Archive

Dustin, 12/7/22

If you had asked me before today, I would have said with some conviction that Blondie and Dustin both fell into the category of “comics I read every day but do not particularly like.” Nevertheless, the past couple days have provided me with some surprising information about the nuances of my opinions: I think Elmo-only strips are a violation of the Bumstead-centered narrative unity of the Blondieverse, whereas Dustin strips in which the Dustin family doesn’t appear, and instead the only recurring character is the weird little neighbor kid Dustin is inappropriately friends with? Sure, go nuts, doesn’t bother me a bit. Oh, do you want to do a joke with him talking to a mall Santa, but the joke only makes sense if the guy is actually Santa, throwing things into further narrative confusion? I already told you I don’t give a shit and this won’t change my position on shit-giving, sorry.

Blondie, 12/7/22

Funky Winkerbean, 12/06/22

It probably shouldn’t surprise you to learn I have been a daily comics reader for more or less my entire life. But until I really got started on this blog, that meant that I read the daily comics that were printed in whatever newspaper I was reading at the time, which meant there was a decade-long gap in my daily Funky Winkerbean readership straddling Y2K, a period during which the strip made its now-infamous Turn To Grim, and even now I’m still putting together the pieces of what all happened in the strip during that stretch. Like, someone bombed the Westview post office? Sure, why not!

One thing I do know happened during that period is that Lisa had breast cancer, then went into remission, then her cancer came back, but the hospital mixed up her lab results so she was told she was fine and the whole thing wasn’t figured out until it was too late. In the real world, this is the sort of mistake that would have resulted in multiple lawsuits, and in a world where a janitor from the future was subtly manipulating things behind the scenes, it seems like it would be a very easy mistake to fix, certainly easier than convincing a top neonatal physician to keep living it a shitty town like Westview. But you have to remember that Lisa was primarily important as the Birthing Vessel for the Chosen One, so once Summer was born, all extraordinary or indeed ordinary measures to keep her alive immediately ceased.

Blondie, 12/5/22

Look, I’ve grudgingly accepted that Elmo, a child to whom the Bumstead family is not related but who nevertheless just kind of hangs out at their house a lot, is a major recurring character in Blondie. But what I will not accept is jokes that are only about Elmo and his life, rather than jokes in which Elmo mainly exists to create opportunities for Dagwood to obsess about food or remark negatively about the kids today and their phones or whatever. You hear me? Nobody wants this. Nobody wants to open the comics pages in 10 years and check out the Sunday installment of Blondie and her Husband Dagwood’s Pal Elmo and think “Gee, Dagwood and Blondie haven’t been in this strip in a while now, have they?” So let’s just put the brakes on this right now.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/5/22

Dick Tracy, 12/4/22

Look, here’s a tough message to all you “social justice warriors” out there: if you would simply allow police to do their jobs by hounding suspects to their ironic deaths, and if juries on the trials for those few cases where someone survives to go to court would just “serve cheerfully and use [their] best judgement” (i.e., convict in all cases) as the Crimestoppers Textbook suggests, then we could all live in a utopian paradise like Neo-Chicago, where selling counterfeit animation cels to furries is a crime considered major enough to attract the Major Crime Unit’s attention.

Gasoline Alley, 12/4/22

Hagar the Horrible, 12/3/22

Lucky Eddie is indignant: His position as the ship’s cook is integral to his identity, and is probably a result of his hereditary caste, not because he’s “good” at cooking or anything. But frankly you can’t keep plundering coin hoards from Carolingian Europe and the Mediterranean and not expect a money-based economy to spring up eventually.

Mary Worth, 12/3/22

Is it chilly in here? Or are we all just shivering with laughter at this week’s top comment?

"I'm not clear on the rules for business meal deductions, but maybe Dithers figures if he and Dag 'talk business' for thirty seconds he can write off the cost of the meals on his taxes? 'So, Bumstead, about that Grumwald contract you turned in last week — has your broken collarbone healed yet? Welp, time to order. I'm having fillet mignon in truffle sauce. You are having half a grilled cheese sandwich. You're welcome.’” --Shrug

The runners up are also very funny!

