Post Content

Gil Thorp, 8/5/19

“Here’s what I’m thinking, Mr. Ballard. Why don’t you stop thinking of your job as determining the best and fairest set of rules for your school district and then making sure everyone follows those rules regardless of their status, and instead realizing what it really is: a means to grease the skids for people with enough power and influence to make life unpleasant for you if you don’t let them do what they want? Don’t worry, you won’t have to actually let anyone else bend the rules like this in the future, unless they also have a friend who’s a bored high-powered lawyer. Just do this one thing this one time and all your problems go away, probably!”

Hi and Lois, 8/5/19

Ha ha, it’s funny because Trixie views her place in the Flagston household as perpetually contingent, and worries she could be thrown in the trash at any time! Her parents do just ignore her for hours out of the day while she crawls around the house unsupervised, which might have something to do with it.

Dick Tracy, 8/5/19

Theater people??? Doing drugs???? UNHEARD OF

Post Content

Panel from The Lockhorns, 8/4/19

Since Leroy and Loretta have apparently been condemned to some hell-dimension where they’ll torture each other for all eternity, it’s not surprising that the sick burns they’ll lay on each other will eventually start getting increasingly baroque, and I’m here for it. Hyperinflation-based insults? Sure! “That’s the the b.-pengő note of suits,” Loretta says, looking Leroy up and down with contempt.

Mary Worth, 8/4/19

Wait, hold up! What form of water will Dawn be showing her skills off in next? A river? A lake? One of those infinity pool things? An underground sewer? Hugo hasn’t seen noting yet — but he’s never going to find out what’s in store for him if he keeps wasting time with all these makeouts!

Funky Winkerbean, 8/4/19

The title character, seeking medical care for his aging and decaying body, lets loose a sci-fi pop culture quip with no apparent context (is the chair he’s sitting in … supposed to be like Captain Kirk’s chair? is this cramped, crowded office supposed to be like the Enterprise’s bridge?) while ostensibly smiling but in a really angry-looking, aggressive way, basically daring anyone to question him; his interlocutor, stands staring dumbly at him looking crushed by the overall weight of life and his disappointment in it. I believe we’ve finally created the perfect Funky Winkerbean.

Post Content

Funky Winkerbean, 8/3/19

Actually, Mopey Pete, I gotta disagree with you. My guess is that “The Beanstalk” is a play of of the “beans” that people grind to make coffee, which appears to be the main thing they sell there. And if you just read the phrase “spend a lot of Jack” and thought, “Hmm, I as a native English speaker have never heard ‘jack’ used as a slang term for money — is this a usage I should be familiar with?”: results seem mixed! It appears to maybe be an archaic Britishism, and Urban Dictionary insists that “making jack” means making a profit, though I would definitely interpret it as meaning “making jack shit,” i.e., making nothing. Meanwhile, the phrase “a whole lot of jack” mainly points to a Facebook page featuring cute signs about drunkenness. My point is that I think this is yet another Funky usage that has no relationship to actual English, along the lines of “solo car date” and “vendos” and “Lewis and Clarking” and “Nordic, with the added twist of this fake phony-baloney wordplay being the sum total of the “punchline.”

Mark Trail, 8/3/19

Leola may be uncomfortable when people grapple with their feelings in an enclosed space, but Doc isn’t afraid to “dig deep” and help JJ really understand the emotional rollercoaster he’s been on. “I don’t hold it against you that you threatened us at gunpoint!” Doc says. “It could’ve happened to anyone! If things had been just a little different, I definitely would’ve killed each and every one of you, with my bare hands, just so I could possess the precious, precious gold I thought we would find here.”