Is annoying Rex Morgan considered "good," because he's done lots of that

$ · January 30, 2024

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/30/24 Oh yeah, so it turns out that Lyle "Old Man" Ollman is actually Rene/"Jimmy"'s uncle! I admit I made fun of Lyle for not having the...

The circle of life

$ · January 29, 2024

Gasoline Alley, 1/29/24 One of the central and increasingly untenable contradictions of Gasoline Alley is that it is and always has been a strip where the...

Feel like the Uniform Code of Military Conduct is being violated here, just my take

$ · January 28, 2024

Dennis the Menace, 1/28/24 Folks, let me tell you something about my brain (and yeah, sorry, you're reading a blog with the URL josh reads dot com, you...

Soapy ... conclusions? Fingers crossed

$ · January 27, 2024

Mary Worth, 1/27/24 Remember when Keith first showed up in this strip as a closed-off, taciturn man who tried to get through his interactions with Mary with...

Metapost: The comments ... the comments are good

$ · January 26, 2024

FRIDAY MORNING MEANS COMMENT OF THE WEEK TIME EVERYBODY!!!! "Rene's Scooby Doo reference is frankly unearned. The Mystery Inc teens actually put in the...

Friday quickies

$ · January 26, 2024

Dick Tracy, 1/26/24 Fan fact, everybody: "the Amazing Baxter" is actually Fata, in a very clever disguise as a man, which the square, conventional minds of...

Troubling Wednesday

$ · January 24, 2024

Hi and Lois, 1/25/24 Wow, that is a sinister expression on Dot's face there in the final panel. "If I had the God-like power to erase anything from...

Soapy catchups

$ · January 24, 2024

Judge Parker, 1/24/24 Oh, yeah, so it turns out that the long lost Parker sister is in fact a scam artist -- not, to be clear, that she's only pretending to...

They should be marketing a whole line of corpse-guy Successories posters honestly

$ · January 23, 2024

Dick Tracy, 1/23/24 I think it's sweet that these two ladies keep a poster of their deceased corpse-guy (he was a corpse-guy before he was deceased, to be...

Historical Monday

$ · January 22, 2024

Family Circus, 1/22/24 Look, I'm not going to stand here and claim that the line between "saying the darnedest things" and "heresy" is a clear and bright...

Sunday sadness

$ · January 21, 2024

Shoe, 1/21/24 This is a truly terrible joke and I don't want to deal with it on any of it's "humorous" levels but I think we should pause to think about the...

St. Slim preserve us

$ · January 20, 2024

Gasoline Alley, 1/20/24 Longtime faithful readers know that in most of the strips I comment on here, there's at least one character upon whom I wish every...

Birds? On a boat? Sounds dubious

$ · January 19, 2024

Shoe, 1/19/24 I was going to go on a long rant here about how comics gag writers so frequently come up with a joke and then work backwards from it even if it...

Nobody in the Dusin family should know real human affection. I forbid it

$ · January 18, 2024

Dustin, 1/18/24 I think my record on the themes and narrative content of Dustin is pretty clear -- I find them extremely objectionable, perhaps more than any...

Even the courthouse has those patched curtains, incredibly sad

$ · January 17, 2024

Blondie, 1/17/24 I gotta say, "In honor of Kid Inventors Day, I created an alarm clock app that doesn't work" is probably the funniest sentence I've ever...

Tuesday quickies

$ · January 16, 2024

Crock, 1/16/24 I'm not sure what series of facial expressions I would make if I spoke to my institutionalized mother about the fact that she's so dissocated...

Dramatic-ish developments

$ · January 15, 2024

Mary Worth, 1/15/24 Well, thank God, surely now that this Mary Worth story has wrapped up in the most boring manner possible we can move on to something more...

The guy who he was going to sell the loot to is probably also pretty sad

$ · January 14, 2024

Beetle Bailey, 1/14/24 I know I spend more time thinking about the logistics of what happens in-universe in newspaper comic strips than just about anyone...

There's no ties in basketball, but he's giving it his best

$ · January 13, 2024

Mary Worth, 1/13/24 There's been a few complaints from the commentariat that I haven't been covering the end (?) of the Keith-Kitty-Brad-Sonia saga. The...

Metapost: Brr! It's cold out there for a COTW

$ · January 12, 2024

Laugh yourself warm with this comment of the week! "Sexy plotlines and I'm learning Spanish? Top that, Duolingo!" --Old School Allie Cat These runners up...

Black suit/dark grey shirt is another warning sign

$ · January 12, 2024

Dick Tracy, 1/12/24 Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah, Tess is a private investigator and her agency deals with different aspects of the same shadowy underworld...

Maybe he can hunt down the Ben Franklin golf grifter guy, for revenge

$ · January 11, 2024

The Lockhorns and Blondie, 1/11/24 The word app, as a shorthand for application in the computer programming sense, was as attested as early as 1992, which...

Moon over Flagstontown

$ · January 10, 2024

Hi and Lois, 1/10/23 You know and I know that Trixie Flagston has been doing her thing ("her thing" being sitting unattended on the floor for hours at a time...

Bowling ... the most erotic of pastimes for the divorced man

$ · January 9, 2024

Slylock Fox, 1/9/24 Foolish animals! Did you really think that you could overthrow the humans and that your dominion over the Earth would be secure? In fact,...

"It's for the drinks!" Oh, ok, that's normal then, I guess

$ · January 8, 2024

Dick Tracy, 1/8/24 "Wait," you're probably thinking, "Why is that any better? Why is getting back at Dick Tracy by killing his wife somehow easier or less...

