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Blondie, 3/24/24

OK, look, syndicated newspaper comic strip Blondie: if you start a comic where Dag gets an alert on his phone that it’s time for a “ritual,” and Herb walks over looking depressed saying “I might as well get it over with,” the rest of the strip had better involve a grisly human sacrifice, part of some dark suburban magic to propitiate the tutelary deity of lush, even lawns, and not some bullshit about borrowing tools or whatever.

Dick Tracy, 3/24/24

OK, look, syndicated newspaper comic strip Dick Tracy: I know doing overly reverent takes on classic adventure comic strips is, like, your whole thing, but you’re going to have to decide whether the action you depict takes place during an era where undercover FBI agents would have no choice but to leave their newborn daughter at a local orphanage as they begin their most dangerous mission yet, or whether it takes place during an era when cordless phones exist. You can’t have it both ways!

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Bizarro, 3/23/24

One of my goals in this blog is to get you all to appreciate the comics as a fundamentally visual medium. You could describe a comic where the punchline is that a chicken is working in a diner and serves eggs that it just laid. But what makes this comic good is the smug and just vaguely sexual expression on the chicken’s face, along with the human customer’s expression indicating that he gets everything that’s going on here, he’s extremely disgusted, and yet feels he has no choice but to eat the eggs anyway.

Dick Tracy, 3/23/24

You ever forget how many days there are in a week? You ever forget how many days there are in a week when your job involves creating a specific number of creative works tied to the number of days in a week? I think a nice thing to do if you find yourself in that situation is to just let your characters enjoy a nice dessert before moving on with their story.

Slylock Fox, 3/23/24

It’s truly demeaning what the animals in the Slylockverse had to put up with in the days and weeks after the moment when they achieved sentience but still had to obey outdated human law. It wouldn’t be long after the moment captured here when the dog would be wearing the police uniform and the policeman would be in a mass grave. The squirrel knows the horror that awaits!

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Your top comment? It’s here!

“Hey, guy in the back, that’s no way to hold a sign! You have your right hand on one end of the sign and your left hand squarely in the middle, so it’s completely unbalanced. You’re really going to have to struggle to keep holding it, without some support on the other end. Do you know nothing about ‘the principle of moments’? Have you never heard of the concept of ‘torque’? And yet you have the audacity to claim that you’re a source of information???” –seismic-2

Your runners up? They’re ready for you!

“Everyone is picturing varying levels of Having A Bad Time in ‘the real world’ (math is hard, job’s not that great, getting bullied, getting rabies, dying alone wandering through an endless wood) except Momma Keane, who is cleaning up everyone else’s shit at home but imagining an uneventful but probably pleasantly boring grocery trip. The domestic labor gap is real.” –Cornelius Disaster

“Today’s Blondie is dangerously specific about what Dagwood does for a living. Usually they keep it vague to avoid angry letter-writing campaigns from their readers who loathe auditoriums.” –matt w

Time is money, Bumstead … but we still need to stall for at least two throwaway panels.” –TheDiva

“Katherine, I have to plunge out there into the outside world and show everyone my ridiculous hat!” –Bob Tice

“If it’s not banned by Congress, TikTokers will inevitably stumble upon old vaudeville acts and, like that short-lived sea-shanty craze in early 2021, make that a trend. Too bad the creators of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith won’t find out about it until six months after it dies off, and fail to create animated shorts from their archive of material to get renewed interest in this century old strip.” –Philip

“Alan is going to the movies every day, just in case Ann shows up there. Ann likes movies, right? ‘THE POPCORN COSTS ALONE ARE GOING TO BANKRUPT US, ALAN!’ ‘KUNG FU PANDA 4 IS OUT! ANN LOVES JACK BLACK AND SHE NEEDS HER FAMILY, KATHERINE!’” –Tabby Lavalamp

“Mary, I enjoy every day I spend with you. Which is what, two days a year? Three if we’re counting Christmas.” –Schroduck

“Okay, so that’s the villain in panel one. You can tell because he’s ugly, and he’s drinking, and he has poor trigger discipline. In the Deep Woods, only one man is allowed to violate the 4 Cardinal Rules of Firearm Safety, and he wears Lycra to do it!” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“Is it just me or has Jeff’s face suddenly become grotesquely swollen? I hope so because the possibility that he’s suddenly allergic to coffee or crackers or candles and his experiencing anaphylaxis without either him or Mary noticing is more plausible and interesting than this conversation they’re having.” –Spunky The Wonder Squid

Being in nature gives me such peace. Like the Botanic Garden. Everyone plant carefully in its place, trimmed and cut back when it grows too much, invasive plants and animals ruthlessly destroyed, everything planned and pruned and perfect, just like nature itself. It’s like the poet said, Mary: ‘Nature, led to root without flaw.’” –Voshkod

“‘So you’ve drawn a dog before, right?’ ‘Sure have. Look!’ [Incoherent Screaming]” –Old Man Shadow

“We’ve entered the perpetual death loop now. Mary and Jeff worked up an appetite on their earlier walk, so they went to eat at the Bum Boat, but now they want to walk off their meal with a leisurely stroll, which will result in them working up an appetite again, so they’ll return to the Bum Boat for a bite or stop by Mary’s kitchen for muffins, then they’ll need another digestive amble, and on and on it will go forever. They’re not even talking about Keith anymore, but on the bright side, they’re not talking about Keith anymore.” –jroggs

“I can’t remember Gil ever wearing a suit while coaching … anything. I can’t remember him coaching either, so I have to assume he’s scheming with this person to steal a car from the valet parking.” –Kevin on Earth

“While running at high speed, Gertie is sticking her head out of the car window and tailgates the car immediately in front of her. The only thing she learned from NASCAR is that car accidents are simply part of the game.” –Ettorre

“If you ever wondered what couples say to each other immediately before completing a suicide pact, now you know.” –Hibbleton

“Knowing that there would be a full moon that evening, did Mary and Jeff google quotes about light and darkness before their date, or are they old enough that they pulled out their respective copies Bartlett’s Quotations?” –Weaselboy

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