Metapost: Crisp fall comments of the week
Post Content
The gorgeous fall weather is arriving (your geoclimatic mileage may vary), so let’s enjoy it, and this comment of the week:
“Wow, good for Mother Goose — I’m so glad she’s finally living her truth! Now if only we could learn the truth about her alleged motherhood, or whatever nightmare creature she actually is because last time I checked geese don’t have enormous angular brow crests or shark fins(?) coming out of their heads? At least now we know her posterior head triangle is actually hair, which geese also don’t have.” –Manjack
Your runners up are also autumnally fantastic!
“Are the Crankshaft characters insulting their creator’s own art? This is a direction I could really enjoy.” –Nevin, on Patreon
“The funniest bit of this to me is that fact that Leroy and Loretta seem to be completely alone in there. It’s hard to imagine what kind of behaviour would clear out a bowling alley, but if anyone could do it, these two could.” –pugfuggly
“Sorry, not only do I not want to think of my carpet as being sentient, the thought of it having vision is absolutely terrifying. Full disclosure: I am nude sometimes. I have not found a way yet to change my underwear without getting into that state. Do I need to start rolling out a floor-sized blindfold to hide my shame from the Berber voyeur in my bedroom?” –Tabby Lavalamp
“Some people say baseball is a slow, boring game, but give credit where it’s due, it’s a drug-free means of curing Hi’s insomnia in the throwaway panel.” –Philip
“What I love most about this is that a) that text box gives us way too much information and b) that information doesn’t even seem to be correct? I mean, is she putting mail on his desk, or pulling a (hopefully pre-opened) credit card bill from the middle of the [squints] notebook corral? Also, side note, but Toby — I know the print isn’t the biggest on those things, but that paper is two and a half centimeters from your face, so maaaaaaybe it’s time to visit an optometrist. Better or worse, Toby? Better or worse?!” –els
“Yesterday’s strip was the first time I noticed how low on his face Hi’s eyes are. Now when I look at him, it’s all I can see! That man’s visage is at least 40% forehead!” –Victor Von
“Now that a critical mass of newspaper comic strips have touched upon AI, it’s probably a good time to wager on the ol’ economic bubble popping in a matter of days.” –InvasionOfTheZIM
“That’s not football, Alexander. That’s someone’s innovative variant on the clingfilm fetish. You’ll be famous!” –matt w
“Crazy to think we got a ‘Toby thinks Ian is cheating because she heard a rumor’ plot before an ‘Ian thinks Toby is cheating because she is married to Ian and who could blame her’ plot.” –Dan
“I’d like to think that panels 1 and 2 are unrelated, and Toby is just horrified because she remembered that Mary exists.” –Mr. A
“We were taking in the fall colours — literally taking them in! We’ve absorbed them all, draining them between Sunday and now, and only we can enjoy them! Bwa ha haa! Have fun in the dull boring green world while we’re looking inwards at gold and ruby-tinged nature!” –CanuckDownSouth
“He’s also got two different copies of The Watchtower to give us, Mommy, if you’ve just got a moment to listen to him!” –A Grave Mind
“Thel looks exactly the way you’d expect from a housewife from the early 1960s hearing about divorce for the first time. ‘You mean I can just … end my marriage, and everyone will be okay with that? Why didn’t I hear about this sooner?’” –TheDiva
“‘What brings you to the PARK!?’ ‘We were just enjoying the GRATUITOUS BOLDING!!!’” –Peanut Gallery
“In comics, characters rarely age or change. Gertie will remain in stasis, even as the memory of Dale Earnhardt recedes further and further into the past. There will come a time when the comic strip (produced by Mike Smith’s grandchildren or the AI content creators of GG Humor Amalgamated Inc.) depicts Gertie worshiping a race car driver who died before she was born. At that time, it will appear that she is longing for the days when NASCAR competitors were human beings rather than self-driving machines.” –Danny
“Wedding crashers Gerads and Darby have been the talk of the town. People have so many questions. Which one is which? Are they gay? Who does that blond guy think he’s fooling with that long hair when we can see that he’s balding on top, where it counts? What kind of pathetic loser crashes a wedding to intimidate a high school football coach? Yes, they’ve got people talking, all right!” –Joe Blevins
“Kudos to Brigman for having the evil parrot, El papagayo siniestra, depart from Toby’s left shoulder. It’s this level of attention to detail that pushes the suspension of disbelief.” –Hibbleton
“The Phantom’s first panel is funnier if you picture Mollusk sitting in a giant car seat.” –lynn
Remember: If you want an ad-free version of this site sent to you every day via email, for $3 a month you can become a Comics Curmudgeon newsletter subscriber! And if you never want to see banner ads on this site, and want to get cool comment-editing features to boot, for the same low price you can become a Comics Curmudgeon website subscriber! You can get each day’s post ad-free via Patreon if that’s your style! And if you just want to give me money directly, you can put some scratch in my tip jar! Thanks to all for your support and readership!


