The Comics Curmudgeon

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Comment of the Week

Gossipy to the point of being almost wildly out of hand! In other words, manageably out of hand! And since 'out of hand' means 'suffering a loss of control,' 'manageably out of hand' is a nonsense phrase! I guess what I'm saying, