Curtis will be sorry when Barry achieves samsara and he has nobody to harass
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/3/25
Cody may not be a blood relative to Truck, but they do have stuff in common: they’re both musicians, and they’re both aficionados of the sitting-based lifestyle. The difference is that Truck likes to sit on park benches, contemplating his troubles, whereas Cody sits in his not-stepmother’s diner, sponging off the free wi-fi while he dicks around on his laptop. Really makes you think about society these days!
Curtis, 8/3/25
Hey, remember when Curtis and Barry got expelled from their church congregation, for the sin of tomfoolery? Well, Barry has taken the opportunity to explore the sacred texts of the dharmic religions, and has been meditating on the nature of the soul and the possible purposes of the cycle of eternal rebirth. Curtis, meanwhile, has done exactly zero spiritual seeking. “It’s summer!” he declares. “We don’t hafta meditate on the nature of anything!”
Six Chix, 8/3/25
I was going to get mad about this strip, which seems to propose a world where dogs walk on their hind legs and contemplate art but can’t read, but then I realized that this is probably a ceci n’est pas une arf type conversation. Surely nobody drinking red wine at an art opening could be anything less than a sophisticated intellectual! I’m sorry I doubted you, dogs!
70 replies to “Curtis will be sorry when Barry achieves samsara and he has nobody to harass”
RMMD: “And then waits for a response. And waits. And waits.”
Is this strip set in Casablanca…??”
Six Chix-I don’t know much about arf but I know what I like.
FC-I prefer the Toot and Come Inn.
RMMD-While he’s waiting let’s go check in on some other boring members of the cast.
MW: That cocker spaniel wasn’t scolded; he was telling Mary to shut the hell up about her “dogs are great” tract because even he’s tired of it at this point. Not everyone likes dogs, you old bag.
RMMD: Does Cody not have anything better to do than drop everything to obsess about his genealogy? A job? A hobby? Making crystal meth?
RMMD:
“Aw, man. Now I know how Didi and Gogo felt in Waiting for Godot!”
Six Chix:
“Well, I suppose the Dadaist Jean Arf would consider it ‘Arf.’ “
RMMD: Things go south when Cody’s half-brother turns out to be a paranoid nut job who thinks Cody is a deep state actor. “Have you had the jab? Huh!? Huh!!?“
RMMD:
“Let me scroll down on my bro‘s info here to see if there’s anything more about him. Here we go. ‘Offers droll, cynical but brilliant observations on The Comics Curmudgeon.‘ Makes perfect sense.”
RMMD: OK, I’ll admit it: the Facebook panel with “School of Hard Knocks” made me laugh a lot. Maybe the soap comics are by and for a dwindling, aging demographic, but it’s a demographic that’s absolutely nailed observational comedy about what your cantankerous underachieving half-brother posts on his Facebook profile.
Curtis: Imagine if when you die, you’re transported to the bardo and your entire vision is filled with the face of a universe-sized Barry booming “Suppose our souls are here to fulfill some grand purpose?” I’d begging for good old Judeo-Christian Hell after that sight.
Rex Morgan: Buddy, if you’re going to spend hours sitting with your computer in a four-top by the window, maybe order more than a cup of coffee and a bagel. No wonder your newfound relatives aren’t getting in touch right away — they can already sense that you’re kind of a freeloader (and the “School of Hard Knocks” teaches students not to interact with people like that).
Curtis: If a couple of gluttonous boys are worried about being reincarnated in a different form that’s determined by karma, maybe you shouldn’t be serving them bacon.
Six Chix: That painting may not be “arf,” but we can all agree that it’s pretty darn arful.
Six Chix:
“Well, you know the old Latin saying, Fido: ‘Arfs gratia arfis’ !”
“Hey, don’t go all Canis Lupus Familiaris on me, Rex!”
Curtis: I can’t help but seeing the extreme close-up of Barry in the bottom row as a frownie-face emoticon.