4 replies to “Metapost: Crisp fall comments of the week”
Shadow COTW Contenders, Part 1
Hibbleton
September 26th, 2026 at 4:34 am Reply
Mary Worth: It sounds reasonable until you realize Toby’s inner monologue is in the voice of a parrot.
pugfuggly
September 26th, 2026 at 4:47 am Reply
Blondie: “Mama Chowabunga Manicotti Mansion” feels like a compromise solution of the world’s most dysfunctional corporate committee. “Ok, to review: our market research says that the most successful restaurants in our target area are luxury bistros, cozy Italian eateries and Chuck-E-Cheese. Now, since we can’t seem to agree on one clear option, I’d like to propose a radical solution…”
Hibbleton
September 26th, 2026 at 5:53 am Reply
Dennis the Menace: The Wilson series of terminators was a total bust.
Joe Blevins
September 26th, 2026 at 7:47 am Reply
Blondie: “Honey, why don’t we go to Dave’s Salads?” “THAT’S NOT EVEN ALLITERATIVE! I WANT A DIVORCE!”
BigTed
September 26th, 2026 at 8:20 am Reply
Mary Worth: “Of course Ian isn’t having an affair with Mary Worth!,” Toby thinks. “And to prove that I’m not mad, I’m going to make him my special buttered orange celery tonight!”
Artist formerly known as Ben
September 26th, 2026 at 11:28 am Reply
Mary Worth: “Ridiculous”? “Crazy”? “Absurd”? Glad to see Toby is getting good use out of the Roget’s Thesaurus Ian gave her as an anniversary present.
GarrisonSkunk
September 26th, 2026 at 1:42 pm Reply
Blondie: Mama Chowabunga Manicotti Mansion is the home of Teenage Mutant Ninja Dagwoods™.
Artist formerly known as Ben
September 26th, 2026 at 3:20 pm Reply
Gil Thorp: I often think back to when some of us on this site–myself included–said, “Hey, Gil and Mimi Thorp have kids? Why don’t we ever see them?” I didn’t know how good I had it.
pugfuggly
September 27th, 2026 at 4:43 am Reply
Family Circus: It’s actually Big Daddy Kane wrapped up in that carpet, just remembering all the good time he had with it as he’s carted off to a shallow grave.
Ettorre
September 27th, 2026 at 5:37 am Reply
Hi and Lois: Hi feels oppressed by his ordinary bourgeois middle America lifestyle. But he can escape in his dreams! And his dreams are… still ordinary and low-ambition. You cannot escape if you cannot even imagine an out!
Hibbleton
September 27th, 2026 at 6:12 am Reply
Family Circus: Starting at the top going clockwise: captions cropped from the original art.
