The Comics Curmudgeon

Are his wish-granting capabilities all sunflower-focused

$ · May 21, 2025

Heathcliff, 5/21/25 Real heads who read Heathcliff daily know that most weeks have a theme of some sort -- "dirt week", "garbage week", and so forth. This...

Sitcom-adjacent jokes

$ · May 20, 2025

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/20/25 On Sunday, June got the mail, and told her sons that the family had gotten a wedding invite, and they were like "You get free cake...

Crime and/or punishment

$ · May 19, 2025

Hagar the Horrible, 5/19/25 I really appreciate how chill Hagar is about his own prosecution here. Based on the wigs, he's probably being tried for his...

Bleak Sunday

$ · May 18, 2025

Shoe, 5/18/25 You know I'm a fan of the depressing Shoe strips where either the Perfesser or Skyler is sitting in the living room chair and the other one has...

Current and future ghosts

$ · May 17, 2025

The Phantom, 5/17/25 One of the key ongoing dramas of The Phantom is the question of what woman will contribute her genetic material to the ongoing Phantom...

Metapost: May flowers COTW

$ · May 16, 2025

Spring has sprung (not eligible in all areas), and now it's time for the comment of the week! "YES! The grueling, meaningless life uneventful!! That's the...

Speaking affectionately ill of the dead

$ · May 16, 2025

Dick Tracy, 5/16/25 The current Dick Tracy story wrapped up with our criminals fleeing from the cops and in the process conveniently getting into a terrible...

Thursday is for little games and tasks

$ · May 15, 2025

Hi and Lois, 5/15/25 Sorry, Hi: today's teens would never try to read something and listen to something else simultaneously. Instead, they focus all their...

Wednesday quickies

$ · May 14, 2025

Mary Worth, 5/14/25 Wilbur appears to be smiling guilelessly, but he has to know at some level that this conversation is not going great. That's why he's...

Tuesday is for death

$ · May 13, 2025

B.C., 5/13/25 Remember a few months ago, when I criticized Mother Goose and Grimm for doing a take on the classic Far Side "I'm a cowboy!” vulture joke that...

Fish fancy? These fish certainly aren't

$ · May 12, 2025

Pluggers, 5/12/25 Man, the facial expressions in this one really make it, and by "make it" I mean "make it clear what a grim marital scene these two will be...

Dagwood's "waiter routine" involves delivering one (1) cup of coffee

$ · May 11, 2025

Family Circus, 5/11/25 My favorite part of this strip about a husband taking exactly one day to help with the domestic labor his wife does all year is how,...

Saturday quickies

$ · May 10, 2025

Mary Worth, 5/10/25 God, I really want to hear the withering contempt Dawn is putting on the word "love" here, which is being conveyed orthographically by...

Metapost: Slightly late COTW

$ · May 9, 2025

"Oh no!" you've probably been thinking. "It's getting pretty late in the day! Where's the comment of the week? Where's Josh? Has he forsaken us, for our...

Young love and/or kerchiefs

$ · May 9, 2025

Dustin, 5/9/25 It's a little weird writing a blog about the relatively small world of the syndicated newspaper comics, because I know for sure that many of...

Tomato sauce is vegan, Mary, c'mon

$ · May 8, 2025

Mary Worth, 5/8/25 Say what you will about Mary, but she is the master of manners, and one of the keys to having good manners is that if you can't say...

Pride, the fall, and so forth

$ · May 7, 2025

Heathcliff, 5/7/25 The thing about Heathcliff is that he should be dominant in any situation in which he finds himself, either having established himself as...

Amusing teen Tuesday

$ · May 6, 2025

Luann, 5/6/25 Luann is perennially on its weird psychosexual bullshit -- Luann and Phil, who are college-aged adults, have already smooched but somehow Luann...

Do people not get what the "anonymous" part of the name means anymore or what

$ · May 5, 2025

Gil Thorp, 5/5/25 Hey, remember when we met Marty's AA pal, "Clam," and I said, "Ha ha, wouldn't it be funny if that was the same person as Clambake, the guy...

I guess that's why they call them the funnies

$ · May 4, 2025

Dennis the Menace, 5/4/25 OK, obviously I was going to object that "Sunday school was awesome today!" is possibly the least menacing thing Dennis has ever...

Spooky scary

$ · May 3, 2025

Six Chix and Blondie, 5/3/25 We have I think pretty conclusively established that the Blondie team mines National Day Calendar dot com when they need an...

Metapost: May flowers, COTW, and so forth

May 2, 2025

Behold, your top comment ... of the week! "If you're the kind of snobby high-brow whose idea of art is a framed square of neon pink, you deserve to be torn...

True romance

$ · May 2, 2025

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/2/25 OK, call me a hopeless romantic, or maybe a drama queen, but I found myself simply unable to give two hoots about Summer's...

Finding Archie irritating is relatable, I guess

$ · May 1, 2025

Gearhead Gertie, 5/1/25 When you have a main character with a strong and deranged point of view, like Gertie in Gearhead Gertie, the question arises: are we...

Ambivalent feelings about a man in uniform

$ · April 30, 2025

Shoe, 4/30/25 I dunno, the genuinely freaked out expression on this guy's face, plus the fact that he's wearing makeshift combat gear, including an outdated...

