The Comics Curmudgeon

"Can't believe they were OUT OF MEATBALLS" he's furiously thinking to himself

$ · December 13, 2021

Mary Worth, 12/13/21 Oh, man, the Wilbur-Estelle reunion doesn't look to be a dream or a fantasy sequence, just a sad testimonial to what happens in our...

The weather forecast is probably really important to birds, if you think about it

$ · December 12, 2021

Shoe, 12/12/21 I honestly, and shamefully, would be down for Shoe to mine for laffs the relationship between Treetops' one newspaper and its (presumably) one...

Hope he's getting a lot of spittle on that mic

$ · December 11, 2021

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/11/21 GTV8 ANCHOR BRYCE NEWMARK: Tonight's top story: One local big sister, previously believed to be "basically OK," has now been...

Metapost: COTW RIGHT NOW!

$ · December 10, 2021

WHOOMP HERE IT IS COTW! "This is the most sexual this strip has ever been or will be again. Ten years from now the fans will still be talking about that time...

Fast take Friday

$ · December 10, 2021

Dick Tracy, 12/10/21 Ever since the raid on Apparatus HQ, Dick's been hard at work down in the phrenology lab, trying to determine if the Ace of Spades's...

"According to YOU" would be a good name for a TV news segment full of wild claims that aren't fact-checked

$ · December 9, 2021

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/9/21 I honestly kind of respect how many no shits this local news crew gives about this extremely pointless segment. Like, normally they...

Sunrise, sunset

$ · December 8, 2021

Hi and Lois, 12/8/21 I’m reasonably sure we’ve never actually seen Trixie walking before? It’s 100% appropriate that this is the context in which she takes...

Doorknobs would be right at eye level for Snuffy, I'll give him that

$ · December 7, 2021

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/7/21 So Nancy finally got herself motivated to put an evil scheme in motion, for certain limited definitions of “evil” and “scheme,” and...

New tech for old people

$ · December 6, 2021

Crankshaft, 12/6/21 Look, it’s not that I want to be a comics curmudgeon, all the time; sometimes it’s just important to me that comics do a better job of...

Can we just transition this strip entirely to Pierre and Libby being best pals

$ · December 5, 2021

Hagar the Horrible, 12/5/21 Yet another example of why the so-called "throwaway" panels at the top of a Sunday strip, which are excised in some paper layouts...

We won't be laughing when the hillbilles conquer us riding their war salamanders

$ · December 4, 2021

Mary Worth, 12/4/21 Look, Wilbur, they’re fish. They’re fish! They’re fine, but the gulf between their world and a human’s is much wider than between, say, a...

Metapost: December COTW is go!!!!

$ · December 3, 2021

Time keeps on slippin' into the future, and it's now the first comment of the week of the last month of 2021: "For all that Mary talks Wilbur up, she would...

Sad couples Friday

$ · December 3, 2021

The Lockhorns, 12/3/21 That’s right, Leroy! Loretta is old enough to remember the golden age of online discourse, when people wrote long essays about...

Bitter old love

$ · December 2, 2021

Mary Worth, 12/2/21 “JOSH” I can almost here you yelling, “You haven’t talked about Mary Worth all week! Is there something wrong with Mary Worth, or with...

Dick mostly wants to show off his physique the way a trench coat never could

$ · December 1, 2021

Crankshaft and Curtis, 12/1/21 I’m genuinely of the opinion that “gaslighting,” as a word, at one point conveyed a useful concept but has had its impact...

Not sure how jaywalking is defined in a town with no real roads

$ · November 30, 2021

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/30/21 I'm reasonably sure that I've never seen the blessings of the Anglo-Norman system of trial by jury granted to the...

Yes, yes, their names are "Maggot" and "Grossie," yes, this is terrible beyond words, yes, we all know this

$ · November 29, 2021

Crock, 11/29/21 “Hmm,” I bet you’re thinking, “a four-digit number that turns out to be the price in dollars and cents of an entire barrel of wine sure is a...