Billy reads pictorial instructions from IKEA. Invents the Järvfjället
Thel vacuums up pubes from her and Bil’s traditional under the tree Xmas eve boink
Billy tells Barfy “Wait for me!” Pulls down pants
Jeffy gets his first of many golden showers
The Keanes use a stolen curb stop as a flatscreen TV stand
Billy cheats his siblings out of their Christmas money
Thel finds a random baby wandering around their apartment
TheDiva
September 27th, 2026 at 7:35 am Reply
Crankshaft: You remember Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, which begins with an evil mirror breaking and the shards causing people to see everything in the world as horrible and losing their ability to feel joy and wonder? Yeah, don’t know why I thought of that just now.
Anonymous
September 27th, 2026 at 7:37 am Reply
Family Circus: Harold looks exactly like the kind of person who would immediately jump at a Facebook Marketplace ad for free soiled carpeting. He has hundreds of them stuffed into his house.
Horace Broon
September 27th, 2026 at 7:53 am Reply
Dick Tracy: Of course Blowtop is surprised to see Dick in a cemetery — everyone there’s already dead!
Bob Tice
September 27th, 2026 at 7:53 am Reply
Family Circus: Wow, it’s like a Puff the Magic Dragon situation, only with a slab of anthropomorphized shag carpeting.
Philip
September 27th, 2026 at 9:28 am Reply
Crankshaft: Not every bitter failed painter invades Poland – some go to Ohio to become cartoonists.
Guillermo el chiclero
September 27th, 2026 at 10:54 am Reply
Crankshaft: You know, speaking of bad art all this scene needs is a musclular barbarian warrior and a scantily clad slave girl and we’d have a perfect 1970s airbrushed van mural.
Bob Tice
September 28th, 2026 at 4:41 am Reply
Mary Worth: The anagram of “Maui luxury house” is “Um, hi — our sexy luau.”
Coincidence? — I think not.
Ettorre
September 28th, 2026 at 4:58 am Reply
Alice: Of course ChatGPT wished you Happy Birthday! He’s not an asshole like Claude!
Banana Jr. 6000
September 28th, 2026 at 5:42 am Reply
Alice: These people are so socially awkward that sending a birthday card is the greatest example of human emotion they can think of.
The Quiet Man
September 28th, 2026 at 6:07 am Reply
Judge Parker: ‘Randy, can’t you see I’m in a *hurry*? I’m doing lots of important legitimate businessy business business! Certainly not going back to CIA wetwork because neither of us have any marketable skills to pay for this massive house!’
Shadow COTW Contenders, Part 2
Hibbleton
September 28th, 2026 at 6:09 am Reply
Family Circus: Thel tries to explain the theory of an infinite God to Dolly. “Suppose you had an infinitely large hotel filled with an infinite amount of guests and then infinite amount of people showed up looking for rooms, you could have each guest move into an adjacent room and the new people could fill those now empty rooms. That’s’ what it’s like with your prayers. God’s mind never fills up.”
Dolly responds; “Geez, mom. Are you saying our God is only as large as a countable infinity? That doesn’t sound so powerful at all. Maybe I’ll give Baal a shot.”
Hibbleton
September 28th, 2026 at 6:24 am Reply
Mary Worth: “A trip to the Maui Luxury House Resort” brings up images of scantily dressed people relaxing on a beautiful beach in Hawaii, specifically in this case Toby and Ian. Moy’s way of warning us that if you thought seeing Wilbur in a Speedo in Colombia was a fright wait till you see what’s coming.
Horace Broon
September 28th, 2026 at 10:42 am Reply
Judge Parker: “Sorry, Sam, I have a busy day of not talking to you already scheduled!”
Rover Berkeley
September 28th, 2026 at 11:24 am Reply
Judge Parker: Yeah, Randy, read the room. There are people out there who need maiming, knifing and blowing up. Save it for tonight over dinner.
Guillermo el chiclero
September 28th, 2026 at 4:55 pm Reply
Phantom: Maybe Stripey is just standing there hoping Chatu will eventually shit his pants.
matt w
September 29th, 2026 at 4:34 am Reply
Mother Goose and Grimm: Are you even supposed to get haircuts if your hair is feathers?
