The Comics Curmudgeon

Various Christmas miracles

$ · December 24, 2024

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/24/24 Fellas! Did your asshole doctor tell you that the reason you feel like shit is because you spend all your time on the couch...

Holidays loom ominously

$ · December 23, 2024

Judge Parker, 12/23/24 Aw, isn't that nice? Sam is going to let Alan enjoy the holidays and wait until the new year until he yells at him for sheltering his...

Ho ho NO

$ · December 22, 2024

Pardon My Planet, 12/22/24 One of my least favorite genres of "Images You Can Buy On A Poster Or T-Shirt" is "Two Dead Celebrities Dressed In Vaguely...

O come to the bowling alley and let us ADORE him

$ · December 21, 2024

Hi and Lois, 12/21/24 Hmm, Ditto, interesting: canonically, in the Bible, Joseph doesn't have any lines (in the sense that no direct speech is attributed to...

Emotional roller coasters

$ · December 20, 2024

Judge Parker, 12/20/24 Last night I had the pleasure of waiting for the bus next to a guy who was doing whip-its on the street corner, and when I say "had...

Take the middle way, neither ho ho ho nor humbug

$ · December 19, 2024

Dennis the Menace and Curtis, 12/19/24 Well, I guess yesterday's Curtis is the start of an arc about how the kids today celebrate holidays differently, using...

Not enough people appreciate a good void these day

$ · December 18, 2024

Mark Trail, 12/18/24 Mark Trail can of course never be an anti-hunting strip per se, but it has always adhered to a strict moral code when it comes to the...

Heresy, hats, etc.

$ · December 17, 2024

Beetle Bailey, 12/17/24 A thing that fascinates me is that deep in the DNA of the daily comics is the idea that their artists conceive of them as a black-...

Space continues to not be the place

$ · December 16, 2024

Gasoline Alley, 12/16/24 So the whole point of these uncanny children going to space in the first place was so that they could write a school report about...

Indignant Sunday

$ · December 15, 2024

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/15/24 Geez, man, what kind of weird Slylock Fox-ass riddle-telling meteorologist do these Snuffy and Lukey listen to....

Dawn will absolutely never learn anything about herself, are you kidding

$ · December 14, 2024

Mary Worth, 12/14/24 OK, reading this almost sent me into a downward spiral -- and here I will pause to tell you that after typing that, I thought, "Hmm, is...

Metapost: Friday the 13th COTW

$ · December 13, 2024

Don't be nervous about this unlucky Friday the 13th! Just like every Friday, we pick one lucky commenter and acknowledge them as the top commenter ... of the...

Friday quickies

$ · December 13, 2024

Judge Parker, 12/13/24 "I mean, we haven't seen a panel showing anyone below the shoulders for weeks now, but I'm pretty sure there's no bed in here and...

Also, the patient very much is uncrustable, so the whole premise is faulty

$ · December 12, 2024

Six Chix, 12/12/24 OK, I get the impulse to turn a bitten-out semicircle on this pastry-shrink into his mouth, but the execution is very uncanny. Like I...

Wednesday is for dumb kids

$ · December 11, 2024

Hi and Lois, 12/11/24 Wait a minute, wait a minute, hold the damn phone, six months ago Hi seemed genuinely depressed to not receive golf gifts for Father's...

Maybe she's fallen in with Sonia, or, worse, Brad

$ · December 10, 2024

Mary Worth, 12/10/24 I guess (for once) Wilbur leaving town is providing us with an opportunity not to see what Wilbur gets up to outside of town but rather...

Lotta carnivore action today

$ · December 9, 2024

Suburban Fairy Tales, 12/9/24 I was going to give you the deep lore behind today's strip but I think it's pretty obvious from context, right? Third little...

Is blogging cringe? We investigate

$ · December 8, 2024

Mary Worth, 12/8/24 Hello, fellow young people! Like me (a young person), you have no doubt been using the word "cringe" in its relatively new slang sense,...

Ha ha, it's funny because the old men hate their wives

$ · December 7, 2024

Marvin, 12/7/24 Black Friday? Enh. Small business Saturday? Whatever. Cyber Monday? Who cares. The real biggest shopping day of the year, as anyone tapped...

Metapost: Keep on COTWing on

$ · December 6, 2024

It's Friday? And that means it's COTW time? You know it's COTW time. "Dr. Jeff notices Mary eating her dessert with a canapé fork and immediately calls 911...

Mostly soapy Friday

$ · December 6, 2024

Judge Parker, 12/6/24 Oh, yeah, my prediction that Judge Parker Senior has his fugitive daughter Anne living in his basement turned out to be correct, much...

Love a newspaper headline that eschews proper nouns

$ · December 5, 2024

Crock, 12/5/24 If these two guys have names, I don't know what they are -- the Wikipedia Crock article just calls them "the men of Outpost 5," and they don't...

No AI could come up with ideas as "complex" (polite euphemism) as "Alice"

$ · December 4, 2024

Slylock Fox, 12/4/24 An extremely fond memory I have from my youth is seeing Fugazi playing an outdoor show in San Francisco sometime around the turn of the...

He shouldn't be alive -- and I for one think it's time to do something about that

$ · December 3, 2024

Mary Worth, 12/3/24 It can be hard to remember sometimes that Wilbur doesn't dedicate his full energy to being a sad loser with a host of emotional problems;...

The dog smells the chicken and wants to eat it, simple as

$ · December 2, 2024

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/2/24 I had never really thought about it, but if you had asked me before today, I would've told you I was pretty sure that...

