The Comics Curmudgeon

Sunday is for teens and/or birds

$ · August 24, 2025

Shoe, 8/24/25 You of course all know that one of my favorite things to grapple with in every Shoe strip that's even vaguely bird-related is "Did the Shoe...

Gloomy Saturday

$ · August 23, 2025

The Lockhorns, 8/23/25 Look, I don't know how they can make it any more obvious that the Lockhorns are millennials. Today's panel deploys one of the most...

Metapost: Foreshortened COTW

$ · August 22, 2025

Slightly shorter list of comments of the week for a somewhat shorter week on my part, but this week's top comment still delivers the laffs! "Really liking...

Violence (on-screen, on-course, etc.)

$ · August 22, 2025

Luann, 8/22/25 In the current Luann plot, Tiffany has dragged Les to a spa to get a mani-pedi and other treatments, and has been annoyed that he still wants...

Thursday updates

$ · August 21, 2025

Mary Worth, 8/21/25 Mary Worth Update: Olive rushed into the surf and saved her drowning classmate, is one way to describe what happened, although another...

Casual cruelty

$ · August 20, 2025

Blondie, 8/20/25 Blondie generally has its finger on the pulse of what old people are doing on the computer, which is why I'm a little disappointed to see...

Marital discord (implied in Andy's case)

$ · August 19, 2025

Gil Thorp, 8/19/25 When Gil says he's "trying not to take it personally" that his ex wife is now "play[ing] for the other side," you probably think he's...

Triumphant return comics: Sadness, murder, etc.

$ · August 18, 2025

Folks! I am back from my vacation, I am tanned, rested, and ready, and I am diving back into that most beloved of all artistic mediums: the daily comics! Big...

World of Animals VIII

August 17, 2025

"Welcome to World of Animals, an occasional feature; I'm your beloved host Carl, now AI-enhanced! (Although I'm not entirely sure it's my best look.) Anyway,...

Get along, little Chrysomallon squamiferum, and never you roam …

August 16, 2025

So ends the Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser. For more than 20 years, through economic crises, the collapse of print journalism, a global pandemic, and...

Full disclosure

August 15, 2025

Click the banner to contribute by PayPal, or here for other options. Omigosh you guys it's the very last day of the Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser!...

Hither and yon (mostly yon)

August 14, 2025

Click the banner to contribute by PayPal, or here for other options. The Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser is in full swing! Swing along, with a generous...

Mostly cussin'

August 13, 2025

Click the banner to contribute by PayPal, or here for other options. The Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser offers so many ways to contribute, it boggles...

Short 'n' snippy

August 12, 2025

Click the banner to contribute by PayPal, or here for other options. It's the Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser, celebrating more than two decades of high-...

It's the 2025 Comics Curmudgeon Summer Fundraiser!

August 11, 2025

Click the banner to contribute by PayPal, or here for other options. It's the Summer Fundraiser for the Comics Curmudgeon, now in its third decade of...

But then how do they calculate the vig?

August 11, 2025

Dick Tracy, 8/11/25 Sam, Lizz, and Lee are searching the apartment of loan shark Sphyrna, murdered by tech whiz Theresa Lakoyle with her glowing gun....

Inside ball

August 10, 2025

Phantom, 8/10/25 One of Phantom's many charms is its meticulous attention to aviation history. That doomed B-17F Flying Fortress is the Miss Nonalee II,...

Water sports

August 9, 2025

Marvin, 8/9/25 Sincere thanks to the editors who demanded that Marvin's creative team add the garden hose, change the punchline, and recolor the runoff....

Metapost: COTW before the storm (the storm being me going on vacation)

$ · August 8, 2025

Hi all! Your comment of the week in a moment, but first, a programming note: I'll be on vacation for the next week and change and will leave you in the hands...

Beach troubles

$ · August 8, 2025

Family Circus, 8/8/25 The whole gimmick of "NOT ME" is that the Keane Kids say "not me!" when confronted with naughty things that they have, in fact, done....

Gertie is possibly already drunk. Trouble brewing

$ · August 7, 2025

Andy Capp, 8/7/25 You would think that Andy sustaining an injury at "punk rock night" would send me down my usual rabbit-hole of "in what year does Andy Capp...

Wednesday quickies

$ · August 6, 2025

Blondie, 8/6/25 Look, obviously Mr. Dithers is an asshole, but also Dagwood is talking to his wife on speaker while standing like six inches away from...

Can they do telegraphy? I'd like to see the variant they'd do with telegraphy

$ · August 5, 2025

Herb and Jamaal, 8/5/25 "I guess this would be considered illegal..." Hmm, what's he reading about? Sounds juicy "...if they didn't call it a law." Ah, I get...

Weirdly's logo-portrait is pretty cute honestly

$ · August 4, 2025

Slylock Fox, 8/4/25 You might remember a few years back when supposed genius entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes started a company called Theranos that could run...

Curtis will be sorry when Barry achieves samsara and he has nobody to harass

$ · August 3, 2025

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/3/25 Cody may not be a blood relative to Truck, but they do have stuff in common: they're both musicians, and they're both aficionados of...

What if all the kids at her school are psychic and Olive is just a loser

$ · August 2, 2025

Mary Worth, 8/2/25 Not sure what's funnier here: That Olive says it's hard to "ignore the critics," as if there's a Yelp category specifically for tweens and...

