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Herb and Jamaal, 11/9/26

Is it, Herb? Is it? Is that what watching for a single kernel of corn to pop is like? It’s like waiting for the next news cycle to occur? Is that right? Is it really?

Hagar the Horrible, 11/9/26

There were two small Norse settlements on the western and southwestern coasts of Greenland in the early middle ages, but they drop out of written historical records by the mid 1300s and archaeological evidence shows that they had ceased to exist by the mid 1400s, and there is a lively and vigorous debate as to what exactly happened. Did the lowered temperatures of the so-called Little Ice Age make it impossible for the Norse to maintain their agricultural way of life? Were they overrun or displaced by the Inuit, who were better adapted to the Arctic and who arrived from the north around the time the Norse settlement declined? Did Europeans find cheaper sources of ivory, which had been the Greenlanders’ main export, making it impossible to import wood and iron and leaving the colonies economically unsustainable? The answer is probably some combination of the three, and we have to imagine that the decline might have produced a scene very much like this, in which, in the absence of native firewood, the Greenlanders burned their own infrastructure, built from materials imported at great expense, to keep away the bitter cold for at least one more night.

Alice, 11/9/26

Hey, did one of you get an email from Alice and not reply to it? Uncool, man! She’s honestly kind of bummed about it.

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Crankshaft, 11/4/26

I don’t talk about it very much, but ever since Funky Winkerbean triumphantly (?) concluded, Crankshaft has been afflicted by thinly veiled authorial insert character Batton Thomas, creator of the comic strips 3 O’Clock High (thinly veiled Funky Winkerbean) and The Wrinkles (thinly veiled Crankshaft). Except the characters in Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean look more or less like people, while the characters in 3 O’Clock High and The Wrinkles are these grotesque, large-eared parodies of humanity, symbolizing the fact that they are a narrative layer further away from our real world. But now they’ve escaped containment! And they walk among their Funkyverse counterparts! What happens when Lovable 3 O’Clock High band director character [NAME NOT INTERESTING ENOUGH TO FIND] interacts with his obvious model, Harry Dinkle? Will it tear a hole in the fabric of reality and allow them to enter our universe, in a crossover event that will greatly amuse some unknowable-to-us observers in yet another, more “real” universe? I hope not! I don’t want to talk to any of these guys! What if they read all the mean stuff I’ve written about them on my blog?

Herb and Jamaal, 11/4/26

I was going to try to parse the “punchline” here and try to figure out if it represented a joke or even wordplay of any kind, but then I realized that the dialogue in the first panel is in a thought balloon, which I guess means that this isn’t Herb being sullen about one of his loudmouth customers, it’s him ruminating at random, possibly after experiencing a minor cerebrovascular event, so I don’t feel obligated.

Mary Worth, 11/4/26

I know “suspenseful” is not a term we usually use about Mary Worth plots, but I’m genuinely unsure if where she’s going with this is “Nelly is such an unhappy soul, nothing I could do or say would be worse punishment than just living with herself” or “Nelly could lash out and hurt anyone at any time, and that’s why we have to put her down like a rabid dog.”

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Shoe, 10/29/26

I don’t think you should bring your own botox to a party. I think botox should be supplied and injected by trained and licensed medical professionals! Call me a stick in the mud who doesn’t align with current government policy on this topic, but I feel strongly about it.

Flash Gordon, 10/29/26

As you know, I mostly don’t comment on new-look Flash Gordon here except to note how cool it is and that you should definitely be reading it. It dips deep into the strip’s lore for a lot of stuff but also isn’t afraid to stake out new narrative territory, including, apparently, “Dr. Zarkov has been low-key fucking his way through the Mongolithic lady scientist community ever since he arrived on this planet.”

Herb and Jamaal, 10/29/26

“God would never tell anyone to eat at this place,” thinks Rev. Croom. “I would know: I eat here every day, having been tempted to do so by Satan. I only do it to better know the Enemy, so I can defeat him!”

Mary Worth, 10/29/26

“He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed! Doesn’t always understand what’s going on! Truly unequipped for even the basics of navigating daily life! Dumber than a pillowcase full of doorknobs!” [suddenly starts sobbing] “Mary, I love him SO MUCH”