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Archive: Herb and Jamaal

140

Ha ha, TUESDAYS, amiright (statistically speaking, I’m probably right)

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Herb and Jamaal, 12/2/25

Usually when Herb and Jamaal does its “hilariously nonspecific” bit, it’s taking an actually quite specific scenario but changing proper nouns to generic ones for some reason. Today, though, they’re going actually nonspecific, in the sense that this could be about literally anything, as long as it’s intense and happens over the course of a Monday and the early part of a Tuesday, and I for one respect it.

Blondie, 12/2/25

Dagwood looks awfully shocked in panel three here, but I guess it makes sense that he’s unable to distinguish between “Thanksgiving leftovers, which many people end up with in their capacity as private individuals after the big holiday meal” and “food prepared by a restaurant and sold to paying customers.” After all, all comestables in his field of vision merely exist to be sucked down into his gullet so as to feed his infinite appetite, and he rarely makes distinctions among their economic origins or any of their other qualities, really.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/2/25

Oh, yeah, I haven’t been updating you on Rex Morgan, M.D.! It turns out Summer was really hurt that Auggie based the protagonist in his book on her without telling her, but then she finally finished the book and realized that said protagonist is actually super cool. Problem solved!

126

Yes, Crock’s middle initial is “P”, I don’t care for it but there it is

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Pluggers, 11/14/25

I have to admit that I’m intrigued by the “come out here” formulation. This isn’t a plugger who has walked into the living room and forgotten what task he was pursuing; this is a dog-man who has gone somewhere, for some purpose now mysterious to him. “Let’s see … was I supposed to sell my soul to the devil? No, it’s sunset, and that’s more of a ‘midnight at the crossroads’ thing. Maybe I challenged someone to a gunfight as the sun went down? But wouldn’t I have brought my gun? I’m pretty sure I would’ve brought my gun.”

Crock, 11/14/25

Man, you read Crock every day for 20 years and you assume you know all the stupid lore but then you read a strip and learn that the shirtless guy in the fez is named “Pretty Boy”. This is pretty dumb, but in a strip where the cowardly guy is named “Captain Poulet” and the woman who’s supposed to be ugly is named “Grossie” and the evil commandant is named “Vermin P. Crock,” having a character with a sarcastic name represents a quantum leap in semantic complexity. Unless this guy is actually meant to be read as attractive? Possible, I guess. Anyway, one of his soldiers has to pee, which has foiled his attempt to capture the Legion’s fort and kill everyone inside.

Herb and Jamaal, 11/14/25

Hey now, the whole point of Herb and Jamaal is to be non-specific and, occasionally, quite confusing. I don’t need Herb smiling wryly while he contemplates his mortality! I have the entire archives of Funky Winkerbean for that!

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I declare victory in my long war against Crock

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Herb and Jamaal, 10/29/25

One of my personal crosses to bear is that I cannot just go along with it when comics deliberately, and for “humorous” effect, conflate fire hydrants with toilets in ways that imply that they don’t actually understand why and how dogs pee on fire hydrants. But at least the strips I’ve complained about to this point involve whimsically anthropomorphized animals. Herb and Jamaal, by contrast, is about humans, who should know better, which is why I find this strip particularly puzzling. Is this supposed to be some kind of dog pee joke? Does Herb not realize that the water that comes out of a fire hose is the exact same water that comes out of a fire hydrant — that indeed fire hydrants exist entirely to supply water to hoses? Does Herb think that the water coming out of a hydrant is infected with dog pee, somehow? Is he visualizing someone putting their mouths right on a fire hydrant, the way you’re not supposed to put your mouth on a drinking fountain, but a lot of people do anyway? There’s a lot to think about here, and none of it pleasant.

Crock, 10/29/25

Oh, does the syndicated newspaper comic strip Crock want us to think it’s silly that this Legionnaire has some jokes about buzzards to tell? Well, if that’s so, why does the syndicated newspaper comic strip Crock tell jokes about buzzards all the time? Heh heh, I’ve now caught this strip in an act of hypocrisy from which there is surely no coming back.

Dustin, 10/29/25

Ha ha, fellas! You know how sometimes you can’t tell whether or not you can get horny anymore, because you hate your wife so much? This sure is relatable content, for guys!