glasses and the … hat and pipe … are supposed to be?), and they’re about to murder fish #3, for winning at cards. This just brings up a whole slew of other questions: What is the point of a criminal gang in a tiny community like a fishbowl, especially if two thirds of the inhabitants are members? What will the all-mafia society look like after poor Vince is killed? Is the (presumable) human owner of this fishbowl, the one who’s going to fish poor Vince out and flush him down the toilet, going to go out and buy a new fish to bring into the mix? Well the mobster-fish then bilk that fish out of its money at cards, by skill, cheating, or violence? What use is money in a society made up of three people (or three sapient fish) and no manufactured goods? Lots to think about, please email me your essays on the topic!

Curtis, 7/17/19

Nice try, Greg! The term “millennial” is slippery, but almost every definition sets the cutoff birth years in the mid-to-late 90s, which means the very youngest millennials are more than 20 years old at this point! Your son is “Gen Z” or whatever they’re going to end up calling themselves. You know who may well be a millennial is you, Greg, as the top of that cohort is in its late 30s at this point. “LOL,” as you kids say! (As a Gen-Xer, I personally can’t wait for the Generational Wars to end with Generation [Unpronounceable Glyph] refusing to interact with us in any way until it comes time for them to harvest the precious moisture in our bodies.)

Funky Winkerbean, 7/17/19

I don’t think I’d noticed before that Young Cliff Anger looks uncannily like handsome movie actor Mason Jarre. You’d think with a mug like that he wouldn’t have to be a writer to make it in Hollywood! Oh, wait, right, the Communism meant he couldn’t show his pretty face in polite company. Well, at least he has a simian pal to keep him company! Maybe Funky Winkerbean is just going to pivot to being a wacky strip about a happy-go-lucky Stalinist and his drunken chimp roommate, and I cannot emphasize enough how much of an improvement that would be.

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Pajama Diaries, 7/16/19

I freely admit that it’s entirely irrational, but I’ve developed an extreme aversion to the strips where Pajama Diaries gets horny. Like, it’s not Luann-level distasteful, of course, but it still squicks me out, possibly because nobody actually talks like this. “Hey mom, be sure to make me a special second dinner for tonight, because after my dinner date I’m gonna go fuck somewhere, then come home later and eat that second dinner, because if there’s one thing having sex does it makes you hungry, right? Post-sex hunger is a thing? Because of all the sex exercise? This is exactly how I talk to my friends in my dorm, and I’ve definitely had sex before.”

Funky Winkerbean, 7/16/19

I dunno, man, in this flashback Young Cliff Anger looks less like a guy whose best friend just went to jail for a murder he didn’t commit and more like a guy who’s pretty jazzed to be the new owner of a chimpanzee named Zanzibar. Ha ha, the chimp is smoking a cigar and wearing a shirt! He thinks he’s people! Anyway, if Zanzibar turns out to be the real killer in this storyline, I’m willing to forgive a lot about the past few weeks in this strip.