The Comics Curmudgeon

‘Winkerboarding’ has been ruled a violation of the Geneva Conventions

Hi and Lois, 5/7/13

Sadly, one the many businesses that the Internet has changed beyond recognition is the adult film industry. Probably this shaggy-haired 19-year-old pizza dude has consumed all of his pornography in short, plotless smut-bursts, delivered in a tiny browser window, and has never seen the archetypical porn storyline in which a startled delivery guy is seduced by a sexually voracious customer. The smile on his face in panel two implies that at he’s at least read about such plots, though, or maybe heard them referenced in older literature, because he seems to realize that “Hey attractive lady, your husband can’t spend time with you but spent $12 to have shitty food delivered without bothering to even tell you he did it” is pretty much the gold standard for that particular scenario.

Family Circus, 5/7/13

Speaking of things that would be foreign to modern folk, I’ve always appreciated the fact that the Keane Kids seem to just form ad hoc play groups with whichever other kids are outside, rather than requiring their parents to set up appointments weeks in advance on the subdivision’s shared Outlook calendar. But still, I’m concerned about the seething mass of dozens of children that seems to have spontaneously assembled on the Keane’s lawn. What “game” could this tightly packed mob possibly be playing, other than “Let’s see how quickly we can fall upon and devour passers-by”? Ma Keane should shut that door as quickly as she can, then start boarding up the windows.

Funky Winkerbean, 5/7/13

Oh look, a Westview citizen has responded to a simple question with unfunny, confusing wordplay! Darrin’s bio-dad reacts not by co-smirking but with normal human irritation. I think I’m starting to like this guy.

Ziggy, 5/7/13

Haha, it’s funny because Ziggy wants to have sex with a lizard, and he feels terrible about it!

Death-haunted comics

Better Half, 5/1/13

Let’s check in with Stanley and Harriet, everybody’s favorite sad, disoriented comics couple! Today we learn the shocking truth: Are Stanley and Harriet sad and disoriented because they’re blotto on prescription meds, all the time? All the pill bottles stacked up on the kitchen counter imply that the answer is yes! Stanley peers through the pharmaceutical haze and remembers that there was a simpler, better time in his life when he didn’t feel this way, though his drug-addled brain can’t express this thought in any coherent way.

Shoe, 5/1/13

Biz, on the other hand, has chosen not to turn his golden years into a dim, druggy twilight. Though he suffers the aches and pains of old age, his mind and vision are clear, and he intends to confront death in his own way. (That way involves screaming in terror.)

Ziggy, 5/1/13

Is there significance to the fact that “Dr. Bobo” looks exactly like Ziggy? Or, for that matter, that the “real” doctor looks more or less like Ziggy as well? Is this all happening inside Ziggy’s sad, spherical noggin?

Dennis the Menace, 5/1/13

Sorry, Dennis, that’s not anywhere near cute enough to merit a post on Mom’s blog, and those Google AdSense payments are all that are standing between you and community college, so we’re going to stay here until you say something blogworthy if it takes all day, do you understand?

Oh no, Margo has learned to love, THE PROPHECY IS FULFILLED

Spider-Man, 3/15/13

Great things are happening over at Kingpin Laboratories! Under the inspiring guidance of the company CEO, Kingpin researchers are producing breathtaking innovations in neuroscience — with potentially profitable real-world implications! Meanwhile, across town, a freelance photographer manages, with some effort, to remember the name of a lawyer.

Blondie, 3/15/13

So it turns out that Dagwood’s inability to understand basic finance is just a symptom of his retreat into magical thinking when confronted with scarcity of any sort.

Ziggy, 3/15/13

Scram, Ziggy! Rats want to use your house for fucking!

Apartment 3-G, 3/15/13

Wow, darkness is falling on the city … pretty abruptly there, huh? I mean, in panel one it looks to be about mid-afternoon and then Margo expresses affection for another human and then an inky eternal shadow descends over new york, there is no escape and it is so so cold

Family Circus, 3/15/13

“All this suburban bourgeois bullshit that you think is important? It’s like you’re smothering my soul with a pillow! Just thought I’d let you know.”

Wizard of Id, 3/15/13

Ha ha, it’s funny because the dragon likes to eat his own poop!

You’re next! You’re next!