YES it's the same two comics as yesterday, it's MY BLOG, I do what I WANT

$ · November 28, 2021

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/28/21 If you want the answer to “Why is Rex Morgan boring now” in a nutshell, here it is: one of the strip’s more devious characters has...

The fact that its formerly rigid body bends doesn't even bother me, I'm becoming numb

$ · November 27, 2021

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/27/21 Here’s the thing, folks: I spent a lot of brain power this week remembering the various Funkyverse familial relationships and it’s...

Not sure the <i>Funky</i>verse can resist the temptation to make this a superspreader event

$ · November 26, 2021

Hi and Lois, 11/26/21 Almost every family patriarch in a newspaper comic is a baby boomer, with tickets to the original Woodstock in a scrapbook and a disco...

Staring at my mashed potatoes, getting increasingly furious about comics continuity errors around a horny old man

$ · November 25, 2021

Funky Winkerbean, 11/25/21 Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! If you’re looking for something to be thankful for, maybe you should give thanks that you don’t...

These delicious muffins will break down her poor victim's resistance

$ · November 24, 2021

Dick Tracy, 11/24/21 It really tickles me to think that the various deformed criminals of Dick Tracy have their own fairly normal lives, from which they are...

"Thank goodness we don't have to give her more amnesia!"

$ · November 23, 2021

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/23/21 I think it's completely legit to say, "Hmm, when this strip's child character sold a book for a lot of money to a museum somehow...

Just sittin' on the ol' Viking-on-the-lam bench

$ · November 22, 2021

Hagar the Horrible, 11/22/21 Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas famously begins with its main character, Henry Hill, going on at great length about how much fun it...

Better than playing "inhuman wheelbarrow," I guess

$ · November 21, 2021

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/21/21 Snuffy Smith trufans! Do you want to get hot Snuffy Smith visual content like the turkey in today’s installment?...

Sam should be thrilled that he can finally just throw money at this problem

$ · November 20, 2021

Judge Parker, 11/20/21 So, see, the mayor has been launching a vendetta against Abbey, falsely accusing her of burning down her own B&B in both the court of...

Metapost: [COTW wordplay goes here]

$ · November 19, 2021

[Setup for comment of the week goes here] "I'm actually mad at how inaccurate the darndest thing in Family Circus is. Little kids think all grownups are...

Not sure what kind of store "DASHn&OUT" is supposed to be, it has a [squints] barrel full of ice?

$ · November 19, 2021

Blondie, 11/19/21 I know I spend far too much time going on and on about comic book time here, but it really is an interesting lens for analyzing long-...

The Day The Hippies Came To Town

$ · November 18, 2021

Mary Worth, 11/18/21 This is, even within the context of a Wilbur storyline in Mary Worth, extremely sad. Remember earlier in this storyline when he was...

Kids today with their cell phones and their TikToks and the unrealistic productivity demands placed upon them

$ · November 17, 2021

Beetle Bailey, 11/17/21 Miss Buxley's face isn't what you would call "expressive" -- it's more what I would call "blowup sex doll" -- but given that she's...

Title to change to "Funky's Dad's Harem" by 2023

$ · November 16, 2021

Funky Winkerbean, 11/16/21 Remember how after the big post-Lisa’s-death Funky Winkerbean time jump, all the promotional material around the strip said it was...

Felicitous pairings

$ · November 15, 2021

The Lockhorns, 11/15/21 I’m really loving Leroy’s little bar cart here. You never know what room in the house you might be in when you abruptly need to...

Honestly shocked to learn the Flagston twins have social lives

$ · November 14, 2021

Crock, 11/14/21 Crock has a long-running bit about how there’s a talking chicken who’s always on the verge of being cooked and eaten by the strip’s...