Bob Tice
September 29th, 2026 at 4:36 am Reply
Judge Parker: “Running late. It takes sooooo long to dissolve people in lye!”
Anonymous
September 29th, 2026 at 4:45 am Reply
Mary Worth: How could the floating heads have betrayed Toby like this?
Dan
September 29th, 2026 at 5:16 am Reply
Mary Worth: Crazy to think we got a “Toby thinks Ian is cheating because she heard a rumor” plot before a “Ian thinks Toby is cheating because she is married to Ian and who could blame her” plot.
Tabby Lavalamp
September 29th, 2026 at 5:58 am Reply
Mary Worth: I guess Ian could have Prince Charles Syndrome. That’s where someone has an attractive and charming younger spouse but throws it all away for a frump with half the personality.
Little Guy
September 29th, 2026 at 6:13 am Reply
Dick Tracy: If I didn’t know it was Blowtop, I would say with his “WHOO! GOSH!”, he has massive intestinal gas that he doesn’t know if it’s solid or not.
ValdVin
September 29th, 2026 at 7:17 am Reply
Pluggers get their autumn exercise by hunting. They’re their own pointer and retriever.
Rube
September 29th, 2026 at 12:21 pm Reply
You’re a Plugger if you wear camouflage but still get shot by another Plugger who has a varmint licence.
Artist formerly known as Ben
September 29th, 2026 at 1:37 pm Reply
Family Circus: Being an innocent lamb of…what? Four or thereabouts? Anyway, Jeffy has no concept of where baby donuts come from and how crullers are involved, and for that we can all be grateful.
CanuckDownSouth
September 30th, 2026 at 4:34 am Reply
Rex Morgan: “We were taking in the fall colours – _literally_ taking them in! We’ve absorbed them all, draining them between Sunday and now, and only _we_ can enjoy them! Bwa ha haa! Have fun in the dull boring green world while _we’re_ looking inwards at gold and ruby-tinged nature!”
Ettorre
September 30th, 2026 at 4:43 am Reply
Family Circus: “Mom, Gary has one room in his father’s house and one room in his mother’s house! Why can’t I?”
“Because I don’t know whether the milkman has any spare room”
Charterstone: Dune
September 30th, 2026 at 5:06 am Reply
Heathcliff: When did this strip start using a traditional crescent moon shape rather than its signature crescent-wrench moon?
Pozzo
September 30th, 2026 at 5:34 am Reply
Family Circus: This could be just the motivation Billy needs to sow dissent between his parents. “You know, I heard Daddy say that Fritzi Ritz makes him harder than Chinese algebra.”
Hibbleton
September 30th, 2026 at 6:12 am Reply
Family Circus: I fed this strip into AI and it came up with this: Billy is an opera singer delivering his lines in a recitative voice while the audience eagerly waits for Thel’s foreboding response (it’s an Italian opera). Spoiler alert: Gary dies of consumption.
Shadow COTW Contenders, Part 3
Mr. A
September 30th, 2026 at 6:21 am Reply
Family Circus: Look, Jeffy, you can’t just scribble on your hair with magic marker and try to pass yourself off as a new character. You’re not fooling anyone. Well, anyone smarter than Billy.
Charterstone: Dune
September 30th, 2026 at 6:33 am Reply
Dennis the Menace: Maybe housework would wear you out so much, Alice, if you didn’t drag an armchair into the kitchen and angle it facing the door with a bucket and mop positioned right next to you for when Henry comes home all to make some kind of weird passive-aggressive point!
Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women
September 30th, 2026 at 7:18 am Reply
Family Circus: Gary’s parents are happily married, but he sure knows how to fuck with people like the Keanes. Dennis Mitchell should be taking notes.
