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Archive: Herb and Jamaal

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!

200

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!

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Uncanny Monday

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Mary Worth, 10/13/25

OK, sorry, Mary, I know you don’t want to think too hard about the strange logic of Olive’s powers and the implications for free will and the nature of time itself, but what Olive’s saying doesn’t make any sense. Oh, she didn’t have a feeling of doom before the balloon crash, because it all worked out in the end (due to her psychic powers, not her prophetic powers)? So how do her visions sometimes help change the future? What about the time she was able to stop Mary from being killed by a falling air conditioner? That scenario had a happy ending, and yet … wait. Did Olive have the unmistakable feeling of doom because Mary survived? Holy shit. Holy shit. This whole thing just got a lot more twisted.

Herb and Jamaal, 10/13/25

Hey, Jamaal, I don’t think … anyone thinks baldness is a curse from God? Why would you even bring this up? Sounds like someone’s actually just overcompensating for some internalized baldophobia and you need to do some work on yourself and your self-image.

Luann, 10/13/25

Big news, everyone! Bernice and Luann have been Consumed by some kind of mysterious Portal. More on this story as it develops, if it turns out to be interesting (it won’t).