Family Circus: How many DOES it take?

Dolly's ambition will not be quelled by simple moral platitudes. And Grandma Keane knows as much. She will now pat Dolly on the head and informed her that she has passed today's test.

Blondie: Is that the inside of our refrigerator.

Here we see Dagwood's version of a live sex show.

He's so excited, he forgot to masturbate.

Ziggy: Oh ... a peeping Tom, eh?

And so, in addition to fish and breakfast cereal, Ziggy also masturbates to bathing birds.

Family Circus: I don't think my brain has any more room left to learn stuff.

Fortunately, Billy has already learned everything there is to learn.

Monty: Haven't you seen that WWII Lockheed C-60 hanging in the basement?

There are two punchlines in this comic: the image-based one in the third panel and the dialog-based one in the fourth. They each come in reaction to the set-up in the second panel, and they are each funny on their own. Putting them together, however, somehow makes them both less funny and results in a worse comic. Turning the first punchline into a cut-away with another panel after it robs it of the power it would have had as a final image, while including the image before the fourth panel makes the second punchline seem like an afterthought.

I get the sense that the cartoonist couldn't decide which punchline was better, so he decided to use both. But that's cheating. Part of working in a medium with severe space limitations is being a ruthless editor. Sometimes you have to cut good stuff so that the stuff you do use is more affecting. Not that there aren't times when cheating can pay off. This just isn't one of those cases.

And just in case anyone's wondering, personally, I would have gone with the first punchline. But I'm a big fan of image-based humor, so I'm a little biased.

Funky Winkerbean: So I've become a blurb whore.

Another very partial list of things you can say in the comics section:

1. "Whore."
2. "Anal."

That future Funky Winkerbean plot just gets more and more disturbing.

Family Circus: Just so you know--if you're not doin' anything, I'm not doin' anything either.

Jeffy is subtly hinting that, assuming his father's not busy with anything else, now would be a pretty great time to kill a hooker together.

Pearls Before Swine: I'm thinking about running for the senate...I want to make a difference.

True story: I plan on running for public office next year. I think this blog and the anal rape joke I just made will really help my chances.

Pluggers: You're a plugger if you've bookmarked the obituary page of your local newspaper.

When even the pluggers have switched over to reading it online, you know your local newspaper is doomed.

Also, pluggers are old and obsessed with the terrifying reality of their imminent death, ha ha ha!

Monty: That's my posterior anal casing...

Very partial list of things you can say in the comics section:

1. "Anal."

This surprises me. But I am looking forward to Funky Winkerbean's now inevitable anal rape plot.

Funky Winkerbean: Why Lisa?

Here we see Les attempting to endear himself to the press the only way he knows how: by being condescending douchebag.

Because this is Funky Winkerbean, it will probably work. But in a cruel twist of fate, Les will die horribly before the article is published.