Metapost: It is time for COTW

$ · August 1, 2025

No fuss no muss just comment of the week! "Yes, New York City is a dangerous place. Not the people; the inanimate structure of the the city itself is...

All old people problems, this time

$ · August 1, 2025

Crankshaft, 8/1/25 OK, fine, I guess if I'm doing Crankshaft two days in a row, I will explain why Ed and Jeff were in an airport yesterday: It's because Pam...

Problems of youth, problems of age

$ · July 31, 2025

Mary Worth, 7/31/25 I guess the "Olive uses her psychic powers to save Mary from certain death” moment was just a prelude to the main plot, "Olive gets...

It's actually short for "Truckington"

$ · July 30, 2025

Herb and Jamaal, 7/30/25 It seems like just yesterday that Herb stormed into Rev. Croom's office, declaring that he was ambivalent about believing in a...

Comic strip jokes (mostly not funny) (not my jokes, my jokes are all funny)

$ · July 29, 2025

Beetle Bailey, 7/29/25 There's a lot of Beetle Baileys where the joke is that Sarge has beaten Beetle into an undifferentiated mass of broken limbs and...

Hope Jami gets involved in the underground electronic music scene

$ · July 28, 2025

Gil Thorp, 7/28/25 There are two types of Gil Thorp summers: the wacky ones, with plotlines like "Kaz punches his way to a bodyguard job for the Rock 'n'...

We know not what may be, and what we may be is smooshed flat

$ · July 27, 2025

Blondie, 7/27/25 The Blondie creative team has never met a young person that it didn't want to call a lazy sack of shit, but ... I kept waiting for this...

The battle of the generations is OVER

$ · July 26, 2025

The Lockhorns, 7/26/25 The random, silent bystanders who show up in The Lockhorns represent one of the strip's great mysteries. Like, who is this lady, who...

Metapost: Y'all know what time it is (it is time for the COTW, for the record)

$ · July 25, 2025

Are you emotionally and psychologically prepared for this week's comment of the week? I sure hope so, because here it is: "Wizard of Id has succintly...

Sadness, death, etc.

$ · July 25, 2025

Beetle Bailey, 7/25/25 This strip is a pretty good demonstration of the fact that comic characters even within the same universe each have their own...

Thursday is for manimals

$ · July 24, 2025

Slylock Fox, 7/24/25 I gotta say, it's probably pretty annoying to have to write Slylock Fox at this point, because doing cute little animal mysteries...

I believe in everyone. I believe in you

$ · July 23, 2025

Wizard of Id, 7/23/25 I guess in the extremely sketchy world of Wizard of Id characterization, Sir Rodney's whole deal is that he's supposed to be a...

Spiral into madness

$ · July 22, 2025

Family Circus, 7/22/25 I frankly am not a fan of the smug looks on Jeffy and Big Daddy Keane's faces here. Oh, you think it's funny to contemplate how...

Monday outrages

$ · July 21, 2025

Mother Goose and Grimm, 7/21/25 You all know that "fire hydrants are like toilets, to a dog" is one of my pet peeves, but I frankly find it a million times...

Old age, youth, the past, the present, etc.

$ · July 20, 2025

Heathcliff, 7/20/25 I'm a little obsessed with the tiny fish saying "Welcome to the club!" to Jaws. (Side note: Do we agree that the shark from Jaws is named...

Jon minus reasons to live

$ · July 19, 2025

Garfield, 7/19/25 True comics internet oldheads remember Garfield Minus Garfield, a webcomic that, as the title implied, took daily Garfield comics in which...

Metapost: You know it, you love it: It's the COTW

$ · July 18, 2025

This week's comment of the week comin' at ya ... right now: "I'm really uncomfortable with the way Truck is breaking the fourth wall here. 'Are you this...

Using "game" as a verb is a huge red flag, in my opinion

$ · July 18, 2025

Intelligent Life, 7/18/25 Look, buddy, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, also liked to engage in marathon gaming sessions, but he forced his servants to...

OK, to be fair, that's not really GOOD art

$ · July 17, 2025

Gearhead Gertie, 7/17/25 Oh, man, the domestic drama in the Gearhead household just gets more fraught! Gertie's husband Harold, in a desperate attempt to...

Wednesday quickies

$ · July 16, 2025

Hi and Lois, 7/16/25 Hmm, if you have to apply, it isn't really Trixie's pre-school yet, is it, Hi? Really makes you think (about how modern child-rearing is...

Interpersonal relations and their discontents

$ · July 15, 2025

Pardon My Planet, 7/15/25 My least favorite Pardon My Planets (which is really saying something) are the "Ha ha, gender relations, amiright folks?" ones, but...

Somewhere in time

$ · July 14, 2025

Andy Capp, 7/14/25 The question of "When does Andy Capp take place" is increasingly fascinating to me -- characters are on modern dating apps but also they...

I guess it could be a "green substance" gun, technically

$ · July 13, 2025

Dick Tracy, 7/13/25 It seems that the Dick Tracy time travel plot is now over ... and the Dick Tracy ray gun plot has begun! This is one Dick should have a...

Yet more teen action

$ · July 12, 2025

Gil Thorp, 7/12/25 Hey, remember when Keri was in horse therapy, for their eating disorder? Well, big news: they took their horse therapist Britney to prom!...