"'Friendship is another word for love,’ said someone, probably? In any event, I'm saying it now." -pugfuggly

"Loweezy is right to be distressed. That 'Z' has been in the same position all night. Snuffy died in his sleep, most likely from some kind of coronary event. Time to revert to the name Barney Google & Spark Plug for this strip." --taig

"It's good that Tommy has someone living nearby that can care for him and assist him. But it's great that it doesn't have to be me!" --Ettorre

"Someone named 'Kristin' from a place called Highlands Ranch, Colorado, with a household income over $100k? These days they'll let anyone be a plugger so long as they eat a lot and then poop." --matt w

"It's traumatic enough when your dad goes out for cigarettes and never comes back -- imagine learning that he filed paperwork about it first. 'Daddy, we just want you to come home!' 'Please direct all inquiries to my attorney.’” --Navigator

"There is no way this doesn't end with Tracy arresting the entire convention for degeneracy." --TheDiva

"Like many comics nowadays, this is actually a veiled threat against competing comics in an ever-shrinking numbers of newspapers and comics pages. Beetle Bailey is warning Snuffy Smith not to encroach on its territory in the comics pages." --Philip

"With the focus on Franklin it's easy to overlook the fact that he and Curtis are 'studying' blank sheets. In a cut scene Franklin says, 'So you see, Curtis, when you look into the void the void also looks into you.' Then he demonstrated the same principle with his gaping mouth. Curtis, however, focuses on minutiae, unwilling to face the existential implications of non-being. You speak for all of us, Curtis." --Spunky The Wonder Squid

"What's green, furry, has three black holes and three black flags, and needs a trim? That's not a set-up to a joke, it's just a question I have." --Voshkod

"Dadburn grownups still ain't never heard of spiders." --made of wince

"Silas did in fact have a radioactive spider but refused to part with it for less than a whole cow." --ectojazzmage

"I just assume the tablecloth is to hide Dagwood's arousal when the food arrives." --Tabby Lavalamp

"Nah, I'm just going to write about pizza and cancer." --Ned Ryerson

"'You wouldn't think that an oral history of a crappy Cleveland bedroom community would change history, would you? But, as we all know, a comic strip about that same community changed the medium forever! Never underestimate what can be done by one genius!!! Bwah hahahaha!' 'Uh, just so you know, there are people who knew I was coming here.’” --Rube

Mary Worth, 12/2/22

Now, I’m just a simple country blogger, not a fancy math wizard, but if I’m counting right, Nan is around 12ish years older than Zak, whereas Iris, who has noted that Zak is Tommy’s age, is closer to 20 years her beau’s senior. We may be on the verge of a spectacle in which a woman feels threatened by the youth and vitality of her fiance’s former babysitter, which is a truly amazing sentece to write about an ostensibly dull comic strip like Mary Worth. And where is Tommy’s actual mother in all this Oedipal jockeying? I assume she was absent, both physically and emotionally, during his childhood, so if she bothers to show up for the wedding, things could get even more weird and fraught, which is how I like my newspaper soap opera comic strips.

Dennis the Menace, 12/2/22

Blondie, 12/1/22

I have to admit I find it interesting how Dagwood and Mr. Dithers silo off different types of interactions in their relationship. At the workplace, of course, it’s all falling asleep and emotional abuse. But a heartfelt, man-to-man discussion about their marriages and what makes them tick? That’s reserved for the formal dinners at white tablecloth restaurants that they have with alarming regularity for no reason anyone can fathom or explain.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/1/22

Curtis, 11/30/22

Curtis may have been a little late in celebrating Charles Schulz’s 100th birthday, but it’s making up for lost time with a whole week of beloved Peanuts character Franklin tutoring the strip’s education-resistent title character. They’re going to the always reliable joke of “this art style’s specific stylizations would look baffling and grotesque in the context of another art style with a different set of stylizations, were characters from the two universes to coexist.” Curtis may be focused on Franklin’s huge mouth, but I’m more weirded out by his mohawk. I guess if you 3D-modeled Franklin based on the original drawings, you’d come to the conclusion that he had a mohawk, but I don’t think he had a mohawk.

Mary Worth, 11/30/22

Beetle Bailey, 11/29/22

Beetle Bailey has recently established that, in addition to being extremely stupid, Zero is also an extremely accurate rifleman. But how can the U.S. military harden this peaceful simpleton’s heart so that he can use his skills to kill America’s adversaries? Well, it turns out that Sgt. Snorkel is actually pretty good at the “teach your soldiers to dehumanize the enemy” part of the job.

Crankshaft, 11/29/22

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/28/22

Oh my God, this Rex Morgan, M.D., plot really is going to be “Mud Mountain Murphy only pretended to have a catastrophic digestive situation so he could move up from opening act to headliner,” huh? Well, since Rex vaguely tried to offer Mud medical assistance, I look forward to him shutting down his clinic altogether after this. After all, how can he be sure that any patient who walks through the door isn’t just faking it to help their career in the entertainment business? And then Rex would have used a portion of his precious and limited reserves of human empathy for nothing. Better safe than sorry!

