Comment of the Week

Wizard of Id has succintly portrayed the difference between Early and Late Medieval modes of warfare: while his Dark Age companions are boldly dying for their feudal lord, the canny Sir Rodney treats war as a profession. He is akin to the condottiere who would dominate later Italian warfare. That sly look and crooked smile is that of a man who sees human corpses as nothing more than money in his purse, arguably far more barbaric than his predecessors. But trebuchets suck for hitting single guys so we're probably about to see Sir Smarty Pants' insides in spite of his historically progressive role.

m.w.

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Do you like … funny comments? Do you want to read this week’s top comment? Here it is!

“Indonesian political turmoil during the 1960s? Actually, that dog-plugger’s scar was caused by too much scratching of a skin infection, during the Year of Living Mangerously.” –seismic-2

Do you want to read this week’s hilarious runners up, as well? Here they are!

“Jughaid is not wearing a coonskin cap — that’s his real hair. He’s heard of this hipster trend and has the ponytail part down pretty well, but this man bun thing he’s still trying to figure out just what that means.” –popamatic

“Not that arguing the point will do Jughaid much good in a town with only one teacher, but I’d question the validity of a report card given out by someone who just scrawled out ‘REPORT CARD‘ in pencil on a random sheet of copier paper while wearing a vindictive grin.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Maybe this can of ‘wholesome salmon in spring water’ will help. Or does that say ‘whole salmon on a spring’? Or is this the can with the typographic error in which I trapped the soul of Alex Salmond, former First Minster of Scotland? No, this must be the canned remains of Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln’s Chief Justice. I really need to can less Salmons, or buy some reading glasses.” –Voshkod

“Mary seems to be making salmon squares, but the idea that’s occurred to her may be to encourage Wynter to return to his home town, find a mate, then die.” –cheech wizard

“I hate to say it, but I think Mary has been inspired to start selling canned dog.” –Foodar

“I’m guessing the original punchline was something along the lines of ‘He’s always cramming it in my can!’ before an editor stepped in.” –pugfuggly

“So Spider-Man’s intrepid trio knew the villains weren’t going to be there but decided to show up anyway? Once again Peter Parker saves the day by going where evil isn’t and not punching anybody.” –Escape Zeppelin

“Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to just rent a boardroom and a couple of gas masks?” –TheDiva

“Kid, we live in a rodent-infested home littered with what I only hope are animal remains. Unless a visit from DCFS is on that list, you ain’t gettin’ it.” –Joe Blevins

“You’re a plugger when your touchstone for stories of things that happened in someone’s youth reference World War II, even though that was the previous generation, and everyone who fought in that war is already dead.” –Emily Riposte

“Having known my share of pluggers, lemme tell ya — it doesn’t take anything as dramatic as a scar. Just move one of their many pill bottles to a slightly different spot in the medicine cabinet. It’ll become their Game of Thrones.” –Chrissy the Stooges Woman

“I’m no doctor, but I’m fairly certain scar tissue doesn’t grow on top of fur. This is obviously just a matted clump of filth, and the plugger is lying to his grandson because it’s the only acceptable form of plugger entertainment that isn’t ‘waiting to die.’” –Rosstifer

“You know what other classic character was basically ‘The Lone Ranger in space’? Space Ghost. Y’know who his sidekicks were? A couple kids and A CHIMP. So begins my exhaustive 12-part YouTube documentary Fake Geek Boy: The Story of Mopey Pete.” –Wolfbane42

“Is every Mark Trail strip this week going to end with the exact same drawing of Rusty looking dumbly up from his phone and asking some variation of ‘now what?’ Because I’m on board with that. Especially if Mara’s head continues to grow larger every panel, until she finally answers his repeated question and devours Rusty, phone and all.” –The Mighty Untrained FOOZLE

“…and, so, we’re giving that space gorilla cancer.” –Where’s Rocky

“Coating the walls of your apartment in framed photos of your dog is one thing. Saul has gone a step further and arranged them so that it looks like they’re all looking at the front door. How could anyone not appreciate the effort when they come in, only to be greeted by dozens upon dozens of beady little chihuahua eyes, all of them glazed over with an expression that is equal parts hate and vacuity?” –Lionheart

