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Okay okay okay! Last Saturday’s post asked

where are the hot guys in today’s newspaper comics?

And you responded — in bulk! Seriously, the range of response confirms recent research that folks are more, er, refined in selecting men than men are in selecting women.

No room to list them all (and “Original Brawny Towel Man” is not a comic-strip character, dammit!), but here’s a tasty sample:

Judge Parker 10/20/2006

Judge Parker, 8/5/07

Hunky dimwit Sam Driver is curiously immune to the thrusty charms of women, including his wife.

Slylock Fox, 2/19/07 and 9/3/07

¿Quién es más macho? Buford Bull o Slylock Fox? Oh — I think we know!

Li’l Abner

Several people expressed a hankerin’ for uncomplicated beefcake “L’il” Abner Yokum, wisely favoring him over jailbait brother Tiny.

9 Chickweed Lane, 8/3/07

Everybody’s front-runner, Seth. Generous, confident, and chinly — all qualities thin on the ground in 9CL. Oh, did I mention pauciloquent? See, Brooke? I own a thesaurus, too!

Traditional “male” stereotypes — Mark Trail, Dick Tracy, even o’l stripey Phantom — received a resounding “meh” from our faithful readership. Surprise contenders included Rob Wilco from Get Fuzzy, the Grampa from One Big Happy, and Ted Forth. One person suggested that Margo was more of a man than anyone in the comics. I think the person who suggested Leroy Lockhorn was joking.

And here’s a dark horse, from the very darkest of stables:

Funky Winkerbean, 6/9/07

Comic John* went to the prom with Chien, had a good time, and probably earned himself a slot in author Tom Batiuk’s scheduled (and most likely written and illustrated) Great Leap Forward. And in the words of faithful reader Three or Four, “Seriously. Whoever gives him a charity lay is gonna get the surprise of her life.”

mmmmmmm. . . . Original Brawny Towel Man. They really sold out with that second guy.

— Uncle Lumpy

* Observant reader Al notes below that this is not, in fact, Comic John, but Mopey Pete. Please make the appropriate substitutions.

This just in!

For the ladies: Thanks to the diligent Intertube research of faithful reader Godzooky, we have this rare image of our Man of Mystery, his Black Orchid, and the Love of his Life. Go nuts!

Brenda Starr, Reporter, 1963

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Slylock Fox, 9/5/07

Aww, this is just charming — it explains both why there are no more dinosaurs, and why they left so few remains! Yes!

Sally Forth, 9/5/07

Sally’s Mom is back! Sally’s Mom is back! Sally’s Mom is back! Yes!

Apartment 3G, 9/5/07

Margo steels for love-combat with Nora the not-Margo. There will be bloodshed. Yes!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/5/07

Heather, why the big scary-face? Think this through: isn’t “I will hold you for ransom” about your best option right now? Huh?

— Uncle Lumpy

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You know the look.

You’re standing in the kitchen with a wad of newsprint in your fist, screaming fluent, brutal invective at Mary’s advice, Dolly’s wordplay or Liz’s life choices. Suddenly in the doorway is your spouse, your child, your lover — hell, your pet — wearing that look.

No one at The Comics Curmudgeon will ever give you that look. Not the guy who spurns Lynn Johnston’s affections, not the barkeep ruined by a coke-addled cat, nor the reanimator with all the links — not the woman who built a neo-Freudian parallel FOOB, nor the one who counts the squid. None of the songwriters, dancers, poets, aphorists, lurkers, vulgarians or saints here will ever give you that look. You’re among people who know that comics matter, and care enough to mock the bad ones.

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And speaking of that look, this look is all wrong:

For Better or For Worse, 9/4/07

Throughout this entire ramshackle dénouement, we were led to expect charming vignettes from the early days of the strip. Assurances were made! We were led to expect this:

For Better or For Worse, 12/6/79

This is why people are so passionate about this strip after 28 years — look at Elly’s breezy, self-confident sexuality, and her comfort with both her options and her choice of a new husband, who is clearly boggled by his good fortune. We see none of this in today’s “reimagined” strip — remanufacturing young love as something like a maritime docking maneuver.

But that’s not even my biggest problem. No — this is my biggest problem:

For Better or For Worse, 9/4/07, 8/7/07 (flipped)

Having failed utterly to gin up support for Liz’s pasty milquetoast intended, the author is raising the stakes — “see, he’s just like John was! How can you hate him now?”

You’ll see.

— Uncle Lumpy