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I wanna see this fly drunkenly try to get on the wall and then fall off

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Six Chix, 8/17/18

The best thing about today’s Six Chix is the knowing smile on the bartender’s face. She’s thinking, “Heh heh, this guy’s right, and it’s great to work in a place where you get the ‘inside scoop’ from people who can provide insights you might not have thought of yourself!” The worst thing is everything else, it’s a horror-nightmare in which gigantic, sloppy-drunk fly-monster from some hell-dimension is yelling out of its uncanny proboscis at the television about one of the current administration’s dumber ongoing storylines.

Mark Trail, 8/17/18

Oh, hey, remember earlier this week when I couldn’t remember who Becky was? Well, it turns out she’s Dr. Carter’s assistant, who we all thought was a diligent archaeologist who insisted on cataloging every artifact they discovered for future scientific study, but in fact is running an artifact smuggling ring! I mean, if you consider walking ten feet away from a tour group in a different temple than the one you found the artifacts in and then pulling an ancient artifact out of a sack and handing it to some other dude who also has a sack a “ring.”

Mary Worth, 8/17/18

Haha, check out Brandy’s face! That is definitely 100% the face of someone who completely believes in her boyfriend and believes in us too! Yep, gonna be smooth sailing from here on out.

Crankshaft, 8/17/18

If you ever wonder what it’s like running the most popular newspaper comics blog on the internet, imagine looking at this Crankshaft comic and thinking to yourself, “Is there a joke here? Is it supposed to be character-driven, like we’re supposed to have enough of a feel for Max’s personality that we think it’s funny he did this? Or maybe it’s … wordplay of some kind,” and then you say the phrase “Max Axelrod loves my arugula” out loud, to nobody, in your home office, multiple times, and finally you just throw it up on your website and say I DUNNO, MAN

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They’re sure sticking to [winks] the clown burger man, if you know what I mean

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/16/18

At some level, I am sympathetic to the dilemma facing Funky Winkerbean here. We live, after all, in a world where it’s almost impossible to avoid transnational brands. Even a generation ago, Funky and Holly might’ve been likely stopping off at a public rest area to have a picnic lunch; but today even most state-run rest stops are just food courts with a collection of national fast food franchises, and many people avoid them and just head straight for whatever cluster of chains awaits just off any interstate exit. The options for the chronicler of daily life on the road in 2018 are to depict the brands in a matter-of-fact way, and thus serve essentially as an unpaid marketing arm for a megacoporation, or to avoid referring to any particular real company, and risk ruining the sense of verisimilitude. Or, you know, you could take the tack today’s Funky Winkerbean does, which is to build a whole joke around one specific company’s consistently bland omnipresence, but then instead of using the company’s actual name you use a fake name that nevertheless lets everyone recognize the company you’re actually talking about. I wouldn’t advise you to do that, but you definitely could!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/16/18

That’s right, everyone, in the Decalogue YWHW commands His people to “not have any other Gods before me.” Yet in Las Vegas, we are all helpless for the God of Excess, impelled to bow down before the glowing neon and the crass, gargantuan architecture! Roz’s hairdresser is guilty of the sin of idolatry! And, uh, I guess she did one of the sex ones, too, probably.

Spider-Man, 8/16/18

Uh oh, looks like the Golden Claw-Kingpin partnership is running into the sort of snags that often arise when two organizations come together as equal partners with no clear lines of authority or decision making. Looks like Kingpin is going to have to follow up Murder By Committee with another best-selling management tome, Too Many Thugs Spoil The Murder: Why Gang Alliances Need To Establish Clear Delineation Of Responsibility So They Don’t End Up Shooting Someone And Then Setting Them On Fire For No Reason.

Six Chix, 8/16/18

Not sure what I’d say if I accidentally picked up a lit candle, guzzled hot wax, realized after it had seared its way halfway down my gullet what I had done, then vomited it up only to realize in horror that the wax was solidifying in my esophagus, leaving me with a hardened dangle of wax down my chin that I would no doubt paw at with increasing desperation until I asphyxiate, but to my mind “Oh for gosh sakes” would be a little too mild!

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WARNING: Do not try to figure out what sex thing “Ruby Falls” is a euphemism for

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Marvin, 8/15/18

I honestly neither expect nor require Marvin, a legacy syndicated newspaper comic strip about a baby who poops a lot, to be up-to-date on current fashion trends, but I do think it’s a little awkward that in its attempt to depict a modern-day hipster they’ve overshot and given him a fashy, the haircut beloved by your more upscale white supremacists these days. Since Miller is the third most common surname for Jews in the United States, it certainly gives a very different reading to “they may not even let you in”!

Spider-Man, 8/15/18

Oh, Kingpin, you think you’re going to be some kind of bad-ass real estate criminal, but you’ve got a lot to learn about branding! The sort of hipster “pioneers” you want to attract in your moves to gentrify Chinatown will be positively thrilled to live above the alley where MJ Parker’s first husband was brutally murdered by a Chinese gang. Then, five years later, once MJ has been married to a fellow celebrity more suited to her current lifestyle, you jack up the rent by $1,000 a month and then the finance industry people move in.

Mary Worth, 8/15/18

This is definitely one way for Tommy to gently explain to Brandy that he has no plans to put out any time soon.

Pluggers, 8/15/18

Sure, it makes sense that Branson, Missouri, is ground zero for the plugger orgy scene, but I for one could’ve gone my whole life in happy ignorance of this fact.