MW: If Olive is an animal whisperer, she needs to fly straight to California and get the dirt from Wilbur’s fish. There are stories there that need telling.
SIXCHIX: I call B.S. At a REAL canine art exhibit, the paintings would be closer to the floor, so they could be peed upon. I mean, we don’t think they signed a guest book, do we?
@MKay: “There’s a fish in your building Mary, she’s hired a hit man to off her owners.”
@MKay: Wilbur should have a restraining order from anyone under the age of eighteen. Olive might be a delusional weirdo but even she doesn’t need to be subjected to someone who was probably on an unaired episode of To Catch a Predator.
FC: Adult Jeff opens the morning paper to admire today’s strip when he realizes he forgot to white out the CRT TV. “D’oh!!”
MW: Olive’s powers might tell her the dog is in a bad mood, but the REAL reason it tried to bite Mary is that we readers have finally realized OUR power. WE. MADE. IT. HAPPEN. For years, we’ve been merely hoping and wishing things would play out differently from what Moy and Brigman have given us. Now, we have finally figured out how to channel the strength of our collective thoughts, syncing them to change the course of events at Charterstone and beyond! The air conditioner “accident” was only our first, faltering attempt, but we’re getting stronger by the day. Stronger, and more focused. We WANTED the dog to bite Mary, and it WOULD have, too, if only that that brat, Olive, hadn’t gotten in the way AGAIN. Things are happening.
RMMD: Oh boy, the Rex Morgan M.D. I know never spares us a single detail, so I’m guessing the next week of this strip is going to be Cody taking sips of coffee and hitting refresh on his browser. If we’re really lucky, We might even get to see him order another side of toast.
Curtis: Anyone else read that last panel as “Allah time”? That sent me down a little rabbit hole to find out if reincarnation did actually appear in any Islamic traditions, and turns out that despite mainstream rejection of the concept, certain Ismaili and Sufi schools of thought still include the concept, to the point that adherents will ask for forgiveness of sins committed in previous lives. Also, it seems that certain breakaway sects, like the Alawites, hold reincarnation as a central tenant of their faith. Anyhow, no joke, just interesting stuff.
MW: Also, The Ladies seem to be laying the foundation for a hostile takeover, with Olive replacing Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!
Curtis: Barry becomes obsessed with the idea he’s a reincarnated 17th century Scotsman which embarrasses Curtis when he starts wearing his mom’s gingham dresses to school.
MW. They hate Mary. Wow. Dogs ARE great.
6C: They should ask Popeye.
Curtis: My first thought was, bacon with Cap’n Crunch? Really, Diane?
@Liam: Six Chix-I don’t know much about arf but I know what I like. -and I’ll bet it isn’t Six Chix!
Curtis: It took a bit but I realized that the 1/2 circle in the closeup is a nose and not a frown of some frightening being.
Curtis: Diane, I know it’s early in the morning and you’re busy cooking, but if my 8 year old was sitting in the kitchen regaling his brother with big unverified claims followed by “A book I read says it’s true!” I would at least gently suggest that you can’t believe everything you read, and maybe he should look into whether anything he read can be verified.
@10 Bob Tice:
Hey, what was that, that just flew over my head?
Pluggers have exactly the same anxiety dream as everybody else does. Oddly, they don’t seem incredibly smug about it.
Chix (sic): At the weekly group meeting it’s agreed that the whole gynocentric thing isn’t working so we’ll give dogs a shot.
MW: Narration box: I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline; I object to power without constructive purpose. —Mister Spock
MW:
“And might I add, my namesake galaxy-hopping cousin would absolutely love to administer a Vulcan nerve pinch to Mary.”
— Benjamin Spock
Six Chix: I know know if the dialogue was English, Scottish, or Welsh or what… but in one of the fantasy novels I read, the heroes come across a destroyed wooden sailing ship. Literally torn in half on the rocks on the shore. The survivors of the incident who refurnished the remains of the ship into a home called it “Arf-ship” Because it was ‘arf a ship.