Dustin, 11/28/22

Mary Worth, 11/27/22

Ah, this is the point in the Mary Worth storyline where all the characters have been chirpily telling each other how great everything is for weeks until we, the readers, want to die, but then we hit a sudden shocking twist: what if things … aren’t great? Aren’t great at all? What if there’s a certain someone from Zak’s past that’s he’s ben missing all these years? That would be quite a development! Remember, Zak used to have an age-appropriate friend group, but I guess they abandoned him when his dumb girlfriend started hanging around him all the time, so maybe it’s one of them? On the other hand, maybe it’s Wilbur. Wilbur and Zak used to hang out! Zak thinks Wilbur is pretty cool, which is deeply troubling!

Panels from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/27/22

Folks, today is what would’ve been Peanuts creator Charles Schulz’s 100th birthday! I feel pretty strongly that he was the best who ever did it in the newspaper comics world, and one of the great things he did was not hand off the strip to a child or assistant and create one more zombie lurching across the funny pages.

Anyway, most of the strips (zombie or otherwise) are celebrating Peanuts today, and most of those celebrations and great and heartfelt. But this website isn’t called the Comics Respecter, so for this Thanksgiving Saturday I’m going to bring you the two worst ones. Enjoy!

Marvin, 11/26/22

As you digest your turkey, please enjoy this comment of the week:

"'I didn't think you needed a prescription to get ibuprofen.' 'Look, who's the fake doctor here? Do you have scrubs you got at a post-Halloween costume sale? No. Now shut up while I write you another script for an ice pack.’” --Truckosaurus

And the very funny runners up!

"The future, DustinDad, is sweatpants." --random driveby commenter

"What the hell is up with Buck in the next to last panel? 'Hmm, I guess that's good news. I need to tell Truck what's up, [thought bubble] and warn him that the poison didn't work.’” --Hibbleton

"Well, I've done nothing, my work here is done." --TheDiva

"No, Billy, you will not be going to market today, for the red star is a symbol of the glorious Communist revolution that is now upon us! (You're going to re-education camp. Take your jacket. There will be no recess.)" --pastordan

"'*Sigh* I've been expecting you’ is the Funkyverse's version of 'Norm!!!’” --taig

"Is an insult or a compliment if someone calls you 'a very funny man' but it's literally in the context of a fairy tale?" --Joe Blevins

"If you don't have a neck and there's no differentiation between your head and your body, just a round hairy cone tapering steadily out from scalp to gut, and your chin is growing from your breast bone, and without clothes to disguise it your naked body is revealed as an unholy abomination, you're probably a plugger." --Schroduck

"The unsung hero colorist on Dick Tracy almost certainly got editorial instruction like 'his face is darkly colored from the MRI accident' and had to pick just the right color to avoid an Incident." --Dan

"I'm skeptical that pluggers ever quickly realize anything." --nescio

"They didn't steal your car. You just did a hospital procedure without insurance (crime pays but does not have job benefits) so instead of charging you and passing your debt to a collection agency, the hospital decided to cut out the middleman and simply take your car." --Ettorre

"In janitor-man's time everybody makes terrible jokes and is allowed only two expressions: smug and bored. He's here at ground zero to kill that future in its cradle." --gormadoc

"As usual, there's a lot to unpack in this strip, but what confuses me is the big bold NOVEMBER in the first panel. This is a daily strip, right? Is it ... just there to remind their readership what month it is? Do they think that the people who enjoy their work are also the types to forget what time of year it is? Harsh, man." --pugfuggly

"Grampa gives a hearty chuckle. 'Yes, loathsome little beast, isn't he? I keep telling them better late than never when it comes to, er, family planning, but you know how young people are these days. No gumption!’” --Violet

"Look at the bright side, Fitch. At least you're apparently drinking during the day in a well lit bar." --Tabby Lavalamp

Gil Thorp, 11/25/22

Gil has dug some old game tape out of a box to give us the supervillain origin story of his hated coaching rival, and the truly shocking information we learn is that (a) back in 1987 ,Marty Moon had a Fu Manchu mustache, and (b) back in 1987, football broadcasts used to just cut to commercial in the middle of some of the most exciting plays in the game.

Dennis the Menace, 11/25/22

Six Chix, 11/24/22

If I know my commentors, if I did a post that was just like “what the fuck is this comic about,” a critical mass of you would say “Josh, the ‘pope’s nose’ is the fleshy bit on the butt of a turkey that the tail-feathers grow out of [Google Image Search; TRIGGER WARNING: photos of fleshy turkey bits], everyone normal knows this and the fact that you don’t proves you’re a coast elitist and/or an idiot.” Nevertheless I feel confident that there is a silent majority of you who will welcome this information, and in fact many of you are grateful for the reassurance that you did not have a stroke while reading this strip.

Gasoline Alley, 11/24/22

Funky Winkerbean, 11/23/22

Oh my God, Mr. Davidson the janitor is some kind of near-immortal being, charged with subtly guiding the world under his care, just like the characters in the MCU movie Eternals (maybe? like all normal people, I did not see that movie or read the comics it was based on). Anyway, it turns out that despite his apparent old age, in the context of his own kind he’s just a beginner, which explains why the Funkyverse is so deeply fucked up.