Mary is about to enter her shut-in era and I'm here for it

$ · December 1, 2024

Six Chix, 12/1/24 Often after reading the daily Six Chix comic strip, I use this weblog to express opinions along the lines "I have no idea what the fuck is...

I could be wrong, it could just be a bunch of skeletons or ghosts or something

$ · November 30, 2024

Judge Parker, 11/30/24 Hey, remember at the beginning of this year, when we found out that the Judges Parker had a secret daughter (to Judge Parker...

Metapost: Progressing pilgrims at the COTW

$ · November 29, 2024

Just as the Mayflower Contract was an important early example of constitutional self-government in the North American British colonies, I have an unwritten...

Maybe they just want to make sure he picks the poop up. Lotta people don't

$ · November 29, 2024

Rex Morgan, M.D, 11/29/24 Oh, hey, it turns out that Rex's cranky old patient is Merle Lewton, who we met a few years ago after he got scammed by Miss...

Thanksgiving quickies

$ · November 28, 2024

Hagar the Horrible, 11/28/24 What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving? Personally, I'm thankful to learn that, in the Hagarverse, the imported Near...

Charterstone will be empty by the afternoon

$ · November 27, 2024

Mary Worth, 11/27/24 Oh, man, this is incredible, we're now on day three of Mary's dinner guests making it very clear that they don't mind at all that...

Can't believe the French are stealing our Thanksgiving. How dare they

$ · November 26, 2024

Crock, 11/26/24 The thing that's great about this Crock strip (and that's a phrase I never thought I'd write) is that Barlow is covered with feathers, which...

Hat Ghost: The Ghost Who Wore A Hat

$ · November 25, 2024

Blondie, 11/25/24 A common development in all sorts of open-ended narratives (comic strips, TV shows, what have you) is that ancillary characters are...

Do the bird-people's tree(?)-houses have roofs?

$ · November 24, 2024

Shoe, 11/24/24 If told you to imagine a local TV news report about a city clerk being appointed, you'd probably think, "Wow! Can't get duller than that!"...

Good thing it's not Princeton, because I'd have some harsh words

$ · November 23, 2024

Mary Worth, 11/23/24 Big news everyone. Huge news. Incredible news. Mary is coming down with COVID or the flu or maybe just a bad cold, who's to say, but the...

Metapost: Pre-prandial comments of the week

$ · November 22, 2024

I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure that laughter is the best way to expand your stomach in preparation for your upcoming Thanksgiving binge. And what...

Unpleasant Friday

$ · November 22, 2024

Gasoline Alley, 11/22/24 Oh, sorry kids, looks like you're going to slowly suffocate to death as your spaceship goes dark and circles Mars in an erratic...

What's next, CRANBERRY SAUCE out of CAN?????

$ · November 21, 2024

Mary Worth, 11/21/24 This whole week has been about everyone ("everyone" being Toby and Dawn, admittedly) getting jazzed as hell about Thanksgiving, because...

Quick takes on still more babies and other terrible children

$ · November 20, 2024

Marvin, 11/20/24 Good news, everyone! Marvin? The terrible baby? The one who does all the pissing and shitting? Well, he doesn't know about sex yet. Yet....

Mostly babies

$ · November 19, 2024

Hi and Lois, 11/19/24 See, here's an example of why Hi and Lois absolutely should stick to its post-punchline vibes: today's strip does have a punchline, and...

What about my inner adult, why isn't anyone concerned about him

$ · November 18, 2024

Gasoline Alley, 11/18/24 Is that really true, Arty? Have today's children seen a lot about Mars on TV? Is there actually a lot of Mars content out there, on...

The shirt ... it is stripy ... honh honh honh

$ · November 17, 2024

Panels from Hagar the Horrible, 11/17/24 "OK, we want people to know she's a prostitute, so we'll give her torn short shorts and fishnet stockings ... but...

Animal-people and people-people

$ · November 16, 2024

Pluggers, 11/16/24 Big news for people tired of reading my typed words and interested in hearing my voice: if you fall into that category and you are...

Metapost: Let's all enjoy some comments of the week

$ · November 15, 2024

This week's top comment! You know it, you love it, etc. "Of all the people in the world, I would most expect Mary to caution us all about swimming within an...

Downer Friday

$ · November 15, 2024

Dustin, 11/15/24 Yes, sir, Dustin sure is a strip where one of the main characters is a lawyer! Ha ha, that is undeniable. And "class action"? You'd better...

Soapy quickies

$ · November 14, 2024

Gil Thorp, 11/14/24 I don't know why but it infuriates me that Marty is casually dropping "P.I.O." into his patter. We get it, Marty, you know that they're...

Does having a tragic backstory and being rich and going to NYU make you "cool"? Sound off in the comments

$ · November 13, 2024

Gil Thorp, 11/13/24 Oh yeah, remember Coach Perm Gerads, who briefly seemed like he might be Gil's new nemesis but then he got beat up by his own students?...

Blast (?) from the past

$ · November 12, 2024

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/12/24 As we move inexorably into a post-newspaper world, we do have to ask ourselves: who are the comics, as a genre and...

Sweet memories

$ · November 11, 2024

Blondie, 11/11/24 Remember just weeks ago, when Dagwood dismissed the pumpkin spice concept, now in its second decade, as a mere passing craze? Well,...

Josh has some questions

$ · November 10, 2024

Rhymes With Orange, 11/10/24 Hey, everybody. Have you ever wondered if demons, the dark angels who have turned their back on God and now live in Hell, where...