Sadly, most health insurance plans don't cover "bonkus of the conkus"

$ · January 7, 2024

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/7/24 Oh my goodness, Rene's reign of grifting terror is finally at an end, stopped once and for all by the deliberate and heroic efforts...

Daddies, daughters, doctors, etc.

$ · January 6, 2024

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/6/24 Personally, if I had fled in the middle of the night from the people I had defrauded in order to avoid a lawsuit, and also was...

Metapost: Another year, another COTW

$ · January 5, 2024

Start 2024 off with a bang and with your first (but by no means last!) comment of the week! "Today's Rex Morgan is far more interesting if you read 'CLAP!'...

Hairy beasts

$ · January 5, 2024

Hagar the Horrible, 1/5/24 Many medieval Scandinavians communities relied on herding for meat and milk, so controlling wolves and other canines was a task...

Hope you like room temperature tap water, buddy, because that's what the Mitchells have on offer

$ · January 4, 2024

Dick Tracy, 1/4/24 So the goth pasta pun lady is also a stage magician, and this guy on stage with her yelling "Oh, yeah!” is an audience volunteer, and I...

Fun with facial expressions

$ · January 3, 2024

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/3/24 Sure, we're being told that this crowd is CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!ing in big red letters, but by their faces, they don't look that...

IT IS 2024 AND THE COMICS CURMUDGEON IS STILL BLOGGING ABOUT COMICS, YOU LUCKY BASTARDS

$ · January 2, 2024

Happy 2024, everybody! How did you celebrate the recent holiday season? Mary Worth, 12/25/23 Did you, like Mary Worth, place yourself in the role of the Magi...

Last-minute Christmas laffs

$ · December 24, 2023

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/24/23 I guess real Snuffheads like you and me don't need reminding, but the point of the throwaway panels at the top of...

Ominous Christmas

$ · December 23, 2023

The Lockhorns, 12/23/23 Usually a crinkly smile on Leroy means that he's in the midst of being dramatically drunk, but I'm not quite sure what vibe he's...

Metapost: Not quite vacation COTW

$ · December 22, 2023

Folks, I'll be taking my traditional long winter's nap next week, but there are still a couple day's worth of comics in the hopper that you'll get enjoy this...

Holly jolly horny Christmas

$ · December 22, 2023

Gasoline Alley, 12/22/23 OK, I may have to revise my previous statement of approval for Gasoline Alley's wild, no-rules approach to the mall Santa game....

Let's get biblical

$ · December 21, 2023

Blondie, 12/21/23 Huh, well, I guess "Josh uses his dumb blog about comic strips to talk about the infancy narratives in the Bible" year had to come around...

Soapy catch-ups

$ · December 20, 2023

Dick Tracy, 12/20/23 So Dick and X. Libris's sword fight ended with X. tumbling to her death from a spiral staircase, which was in a library full of her...

Suburban faces (human and bird)

$ · December 19, 2023

Blondie, 12/19/23 Of the legacy comics characters out there, Blondie has a less expressive face than most -- I think the word I'd use to describe it most of...

Crying and pouting are fine! Go crazy, everybody!

$ · December 18, 2023

Dennis the Menace and Gasoline Alley, 12/18/23 Christmas is just a week away, and that means our beloved (?) legacy comic strip characters are starting to...

The buns are also the wrong color, what on Earth is happening

$ · December 17, 2023

Mary Worth, 12/17/23 Many years ago, something or some collection of things I said on this site convinced some readers that I was a vegetarian, which anyone...

Mostly Christmas quickies

$ · December 16, 2023

Crock, 12/16/23 The infancy story in the Gospel of Matthew is the one that mentions the Magi, and while it specifies three different gifts they brought to...

Blood bounces on ice

$ · December 15, 2023

Gil Thorp, 12/15/23 Oh, wow, I think this is the first year we've ever seen ice hockey take its rightful place in the pantheon of Mudlark sports! And it's...

Magnanimous Thursday

$ · December 14, 2023

Crock, 12/14/23 Not that I will ever give up on my long-running feud with Crock, but even I have to admit that this is a decent joke. Sure, in order for it...

Remember when they drew Mud like was seven feet tall? Let's bring that back

$ · December 13, 2023

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/13/23 The real victim of this whole big late-plot Mirakle Method plagiarism reveal will not be Rene, who will manage to weasel out of...

Ha ha, they're going to put that poor dog in the pound

$ · December 12, 2023

Beetle Bailey, 12/12/23 One of the whole points of Beetle Bailey is that the title character is lazy. Or, I guess if we're being more charitable, despite the...

Moderately funny animals

$ · December 11, 2023

Slylock Fox, 12/11/23 I think we all (and by "we all" I mean "me and you hapless fools who somehow cannot get enough of my Slylock Fox commentary") have long...

I have a checkbook but I'm a WEIRDO

$ · December 10, 2023

Dustin, 12/10/23 A problem in comics in which nobody ages is that the viewpoint characters birth year gets later and later, even though their creators get...

I'm glad I have a home office where I can do my computer yelling in private

$ · December 9, 2023

Pluggers, 12/9/23 Sure, "pluggers lead incredibly boring lives and can't think of anything even vaguely interesting to put into a letter" is a pretty funny...

Metapost: Wintry COTW

$ · December 8, 2023

As we move deeper into December, zip up your winter jacket (or, if you live in Southern California like me, get into the cardigan section of your closet) and...