Dick Tracy, 11/23/22

Family Circus, 11/22/22

Back in 1996, Ma Keane got a kicky new hairstyle and it was such a big deal that it was the subject of feature stories in major newspapers. But in these fallen days, when comics are a neglected medium, there’s exactly zero buzz about Big Daddy Keane finally bleaching his hair platinum blond like he’s always wanted to. I think he looks great!

Funky Winkerbean, 11/22/22

Gil Thorp, 11/21/22

Uh oh, it looks like the fall Gil Thorp storyline is tacking another important teen trend: the scourge of Advil addiction. Today’s kids think nothing about popping four “Vitamin I” caplets every two or three hours even though the label clearly says you should only do it four times a day. It’s been in Time and Newsweek! And you do not want to know what those sick freaks are doing with Icy Hot.

Family Circus, 11/21/22

Dustin, 11/20/22

Look, I’d be lying if I claimed that I haven’t myself stared at the various cutesy branded pants size designation at the Gap with a certain degree of animus, but here’s the difference between me and Dustin’s dad: I would not, when griping about this to my wife, push my glasses up on my forehead and pinch the bridge of my nose in a fit of comically exaggerated performative exasperation, so everyone would know just how much I hate it. I also wouldn’t harken back to some mythical golden age when we all just covered ourselves with voluminous wraps and it didn’t really matter what size or shape they, or we, were.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/20/22

Funky Winkerbean, 11/19/22

Hey folks, remember beloved but unheralded elder comic book artist Ruby Lith, introduced back in 2019? Remember when she finally got the recognition she deserved and was inducted into the Comics Hall of Fame back in 2021? No? You don’t? None of this is ringing a bell? You say Funky Winkerbean is full of people that you have some kind of emotional relationship with only because they’ve been in the strip for years and you’ve grown to really dislike them, and none of the “new” characters really stuck with you? Well, you’re probably not feeling much of anything about Ruby’s retirement, then, although you have to admit it would be pretty funny if she and Funky were having a longtime secret affair and are retiring at the same time so they can run off together. Wait, did I say funny? I meant “vaguely off-putting,” forget I mentioned it.

Crankshaft, 11/19/22

FOLKS … nothing gold can stay, because everything gold will eventually develop cancer, or CTE, or a hearing disability, and that’s why Funky Winkerbean at the end of the year will, in the words of the Daily Cartoonist, “reach completion” (ew?). I guess this explains why Funky is retiring and Summer is writing a book about her dad’s boring old friends. Don’t worry, though: Tom Batuik will still be posting occasional Funky stories on Tom Batuik dot com, and Crankshaft will keep on aggressively malaproping indefinitely, so there’s still hope that we’ll eventually find out whether Cayla divorces Les or not.

Funky Winkerbean has of course been one of my favorite strips to make fun of since the Masky McDeath days, and it goes without saying that I am sad to see it go! Say what you will about all the cancer, but it was its own unique multilayered world and, somewhat bizarrely, had multiple lives as a cultural touchstone. I hope Batuik enjoys (semi) retirement. I just want to point out that I’ve been doing this blog since 2004, and I never taught my spellcheck the word “Winkerbean” and now, sadly, it appears I’m never going to have to. RIP to a real one.

But we must plod on and do what we can in a Funkyless world! Credit goes to Bowsnonk on Twitter for the title of this post, and credit must also go to the comment of the week:

"One thing all the building-up of the Truck Tyler legend didn't prepare me for was how exquisitely bitchy his between-song patter is." --Artist formerly known as Ben

Gasoline Alley, 11/18/22

Big Good Some news, everybody: Rufus has managed to use his sexual wiles to help Walt make his big dream of hanging off the back of a garbage truck come true. The Sanitation Department will definitely get some good publicity out of this, unless Walt falls off and terribly injures himself, which is actually a pretty likely scenario. I mean, that’s why they banned sanitation workers from doing this in the first place, and none of those guys are supercentenarian World War I vets. In that case, the publicity will end up being pretty bad: lawsuits from the family, Denzel Washington giving a press conference disavowing knowledge of or participation in this stunt, etc.