“Okay, who just got thumbprints all over their screen? Besides me?” –Schrödinger’s Droopy

“Why is Mopey Pete so hung up on this child sidekick issue? No one even brought it up. Unless… does he actually think chimpanzees are gorilla children?” –jroggs

Cranberry juice is the primary ingredient in cosmopolitans, which leads me to the disturbing conclusion that Big Daddy Keane is a total Carrie.” –Jenna

“See. You all asked for it. This disturbingly long-winded rant about a light-hearted subject is what happens when the smirking stops.” –Tonya

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Family Circus, 9/21/18

Well played, Ma! Thanks to Jeffy’s inability to mind his own business and desperate and doomed need to be regarded as somewhat mature, she’s now sussed out that Big Daddy Keane is currently referring to the hellish mix of sterno and cough syrup that he’s sipping throughout every evening to numb his pain as “grown-up cranberry juice.”

Funky Winkerbean, 9/21/18

Yes, this kind of attitude towards one of the most iconic and beloved characters in comics history is definitely healthy and good and doesn’t indicate any sort of deep-seated pathologies, at all! Clearly this is the sort of person you want as [checks notes] the artistic director of your comic book company.

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Mary Worth, 9/20/18

If you’re ever in Baltimore, I strongly recommend that you drop by the Baltimore Museum of Art (admission is free!) and check out the Cone collection, an amazing assembly of impressionist art that was put together by two sisters over the course of the late 19th and early 20th century, with pieces by Matisse, Picasso, Cézanne, Gauguin, and other heavy hitters. The sisters only left their collection to the museum upon their death, and while they were alive much of it was just hanging on the walls of the relatively modest Baltimore apartment they shared. There’s a computer reconstruction at the museum, and you can see that every surface was just covered with these masterpieces, even in the bathroom; they were probably what would be diagnosed today as hoarders, who just happened to have the eye and wherewithal to hoard incredible art.

Now, we’re only seeing a pretty small portion of Mr. Wynter’s apartment here, and things aren’t at quite the density of the Cone sisters’ home, but just the fact the even on this little stretch of wall we have not one but two pictures of Bella sporting a bowtie to match her owner makes me hope that each step deeper into his condo unit is leading Mary into a disorienting spiral of omnipresent Bellas. Local lech Charley plastered his walls with “art of a kind … I suppose” but that perversion will be nothing compared to the bug-eyed dead dog nightmare that is Wynterhaven.

Mark Trail, 9/18/18

Everything that’s actually relevant to the plot in today’s strip will presumably be spelled out shortly, which is good because I intend to spend the rest of the day not thinking about that at all but instead imagining Rusty playing with “Snap-N-Rap,” which I assume is an app you use to upload videos of yourself rapping to Snapchat. “My name’s MC Rusty and I’m here to say,” Rusty raps, Mara beatboxing in the background, “I do foolish things and get into trouble and need Mark’s help every day!” The video goes viral, and more importantly contains location data that Snap-N-Rap harvests and shares with its advertising partners and mysterious group of Chinese investors.

Funky Winkerbean, 9/18/19

The thing with Funky Winkerbean is that I honestly have a hard time figuring out its narrative point of view sometimes. You’d think that, when you have a plot where a group of comic book dudes get extremely pumped after coming up with a character called “Atomic Ape” who’s going to be a “Lone Ranger in space” (a real thing that happened in this strip), but then one of those dudes gets very upset when a lady suggests that “Atomic Ape” have a sidekick named “Charger Chip,” the point is that the dude is being dumb for getting upset about it! But, like, also, the standard Funky Winkerbean party line is that Superhero Comic Books Are Good, and the world of superhero comics today is actually full of adult dudes who take their obviously goofy superheroes extremely seriously, and resist any attempts to make them not dark and gritty, especially when those attempts are seen as coming from or catering to women, so who knows! Maybe we’re supposed to be rooting for Mopey Pete here! How dare some woman try to water down the masculine majesty of Atomic Ape, the Lone Ranger of space?