Ziggy, 3/3/13

This would just be another “Ha ha, Ziggy is foolish” panel if not for dark bags under Ziggy’s eyes. As it is, it’s pretty harrowing. What botanical horror has been going on at this house, leaving Ziggy unable to flee and yet still fearful of the ever-proliferating zucchini? Is it an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-type situation, where each of those pods contains a gestating duplicate of one of Ziggy’s innumerable pets? Ziggy has been awake for days, knowing that he’ll be replaced by a soulless pod person the moment he dozes off. This exterminator was his last hope. Nobody can help you, Ziggy. Nobody can help you.

Marmaduke, 3/3/13

Luther’s wife’s look of face-melting terror in the fourth panel is one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in this strip in years. Still, her reaction at the end of the strip just goes to show how numb she and her husband have become to presence of the caniform hell-demon in their midst. Better the devil you know than whatever she was imagining, am I right? I mean “devil you know” literally, of course. Marmaduke is the Prince of Lies, and everyone in the neighborhood knows him quite well, having been close enough to him to smell the damned souls on his hot, awful breath.

Marvin, 3/3/13

Speaking of monstrous dogs: would I endorse this monstrous dog eating every single one of the recurring Marvin characters one by one, each of them screaming as they slide down his gullet? Yes, yes I would.

Wednesday first one-liners of 2013 one-liners

Archie, 1/2/13

This sick burn on Mannequin 2: On The Move and/or soulless corporate control of all media was probably more pointed back when the strip first ran in the early ’90s, when Mannequin 2: On The Move was a recent memory and we hadn’t yet resigned ourselves to soulless corporate control of all media.

Crankshaft, 1/2/13

The sad, love-starved souls in the Funkyverse think that gently resting your back against somebody else’s back qualifies as “cuddling.”

Heathcliff, 1/2/13

Heathcliff’s owner has lost a bet to his cat, and because they’re not allowed to bet for money, he’s now subject to humiliation and physical abuse on his own front lawn.

Shoe, 1/2/13

Biz’s old buddy Zeke is going to die soon.

Ziggy, 1/2/13

Ziggy is sick and tired of working so hard to prevent his animal friends from killing each other.

Marmaduke, 1/2/13

Translation: WWHOORRRR WHOOORRRRORRR HORROR HORROR KILL KILL I WORSHIP THE DEMON BLOOD GOD BELOW

Ho ho hopelessness

Heathcliff and The Family Circus, 12/1/12

Celebrate, everybody! Three and half weeks of the Holiday Season lie before us, and if these whimsical one-panel cartoons for children are any indication, they will be a singularly grim and joyless affair. Billy is rooting through his box of toys so he can make his list of gift ideas; he literally has so many geegaws that he’s in real danger of getting duplicates. His toys may be spilling out of the top of a box that comes up to his shoulders, but they can never fill his bottomless need. Dolly looks on, expressionless. Meanwhile, Heathcliff, who is a cat and therefore not a participant in human religion or holiday celebration, merely sees the hustle and bustle at the mall as another opportunity to assert his dominance. He’s disrupting a farcical Christmas tradition meant to generate more sales revenues, and neither the bored mall Santa nor the stoop-shouldered children waiting in line can work themselves up to be even slightly upset by his antics.

Archie, 12/1/12

I bet you thought that yesterday’s late-night recycling laffs were just a one-off Archie joke, but no! Morning has come and now Archie and his dad are going down to the recycling center to return … the papers … which are now pamphlets about environmentalism? Or maybe the newspapers are being turned into the pamphlets, right there, at the recycling center? Anyway, the point is that recycling’s for chumps, kids, make sure your newspapers end up in a landfill, or, to go that extra mile, find a small endangered bird and smother it with the sports section!

Herb and Jamaal, 12/1/12

Do people outside of wacky fictional settings ever do elaborately sarcastic performances like this? I mean, it’s one thing to mock your lonely, heartbroken friend by telling him he’s having a “pity party,” but it’s quite another to take off your apron and leave the room and announce that you’re going to make actual concrete preparations for such an event. I certainly hope Herb has the determination to see this thing through to the end and really go to Kinko’s to have something printed up, or at least create a Facebook event and send invites to everyone Jamaal knows.

Ziggy, 12/1/12

God, this squirrel is quite the little name-dropping asshole.