The Comics Curmudgeon

Roz’s eyeroll is so intense I think she might sprain something

Shoe, 9/21/16

You know how you can look at something for every day for years and never really notice it, until one day a slight shift in perspective totally blows your mind? Well, I read this dumb joke about how Shoe, the title character of the strip Shoe, spends a lot of time at strip clubs, and I was starting to work myself up to a joke about how the very idea of sexy live nude bird-women really brings to the fore the uncomfortable realities of how the bird-people of Shoe have both avian and mammalian characteristics, when suddenly I realized:

Shoe doesn’t wear clothes.

Every other bird-person in this strip wears clothes! Not Shoe. He wears white low-top sneakers and smokes cigars but otherwise goes around fully nude. And everyone just goes along with this! What … what is going on here. Why is he naked all the time. WHYYYYY

Mary Worth, 9/21/16

I’m kind of surprised that this SAMHSA-approved substance abuse counselor is doing his intake with his newest adult patient with his mother sitting right there in the room with him, or that he seems to be taunting him for his inability to score Vicodin. I’m not that familiar with the treatment modalities for opioid addiction, though. I’m learning just like you all are!

Funky Winkerbean, 9/21/16

Becky’s wordless emotional arc here, as she goes from hope that her husband’s obsessive geekery might actually improve their family’s financial situation for once to mingled anger and crushing despair, is legitimately the best-executed thing on the comics pages today.

Pluggers, 9/21/16

Pluggers haven’t had sex for years, guys. Years.

Walk and talk and eat with the animals

Shoe, 8/16/16

You know, I spend a lot of time speculating about the origins of the animal-dominated world of Slylock Fox, but significantly less talking about the bird-dominated world of Shoe. I guess it’s because the complete absence of humans makes it seem less like our dystopian future and more just an extended metaphor, but today’s strip has some unsettling implications. Of course, we’ve long known that the Shoeniverse birds devour each other. But now it’s clear that there’s some secret reserves of humans — or perhaps just the salted, preserved flesh of our most beloved actresses — that the sapient bird-men and -women serve up for very special occasions.

Beetle Bailey, 8/16/16

I love how angry Cookie is at Beetle’s assumption that Otto eats ordinary dog food like an ordinary dog. He walks upright and wears clothes, Beetle! Are you insane? Do you not know what that signifies, in a comic strip?

Saturday is for terrible children

Shoe, 8/6/16

Ha ha, rap music! It’s an incredibly popular art form that’s been around for more than thirty years, but it sure isn’t music, amiright folks? This is definitely an opinion that young children hold, so it’s natural to put this line in Skyler’s mouth (beak?) here, and it’s 100% appropriate for him to go from wide-eyed eagerness to heavy-lidded smugness as he delivers the punchline.

Family Circus, 8/6/16

Everybody’s body language as they react to Billy’s obnoxious display is hilarious to me. PJ is recoiling in disgust. Jeffy’s about to haul off and punch Billy in the face. And Daddy is shrugging in despair, as if to say, “I guess camp couldn’t fix him. I guess he’s just like this.”