Marvin and Dennis the Menace, 11/18/22

Dick Tracy, 11/17/22

Look, I know, we’re never getting back to the glory days of “guy in gimp suit gets eaten alive by rats,” but you have to admit that we’re coming pretty close with a Dick Tracy villain named “Steelface,” whose whole thing is that he has a steel plate in his face that’s magnetic, and you’d think that he’d be know about situations where such an arrangment would be dangerous, like, say, getting into an MRI machine, and also you’d think the medical techs would ask questions like, “Say, you don’t have a steel plate under that bandage, do you?”, but it turns out nope on both counts and now he’s going to get his skull ripped apart by the MRI machine’s powerful magnets. He only ended up at this hospital because he hit his head fleeing from a police raid on his stolen car operation, so we can basically credit this grisly death to the cops, or at least that’s what they’ll be telling themselves while they stand around watching the poor hospital night shift guy scraping what’s left of Steelface’s face off the inside of the MRI machine with a putty knife.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/17/22

Gil Thorp, 11/16/22

It’s been a while since I’ve kept you up to date on the various plot threads in Gil Thorp, a strip that appears to be on a breakneck pace to cover all the Teen Issues before comics and/or teens are declared illegal, but the important thing to know here is that (a) Milford High held a hyper-realistic mass shooter drill, presumably with help from an overly enthusiastic theater department, that left Keri sobbing uncontrollably in front of their peers, and (b) a hitherto unseen Milford student named Allyson is one of three hitherto unseen Milford students who have died of a drug overdose this semester, so naturally these threads come together with a fistfight at a funeral. I’ve noticed what struck me as a fairly deliberate choice to show Keri sporting chunky rings across four fingers this whole semester and I’m quite pleased to have seen this little detail pay off so violently! Anyway, I deem this as the greatest Newspaper Comic Strip Funeral Fight (Continuity Strip Division) since the Great Rex Morgan Coffinside Strangulation of 2012.

Crock, 11/16/22

Blondie, 11/15/22

I love this comic, which is quite clearly the product of a person who has never encountered protests or union organizing (here collapsed into a generic “picket”) outside seeing them briefly on cable news framed in a vaguely negative way, and has no idea why they happen or how they work. Yes, definitely people are recruited into the abstract idea of a picket, and only when they turn down the opportunity to participate as if they were a teen in an afterschool special who just said no to drugs are they wooed with information on what the picket is actually about. That explains the “A ‘Nappy’ Makes Me ‘Happy”’ lady, who apparently thought she was going to a protest for equal rights for diaper fetishists.

Hi and Lois, 11/15/12

Mary Worth, 11/14/22

I have to say that I’m proud of our girl Iris here: the fact that she was almost dragged to her death by the weight of her hunky boyfriend’s rippling muscles is intrinsically far more interesting than the fact that she later accepted his marriage proposal, and she’s right to lead with it. I’ll even allow her to imply that the big story was her own potential doom, which seemed a lot less likely thank Zak’s, if only because it’ll rattle Mary’s cage a little. “That’s right, Mary, I’m out there getting that high you can only get by staring your own mortality in the face. What’s the closest you’ve ever come to meeting your maker lately? Letting Dr. Jeff steer the boat when he’s had two Michelob Ultras?”

Dennis the Menace, 11/14/22

Beetle Bailey, 11/13/22

This is an actually pretty good Beetle Bailey, in my opinion. It uses the longer Sunday format to interesting effect: taking what should be a sharp shock – an NCO plans to set a vicious dog onto one of the soldiers under his command in a grotesque abuse of power – and smooths it down into rambling day in the life story about the dog. He doesn’t want to do any harm. His heart’s not in it. It’s just a job, really. But never let it be said that he won’t do his job.

Mary Worth, 11/13/22

Beetle Bailey, 11/12/22

Holy shit! It’s Keith Haring, back from the dead and painting a mural on the outside of the Halftracks’ house! I’m not sure what the General is so upset about, as this is about to immediately make their home an incredibly valuable work of art. On the other hand, there’s no way he can actually see any of the outside of the house from where he’s standing, so maybe he’s upset about something unrelated, like ghost Keith Haring’s parking job or something.

Family Circus, 11/12/22

Oh look, it’s your comment of the week! Right here!

"Deep in the Algerian desert, the countdown for Gerboise Bleue nears zéro. The range safety officer peers through binoculars into the shimmering heat, his hands slick with sweat and fear, as the ferocious Sun rises, not knowing that today it would have a twin on Earth. Was there something new there, near the shot tower? Mon Dieu, he realizes, a Bedouin tent! He toggles his radio to call off the test when the Sun's frère blooms down range. Poor bastards, he thinks as he dives into his trench. At least they died rapidement. One can only hope they were making love, and not arguing about toilettes.” --Voshkod

And your runners up! Very funny!