She was already wearing the color-coordinated tank top and headband, don't need to get ready if you stay ready

$ · April 29, 2025

Family Circus, 4/29/25 Look, we all make fun of the crania of the various Family Circus children. "Melonheads," we call them, and it's become enough of a...

Unnecessarily erudite Monday

$ · April 28, 2025

Daddy Daze, 4/28/25 One of my favorite little linguistic quirks is the existence of true homonyms: when two separate words with different meanings and...

Teen-ish girl Sunday

$ · April 27, 2025

Dustin, 4/27/25 You might recall last week when Dustin was, if not concerned about his parents' increasingly obvious marital dysfunction and mutual...

How sharper than a serpent's tooth

$ · April 26, 2025

Dennis the Menace, 4/26/25 Obviously my "is this menacing or not" bit is done mostly in jest, but I genuinely think this is menacing behavior. Making...

Metapost: comments comments comment comments COMMENTS

$ · April 25, 2025

...of the WEEK, here it is, y'all "If that tire trick actually works, which is doubtful, maybe Slylock should use it to liberate the chest full of gold...

Friday gripes

$ · April 25, 2025

Shoe, 4/25/25 I am almost certainly overthinking this, but as a highly skilled and well-compensated comics blogger it's my job to overthink it, so: why, and...

Ditto, are the only jobs you know about baseball-related

$ · April 24, 2025

Hi and Lois, 4/24/25 I love that Hi has absolute faith that Ditto, despite not having shown any great baseball prowess in this strip to date, will eventually...

From the mouths of babes

$ · April 23, 2025

Dennis the Menace, 4/23/25 Dennis, while you're distracting your father with these inane questions, Mr. Wilson has gotten the jump on him: look at him, he's...

Mostly soapy Tuesday

$ · April 22, 2025

Judge Parker, 4/22/25 Wow, Sophie, remember when one of your friends got mildly kidnapped back when you were a tween, and you got all revved up about the...

Monday is for troubling revelations

$ · April 21, 2025

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/21/25 It's Monday, y'all! Monday, the beginning of a new week in the soaps, with promises of exciting setups playing out over the next...

He is risen, and is demanding chocolate

$ · April 20, 2025

Blondie and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/20/25 No one person can know the totality of human cultural practice, of course, even within their own country,...

Sad Saturday quickies

$ · April 19, 2025

Herb and Jamaal, 4/19/25 I wonder if Jamaal knows that Rev. Croom, who to all appearances is just over there quietly enjoying his coffee, is actually musing...

Metapost: Delicious, nutritious COTW

$ · April 18, 2025

This week's comment of the week ... it's good for what ails ya: "Good to see an appearance by Johnny Dollar, the man with action-packed expense account."...

Not taking questions on which "biz" I'm talking about

$ · April 18, 2025

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/18/25 The chronology of this Rex Morgan storyline flashback has now looped back around to the point where the beat cop who's been...

Mostly sullen teen edition

$ · April 17, 2025

Dustin, 4/17/25 Really loving Dustin's facial expression in the second panel here. "Ah," he's thinking, "he doesn't love her either. He may hate her as much...

Journeys through time

$ · April 16, 2025

Archie, 4/16/25 I can't even keep track anymore of when these Archie reruns originated, and whether the coloring actually dates from that era or was added in...

Several historical deep dives

$ · April 15, 2025

Blondie, 4/15/25 When I read today's Blondie, I had one immediate and overwhelming thought: isn't Dagwood's beloved living room chair blue, rather than the...

Milky Monday

$ · April 14, 2025

Gil Thorp, 4/14/24 Look, my mission is as always to read the comics so you don't have to, but sometimes with the continuity strips you really do need to read...

Soapy Sunday

$ · April 13, 2025

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/13/25 Oh, a thing I forgot to tell you about that happened in Rex Morgan, M.D., is that Summer managed to track down other people her...

Death, doom, etc.

$ · April 12, 2025

Mary Worth, 4/12/25 Welp, looks like Dawn's about to die in agony after drinking a powerful drain cleaner ... and that's the tea, sis! Ha ha, get it, because...

Metapost: The comments ... they call out to you for the reading

$ · April 11, 2025

This week: The comment of the week: Right here: Right now: "What sells this is the final panel. Remember, Dustin's equally-terrible-but-in-a-different-way...

Watch where you're pointing that thing, narration box

$ · April 11, 2025

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/11/25 WHO IS THIS MAN, AND WHY IS HE IN THE CROWD? I dunno. Probably he's the person who was responsible for the stalker guy dying...

Ladies like big chins like that, right? The ones that look like butts? That turns them on?

$ · April 10, 2025

Dick Tracy, 4/10/25 So the guy in the suit is lead detective in the case of the almost-stolen corpse, and I guess he figured out who the corpse used to be...

What kind of hippie accepts a title of nobility

$ · April 9, 2025

Suburban Fairy Tales, 4/9/25 I made a fairly embarrassing error in my post about Suburban Fairy Tales a couple days ago, in which I implied that the second...

I read the comics to protect you from terrible truths

$ · April 8, 2025

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/8/25 Way back in the mists of time when I first started this blog, it was called I Read The Comics So You Don't Have To, and I still...