"Maybe we SHOULDN'T be bringing them to church, actually," the Keane parents are thinking

$ · November 13, 2021

Crankshaft, 11/13/21 In one of the more jarring bits of Funkyverse visual shorthand, traditionally panels that are supposed to be flashbacks are depicted in...

Friday quickies

$ · November 12, 2021

Beetle Bailey, 11/12/21 Plato is exactly the kind of dork who would try to pull off the “the most erotic organ of all is the brain” thing, but declaring that...

I too would rage against the Funkyverse's creator, given the opportunity

$ · November 11, 2021

Mary Worth, 11/11/21 Wilbur continues to moderately out-hip Estelle in his choice of music, turning for his next number to Gotye’s 2011 hit “Somebody That I...

She might need to eventually get even more "on the nose" and bop him on his actual nose

$ · November 10, 2021

Beetle Bailey, 11/10/21 Wow, is it up to me now to be the guardian of Beetle Bailey lore? I guess it is, so here's my gripe: this is absolutely not a Zero...

The song choice absolutely puts Estelle in the Britney role, obviously

$ · November 9, 2021

Dennis the Menace, 11/9/21 I guess the joke here is supposed to be that Dennis is misinterpreting a traditional bridal party as some sort of harem situation?...

That face! That scrunched up pissy face! ["chef's kiss" gesture]

$ · November 8, 2021

Mary Worth, 11/8/21 I have to say that there was a point, early in this Wilbur storyline, where I was like, "Ugh, another Wilbur storyline? Really?" And...

He SHOULDN'T be alive, we all agree on this

$ · November 7, 2021

Mary Worth, 11/7/21 Like a weird pervert who has become so addled by online pornography that he needs ever more bizarre and tentacle-heavy erotic imagery in...

Saturday mostly one-panel quickies

$ · November 6, 2021

Pluggers, 11/6/21 Man-animals are OK, but pluggers often prefer the company of full-animals, who provide a comforting reminder of the ways things used to be,...

"For example, I like the other thing that apparently everyone else in this town likes"

$ · November 5, 2021

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/5/21 Well, it looks like Griff’s loyalty to his old friend – who was, let’s be real, pretty rude to him when he made a perfectly polite...

The butterflies are like three feet tall, this is an understandable mistake

$ · November 4, 2021

Gil Thorp, 11/4/21 The ... B? C? ... plot of the fall Gil Thorp storyline is that star running back Chance Macy isn't really interested in the enticements of...

Cigars, definitely the thing we associate with the word "bogart"

$ · November 3, 2021

Dick Tracy, 11/3/21 I know I shouldn’t quibble about “realism” in a strip that features a seedy bar called “Bucket of Blood,” one of the patrons of which is...

Pierre is far too indignant to speak, so you're spared my faux French accent bit

$ · November 2, 2021

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/2/21 When it comes to elected officials, Snuffy only wants to know one thing: will they stand firm in the face of the...

Moderately morbid Monday

$ · November 1, 2021

Crock, 11/1/21 I'm going to take a break from my long-running feud with Crock to offer some helpful humor advice: in the third panel here, Crock and Poulet...

Exasperated Sunday

$ · October 31, 2021

Shoe, 10/31/21 This is clearly a Macbeth-themed restaurant, but the Perfesser does a Hamlet joke when he orders and isn’t just immediately ejected onto the...

Hell is other fish and/or parents

$ · October 30, 2021

Marvin, 10/30/21 I’ll say this for Marvin: when it introduced its new fish characters a few weeks back, it could have played it safe and just used them as...

You have to pay a real professional for Cryptkeeper-style scary puns

$ · October 29, 2021

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/29/21 Today's "punchline" is some seriously low-rent "The real scary clowns are those clowns in Congress, amiright people"...

Metapost: Surprisingly timed COTW

$ · October 28, 2021

Your COTW is early this week but do not be alarmed! It is due to an Unavoidable Schedule Thing and the rest of our publishing schedule will proceed as...