@BigTed: There was a movie I once saw. These two kids (The younger boy and older teenage sister) had a Hispanic baby-sitter. The boy went through her stuff, and found a magical item that turned him into his spirit animal (A pig)
So the three (and the kid’s best friend) went to Mexico to find the babysitter’s grandmother on how to reverse the spell.
It was pretty dull, tbh.
But it had the GREATEST (accidental) burn I have ever seen in a movie.
The moody teenage sister wanders off, so the Pig and his friend are looking for her. They see a girl that looks like her from behind.
Friend: Hey!!
The girl turns around and it isn’t her.
Friend: Sorry! (points to the pig) we thought you were his Sister.
RMMD: Pretty bold of Beatty to rip off the opening narration of Casablanca. Sure, Cody wants to reconnect with his half-siblings, but it’s not like he has to “wait and wait” for an exit visa to get to Lisbon.
JP: I think you’re alone, Norweigian Not-Fred. If Leah the MaybeMurderer had been anywhere in the house, Sophie and Reena’s exposition screeching would have brought her in like a shot (heh…), just to shut the three of you ninnies up.
And just how long is Ces going to drag this out before letting one of these two bimbos realize how suspicious it is that this male barista is suddenly so interested in getting involved in this CIApril crap?
@12 MKay: I’d rather Olive hear what Libby has to say.
@15 Hibbleton: The CRT TV, the cable box, the analog clock on the bedside table, the out of order sign with the string, the film camera, the one huge inline skate that’s bigger than Bil’s foot, Curtis Wilkins’ cap perched on the edge of the headboard fastened to the wall…but he did remember to white-out the corded telephone.
MW: “Watch out, Mary. His owner scolded him this morning and he is a scent hound…. and you both smell like soil for some reason.”
6C: Dog 1: “But is it ‘ARF’?”
Dog 2: “I think that’s the implication. But then again, maybe it’s ‘ARM’, or even ‘ARC’. It’s supposed to be ambiguous. Or at least I think that’s the concept.”
Dog 1: “Damn these new-age hippie experimental painters and their fringe techniques, using these – what do they call them? – oh yeah, ‘colors’!!!”
“Ce n’est pas un ouaf,” s’il vous plaît. Zut alors!
FC: But what about Mrs. Morgan’s cat? Don’t tell me he’s still in the suitcase!
RMMD: That “School of Hard Knocks” guy has the right idea about sharing information online. Remember folks: If you give all your personal information out on social media, someone like Cody might try to contact you. And you KNOW Cody wants to borrow money!
H&L: Lois screws a 150 watt incandescent bulb into the stand-up lamp and moves it near the window.
“Well, that takes care of Trixie.”
6C: Looks like Pup Art to me, but I can’t place the artist. Roy Lickin’stein? Aidi Warhol?
RMMD: To be honest, if a stranger emailed me out of nowhere and claimed to be my long-lost half-brother, I’d automatically assume it was a pig butchering scam and delete the message.
SIX CHIX: “But is it ‘Arf’?”
Oh my god! Bob Tice is making comics now!
Curtis: The speech balloon in the first panel belongs to Barry. Why is he answering his own question by talking about a book that he claims is “really really for real real?”
This monologue seems harmless now, but twenty years later, when the cult comes under fire for all those disappearances, Curtis will realize his brother was workshopping some toxic rhetoric.
Awesome stuff, David Matthews (whoever you really are). On the “Readers of the Comics Curmudgeon” Facebook page, he posted a screen shot of an adult video in which one of the women – with a coy look on her face – has a newspaper folded in such a way that it shows a Pearls before Swine comic. As David said, you know you’ve made it when that happens. (Now please post a link to the entire video.)
C’shaft: Jeff…doesn’t get out much, does he?
Dustin: “My 600-lb. Tumor” is Dustmom’s private name for Dustdad.
MW: If a fourteen-year-old claimed she knew exactly what a dog was thinking, my assumption would be less “special snowflake child with supernatural abilities” and more “looking for attention, and probably neurodivergent.”