"I think the big news here is that evidently Not Me and Ida Know split up." --Pozzo

"Life imprisonment without court martial might seem like a harsh punishment during peacetime, but the defense of the nation can allow no tolerance for ventriloquism." --jroggs

"Today's entry is a reminder in case any of the readers thought the Chix were living large off this strip." --Hibbleton

"You must admit, 'I wish it was still the 1970's!' is pretty much the mission statement of the newspaper comics industry. This will be clipped and placed on as many as a dozen refrigerators around the country." --pastordan

"Look. I'll be the one to point out that Iris didn't accept Zak's proposal in the heady emotional rush of a brush with death, she did so hours later, in bed. Zak has a very specific value-add in this relationship, and I'm not saying it can't be the basis for a long and mutually fulfilling life of wedded bliss, I'm just saying if you want the white rice with hamburger gravy to keep coming, you'd better time the request right buddy." --Dan

"We make such a great team! Your strength is falling off cliffs, and mine is eventually, reluctantly pulling you up. We'll be unstoppable!" --Violet

"I like how we don't see actually see Zak in today's strip, leaving open the possibility that a delirious Iris is play-acting a misguided proposal fantasy, voice modulation and all. Meanwhile, the real Zak is at home, trying to change a lightbulb while standing atop a blender." --Irrischana

"I had a tough time figuring out what was going on in panel 2. Then I realized that linebacker Nick was such a wildman that all he knew was 'BALL ... KILL' and was tackling his own teammates." --Inspector Gotcha

"As the midterm elections come to a close, Americans are divided now more than ever. But today's Beetle Bailey shows us how two different groups can work together towards compromise, so that each gets something they want. Humorists get to poke fun of the slow, painful death of Print Media, while the old, horny men employed by Print Media score a panel of General Halftrack looming over a prostrate Miss Buxley." --Carsick Yankee

"Yeah, I'm sure that Mr Mountain is about to have a massive coronary, but I think this scene reads much funnier if you imagine that he's been caught in a massive lie about being a country singer. 'Ok folks just a minute ... one second ... j-just tuning up here ... OH WOW IS THAT MERLE HAGGARD SITTING AT THE BAR?' [leaps off stage and through a fire exit]" --pugfuggly

"What if Mud has crippling anxiety that has caused his career to self-destruct, and he self-medicates with food? I mean, he can still shit himself -- you gotta give the people what they want -- I just think coronary has been done to death." --Old School Allie Cat

"Things to do? Lists to make? People to contact? That's funny, the same would've been the case for Zak's funeral, had Iris been unable to save him. Damn it, there's just no getting away from these fancy events, is there?" --made of wince

"In idle moments, Iris and Zak can amuse themselves by trying to think of yet more ways to work the words 'usual' and 'upcoming' into their conversations. 'Upcoming' is a funny word, isn't it? If one of them is about to barf, they can use it as a warning: 'Upcoming!’” --Peanut Gallery

"'Mr. Wilson does live in this vicinity, but where? To learn that you must solve my series of ever more fiendish riddles...' 'I'll try next door.’” --Anonymous (but not that one)

Mary Worth, 11/11/22

“Nah, babe. Even the prospect of our tragic death can only shake us out of the boring ruts of our usual routine for a day or so. That’s why we’ve got to plan our upcoming wedding … it’s just out of the ordinary enough to make us feel like everything isn’t undifferentiated sameness with no beginning or end. And after the wedding? Well, we’ll just have to come up with something else, hopefully not suicide.”

Dennis the Menace, 11/11/22

Gasoline Alley, 11/10/22

Gasoline Alley is, I admit, one of those strips I read out of a sense of professional obligation rather than a true inborn enthusiasm. Yet one can derive a real satisfaction from achievements that are wholly professional in nature! For instance, I’ve managed to keep the “Rufus is fucking the mayor” plot thread close enough to the top of my mind that when I read the final panel of today’s strip I nodded sagely and thought to myself, “Ah, Walt’s going to get to ride on the back of a garbage truck, just like his hero Denzel Washington, because Rufus is fucking the mayor,” whereas I assume the typical comic reader simply shook their head in confusion and disgust before moving on to Garfield.

Judge Parker, 11/10/22

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/9/22

Oh, sorry folks, I haven’t been keeping you up to date on the antics of “Mud Mountain Murphy!” Well, after doing some mild flirting at the diner, Mud Mountain Murphy ate a truly superhuman amount of food – and, like, I mean that, it was cartoonish, no real person would or could eat that much – with seemingly no ill effects. I say seemingly because that hesitation and those beads of sweat say that we might, in fact, be in store for some ill effects! It would be easy and juvenile to make a joke about a “mud mountain” in Mud Mountain’s pants, but honestly that’s a best case scenario for him, especially given that Rex Morgan, M.D., occasionally remembers the M.D. in its name and we might be about to see a massive on-stage coronary event.

Beetle Bailey, 11/9/22

Crock, 11/8/22

As America’s #1 syndicated newspaper comic strip blogger, I probably have a better handle on the internal lore of many of the strips than their actual creators do. I’m not mad abou this, it’s actually funny to me, but it does mean I’m compelled to point out that (a) Grossie and Maggot live in a tent, so it’s strange to think they have indoor plumbing complete with ceramic fixtures, and (b) Maggot’s job in the Foreign Legion is digging latrine pits, so it’s sad that this issue has become another source of conflict for them rather than something they can bond over.