Guillermo el chiclero
September 30th, 2026 at 7:26 am Reply
Family Circle: Don’t be so jealous of Gary, Billy. Judging by his jaundiced complexion he’ll soon die of hepatitis.
2+2=7
September 30th, 2026 at 8:03 am Reply
Family Circus: Unfortunately, Gary isn’t lucky enough to avoid guest-starring in the role of “Recycled Clip Art.” (This is a cut-&-paste of a previously-run strip, right down the same text under it.. Josh even featured it on this site. Josh probably didn’t notice because the previously ginger guy is now a brunette, so see, it’s “different.”)
ectojazzmage
September 30th, 2026 at 8:30 am Reply
Family Circus: Thel frowns with annoyance. She was always telling Billy to not get attached to the children he lured to the Keane Kompound for use in blood sacrifices, but he never listens. Now she’ll have to listen to his blubbering while she and her husband smash open Gary’s ribcage to pull out the organs that please the Dark Lord, and it’ll be all annoying and awkward and just totally kill the mood.
Peanut Gallery
September 30th, 2026 at 12:38 pm Reply
Rex Morgan: “What brings you to the PARK!?” “We were just enjoying the GRATUITOUS BOLDING!!!“
Ettorre
October 1st, 2026 at 4:39 am Reply
Gearhead Gertie: Turning her house into a shrine for a man who left a hole in her life? Gertie is like Miss Havisham if Great Expectations was written by someone with no talent.
TheDiva
October 1st, 2026 at 5:06 am Reply
Gil Thorp: Good idea, Emily, but I don’t see how a reluctant high school teacher and a weirdly adorable rock alien are going to help in these circumstances…
Victor Von
October 1st, 2026 at 5:38 am Reply
Gil Thorp: …Gerads looks like a supervillain with “prehensile hair” who’s still growing it out. Right now, his shoulder-length locks can only mildly inconvenience his foes, but five years from now? Do-gooders beware!
Hibbleton
October 1st, 2026 at 5:47 am Reply
Family Circus: Never seen a toilet held down by four bolts. It’s normally two. Must be to keep whatever poltergeist that put Jeffy’s head on backwards from rising up through the plumbing.
Voshkod
October 1st, 2026 at 5:58 am Reply
Gearhead Gertie: No matter how hard she tries, Gertie’s husband just won’t take the hint that she really wants a threesome. Presumably involving Dale Earnhardt’s corpse.
GarrisonSkunk
October 1st, 2026 at 11:57 am Reply
This is a group of comics that really gets you asking “What’s happening with Alice and her aliens today?”
Pozzo
October 2nd, 2026 at 4:37 amReply
Phantom: “The Phantom stole my rocket” sounds like the password phrase you’d say to get into an after-hours rave.
Bob Tice
October 2nd, 2026 at 4:40 amReply
Phantom: ”The Phantom stole my rocket!! That’s that — I’m going to take my Bad Guy Ball and go home!”
lynn
October 2nd, 2026 at 5:06 amReply
Phantom’s first panel is funnier if you picture Mollusc sitting in a giant car seat.
Schroduck
October 2nd, 2026 at 5:21 amReply
Mary Worth:
TIRED: Mary’s having sex with Ian. WIRED: Mary’s having sex with a parrot.
Charterstone: Dune
October 2nd, 2026 at 5:34 amReply
Family Circus: “Mommy! I’m done cleaning my room! Come look quick before before Gary—that smug bastard I bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat and shoved under my bed—starts to stink!”
Shadow COTW
——————
Horace Broon
September 30th, 2026 at 11:43 am Reply
Family Circus: How my brain works (or possibly doesn’t): I could not tell you with confidence what my work schedule is for next week without checking my phone (and I’m not entirely confident I even remembered to put it in my phone), but show me a blog post where Josh comments on how smug Random Child of Divorce looks, and I immediately think “Not only have I seen that strip before, I’ve seen Josh discuss Gary’s smugness before! Quick check of the archives… Yep, it was nearly seven years ago!”