Foxtrot: But does this game recreate the experience that you are definitely swimming in multiple people’s urine?
Curtis – Remember, kids, Cap’n Crunch and bacon are important parts of an industrial-food-system-approved breakfast!
Curtis – “Suppose we were pigs in a past life?” “Mmm! My descendants are delicious!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Did that huge filing job drive you nuts?”
“No worries, boss”
“I’m just filing myself now”
@48 Peanut Gallery: Do you mean “ancestors” instead of “decendants”?
Mary Worth Sunday quote: Ooh look, it’s the chapter heading and very first sentence of Benjamin Spock’s most famous book. This is just stunting on me now.
Rex Morgan: How did Beatty make Cody looking up his long-lost family look and sound like a stalker preparing to murder someone?
Curtis: Its not often that newspaper comics can make me say “what the fuck?”. But seeing Curtis and Barry get into a weirdly intense debate about reincarnation and cosmology is provoking that reaction in me.
Bizarro: He’s going to drop a surprise on them.
Lockhorns: “Face Painting” next to “Try Your Luck” is a neat throwaway joke (which I hope was on purpose) that I missed on first viewing.
Pluggers: The nighmare class she failed? “Egg-Sitting Arithmetic 101”.
Henrietta learned the hard way to not count her chickens before they hatched.
Beetle Bailey: This is a good go at a classic Beetle Bailey gag and worthy of all the room a Sunday strip takes up.
@TheDiva: Yeah, Olive is definitely the kind of kid that we’re supposed to think is cute and endearing but the way she insists that she’s different and special from her peers makes you want to throw something at her head. Or throw up.
@Liam:
FC: The Toot Uncommons?
RMMD: Is there any other kind?
@BigTed:
Wow, maybe Cody is Truck’s real son after all.
@Needless Exposition: Olive’s special, gifted, and talented. Just ask her!
DT: Doc Tess murdered Suleiman the loan shark slowly and painfully, and then sat there and smoked all of his cigars. Now, that’s cold-blooded.
Is reincarnation as most understand it real? No, that’s nonsense. But as explored by the great mangaka philosophers of Japan where if one is struck down by a large vehicle (“truck-kun“) they will be re-born, usually at an age where they will comprehend what happened, in a world that we would consider high fantasy or perhaps strongly resembling a video game, with powers far exceeding most inhabitants of that world? That makes theological sense to me.
@Baja Gaijin: No; if Curtis was a pig in a past life, present-day pigs could be descendants of that long-ago pig.
His father probably has an opinion on whether Curtis is a pig now.
@56 Needless Exposition: How about throwing up on her head?
@62 Peanut Gallery: Aah. Got it.
@Lord Flatulence: I could see her played by one of the Olsen twins in the 90s as some annoyingly precocious kid just like their character in Full House who had everyone wrapped around her finger in that Amityville Horror house. Probably Mary-Kate who played the super obnoxious scenes and is probably who I think of when I say that the baby on Full House was not cute.
@Needless Exposition: Nailed it.
Barry’s mother is trying to undermine his son’s belief in reincarnation by presenting him with meat from a slaughtered animal. Joke’s on you lady! Barry read a Druze book, not a Dharmic one, so he only believes in reincarnation among humans!
SC: Listen, “Barksy” as the name of the artist is a cute pun, but Banksy doesn’t paint on canvas — he paints on walls — and he doesn’t do deeply intellectual art — mostly pop-culture references and cheap symbolism. You cannot sacrifice sense for puns “Six Chix”, you are not Batiuk!
“What if our bodies are actually buried somewhere and we don’t know it?”
“That’s because both of you kids are messy! I always know where my bodies are buried!”
“Remember Arf? He’s back! In pop-art form!”
Lockhorns: Bottom right panel — looks like Loretta and Dark-Haired Lady have suddenly discovered they both share an Unfulfilled Passion, and are about to fulfill it…