Mary Worth, 11/8/22

Dustin, 11/7/22

Oh, I’m sorry, did you think that the syndicated comic Dustin was done airing its petty grievances about air travel? Well, you thought wrong, buddy. Today’s petty grievance: when people fly on a commercial airline, an experience during which they are generally dehumanized in various ways, why don’t they simply choose to dress in a manner that society in the year 2022 reserves only for our most formal contexts, like a court appearance or a funeral? Is it because they don’t want to feel even less comfortable than they already do while they’re crammed into a too-small seat for three to seven hours? Is it because, simply as a practical matter, the nature of air travel often results in the clothes you’re wearing getting wrinkled or sweaty or soiled? Is it because human civilization is falling into a state of barbarism? Probably the last one, right? Anyway, the first panel here gives you a good hint as to which airline’s negative vibes provided the material for these strips, but doesn’t spell it out because presumably large multinational corporations are better equipped to crush a syndicated newspaper comic strip’s creative team in court than, say, a Tampa-area Mercedes dealership is.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/7/22

Mary Worth, 11/6/22

Welp, it looks like Mary Worth does have an important lesson to teach us about love, and it’s that if your gal rejects your marriage proposal, all you have to do is (literally) dangle the prospect of your death in front of her to make her realize what she could be missing. The best case scenario here is that we find out that Zak staged this whole incident and it throws their relationship into turmoil, but assuming they do get married, we need to start thinking about who’s going to make the biggest ass of themselves at the wedding. Everyone’s going to say “Wilbur,” of course, but I am begging you to not sleep on Tommy, who could quite frankly go in any number of erratic directions emotionally even if he stays sober.

Beetle Bailey, 11/6/22

Gil Thorp, 11/5/22

“Thanks for doing this on such short notice, Gil.”

“Of course, Marjie. Actually it worked out great, because it turns out the football team is already here. I was wondering where those guys were! Ha ha! Hi guys! Anyway, we’ve got a stellar squad this year.”

Hey folks! Have you ever heard about a little something called karma???? It goes like this: I make an innocent little joke in which I call for the death of Dustin, the beloved title character of the comic strip Dustin, and then I am immediately myself afflicted with a case of COVID-19. Symptoms quite mild but probably not best for me to spend 90 minutes tonight yelling jokes at a crowd of people in a poorly ventilated theater, so I am cancelling tonight’s Internet Read Aloud!!! Sorry all and hopefully I can get this gang back together in 2023.

Not even a serious respiratory virus can stop the comment of the week, however, which was carefully selected in my sealed bunker:

"Billy doesn't seem to me like the kind of kid who'd have an expensive, lab-quality microscope, but if he got one, he's definitely the kind of kid who'd leave it on the floor." --Steph

Dennis the Menace, 11/4/22

I actually think it’s more or less fine to do a syndicated newspaper strip that takes place in some kind of permanent 1950s boomer childhood fantasy world, especially for legacy strips that were born in that era anyway. I do feel like if you’re going to have a 1950s housewife tending to a rascally little tyke in overalls who’s allowed to roam the suburban neighborhood freely with a slingshot, the price you pay is that you can’t have said tyke mouth off about “the supply chain” or whatever. It’s too stale to be actually topical but topical enough that Dennis definitely shouldn’t be talking about it, which puts it in an uncanny valley spot that’s ironically pretty menacing, just not the kind of menacing I like.

The Lockhorns, 11/4/22

Gil Thorp, 11/3/22

The new Gil Thorp writer has definitely upped the strip’s confusion game, which used to be centered on two plots you couldn’t keep track and now involves … three? five? plots, can’t even keep track of how many plots, and one of those plots that we hadn’t heard from in a bit is “Gil is about to become extremely divorced.” I like the way that he beats Mimi to the punch divorce-wise while still putting the onus on her as the divorce-wanter. If he put half as much mindgame effort into his coaching, Milford football might be actually doing well this year! [NOTE: IS MILFORD DOING WELL THIS YEAR? HAVE INTERN LOOK INTO THIS] [NOTE: DO I HAVE AN INTERN? LOOK INTO THIS]

Blondie, 11/3/22

Blondie, 11/2/22

I had a whole riff ready to go here about how I’m not a prude and it’s not like I think legacy comics characters shouldn’t feel and express sexual desire but I’m not a huge fan of Alexander Bumstead, a freakish-looking teen carbon copy of his father, being “hot for teacher,” but then my brain short circuited when I noticed his sister was wearing Crocs. Crocs! Recognizable footwear worn by real, normal people, in a world where these kids’ dad wears a tuxedo with a single dinner-plate sized shirt button to his utterly generic office job. It’s madness, I tell you! Madness!

