Backhanded Compliment

Les finally pries open that smirk in today’s strip. Does he continue to live up to his well-earned reputation as the biggest schmuck on the comics page? Boy, does he ever!

This is, perhaps, the perfect test to see if the jerk store called and is running out of you:
Your friend has a panicked expression on his face and is admittedly struggling to breathe, beyond being typically “winded”, what do you do?

– A – Make a joke about his possibly health-threatening condition being an improvement for the environment.
– B – Do pretty much anything else.

Bonus Haiku:
“I don’t know what it
Is… but I just can’t seem to
Exhale completely”

Even when potentially in need of medical attention, Bull puts forth his second haiku in as many panels. This is notable because it is more than the last three years’ worth of writing from Les and Mopey Pete combined.

Haik-ugh!

Aging gracefully
No one in Westview does it
As today’s strip shows

Smugly smirking Les
Has not spoken yet this week
Still so hate-able

The second panel
It is um… well, it… oh boy
Photoshop away

So many chain links
Has TB found his new muse
Alongside red brick

“These days I grunt when
I sit down for a break… and
When I get back up”

Well, what do you know
Bull is a better poet
Than Les the writer

Wimbledumb

Warning!

Today’s strip contains panels that some readers may find offensive. At least we hope you find Les smirking offensive. If you don’t, what is wrong with you? Anyways, reader discretion is advised.

Bull really has no excuse for not remembering how to open up a can, he used to open up a can all the time on Les. Oh wait, sorry, that was retconned… Or was it ret-retconned?

Les and Bull’s tennis matches were a not uncommon element of late Act II, but I am not sure we’ve seen them play at all in Act III. It was on the tennis court that Les finally became comfortable with having Bull as a coworker, after the reveal that Bull bullied Les back in high school because he went home to an abusive father every night. Just another reminder that literally everybody in this strip wallowed through a maudlin morass of serious issues at some point during Act II.

Marred, Mangled Manner

Hey! Didn’t we see today’s strip back on July 1?. Please don’t let this become a running gag…
Carl is not in view in panel 3. We can only hope he survived the performance.

The United States is now 240 years old, only a couple years younger than Funky looks these days. Have a safe and happy 4th of July everyone!

Old Tyme Rock ‘N Roll

Well, I guess today’s strip provides some semblance of continuity to Morton Winkerbean’s uh… dream (I guess that’s what it is) of being a “rock star”, lining up with Thursday’s strip about drugs and groupies and whatnot. That does seem like an odd dream for a nursing home resident, even today as the stars of the rock ‘n roll era approach nursing home resident age. Still, it actually kinda makes sense that a wannabe rock star would name his son “Funky”.

This also lines up relatively well with the Mort we first met back in 2011, still not fully lucid and irritating the folks around him with bad dad jokes. Today’s Mort is less somber and churlish than the on we saw at Christmas five years back, but we’ve only ever seen him like that around Funky. Perhaps we can chalk that up to Mort simply not liking his son… another reason he might have named him “Funky”.