Dennis the Menace, 11/2/22

Funky Winkerbean, 11/1/22

Huh, well, I guess Funky really is shutting down Montoni’s after all? This of course provides a great opportunity to trace the experiences of these longtime beloved characters as they move into a new phase of their lives do some nostalgia bullshit about the good old days of the strip, which, in a visual medium like the comics, is obviously best delivered by a wall of text and some photos that would be 100% invisible to anyone reading this in a newspaper, if anyone still read newspapers.

Judge Parker, 11/1/22

Slylock Fox, 10/31/22

The thing I absolutely love and respect about Slick Smitty is that every time we see him, Slylock and the animal cops have him absolutely dead to rights, yet he still has the shit-eating grin on his face that says that he doesn’t believe he’ll receive any consequences for his actions or simply doesn’t care about them if he does. That’s true even in circumstances like today’s, when he’s dressed in an extremely stupid costume in order to pull of an even stupider crime, and hooked up to one of those lie detector machines that the animals have advanced from the current level of “not a lie detector, just a detector of elevated heart rates and other physical activity” to “detects lies, but unable to understand low-level ‘truths’ and ‘falsehoods’ as part of a larger semantic context.”

Dick Tracy, 10/31/22

Hi and Lois, 10/30/22

I know it’s not considered “woke” to define a woman in terms of her husband, but I think we can all agree that the Bride of Frankenstein is almost entirely known for being married to Frankenstein’s monster. It’s right there in her name! So Hi’s choice to dress up as Bela Lugosi’s Dracula is an interesting one, and seems to tell us a lot about what kind of party they’re going to where kids are very much not welcome. (It’s a swingers party, and the theme is classic Universal horror characters, just so we’re absolutely clear on that.)

Shoe, 10/30/22

The Lockhorns, 10/29/22

“Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, ‘Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.’ Man bursts into tears. Says, ‘But doctor … I am Pagliacci.’ So he went on a killing spree. Upon reflection, doctor should’ve referred him to a qualified therapist who could have assessed him for clinical depression. Anyway. Made an opera out of it. Good opera.”

Marvin, 10/29/22

Funky Winkerbean, 10/28/22

Sorry, I refuse to get emotionally involved in this sudden revelation, which I’m reasonably sure is some kind of fakeout, mostly because Funky is a diva who would’ve been griping and moaning for years about the bad economy or how people don’t just respect overpriced shitty pizza like they should before finally closing the restaurant. I’m assuming this is just some kind Three’s Company-style misunderstanding. “No, I meant close our doors for the night! I just said it in a way nobody actually would, for no good reason.”

Beetle Bailey, 10/28/22

Shoe, 10/27/22

I’m trying to figure out what the funniest message the Joint Chiefs of Staff could send to a small-town newspaper on an 8 x 11 sheet of paper in tiny font that would raise this level of shock from the Perfesser. I’m thinking “America’s civilian leadership has failed! The military must take control and begin the process of national regeneration. Do you happen to know the President’s phone number?”

Mary Worth, 10/27/22

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/26/22

I’ll admit it: I do a lot of bitching and moaning about all the “roots country” bullshit in Rex Morgan, M.D., and I appreciate the fact that the RMMD brain trust has clearly been working feverishly to come up with an angle that will turn my attitude about it around. Like, how about if the new roots country guy, Mud Mountain Murphy, is a cheerful giant of a man who looms over Buck in a vaguely menacing fashion and yells all the time? All I can say is: great job, guys, you nailed it, I am 100% on board with Mr. Murphy. You know I love a good upnose shot in this strip and now there’s a good excuse for one!

Dustin, 10/26/22

Mary Worth, 10/25/22

Good (?) news, everybody: Zak didn’t fall to his death mid-selfie, or at least he hasn’t yet! No, he’s grabbed onto a cliffside branch, Sgt. Snorkel style, and now needs Iris to drag him to safety. There was a bit of dialogue in a strip last week in which Iris said she can easily handle this hike due to the “strength training” she’s been doing; I assume that, despite her current protests, she will eventually be able to rescue Zak, finding her power in an adrenaline-fueled burst like the stories you hear about mothers lifting up cars to save their children, which really fits in with the nature of their relationship.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/25/22

Six Chix, 10/24/22

Ha ha, it’s a blood bank, get it? Get it? Anyway, what I find intriguing about this is that there doesn’t seem to be any way to insert a card into this blood ATM machine, which implies that some sort of socialistic vampire central committee is just handing out blood to vampires according to their needs; the vampires, in turn, must only take what they need, because otherwise it would rapidly run out, which speaks to a level of self-restraint that I don’t think is very well explored in the vampire mythos.

Hi and Lois, 10/24/22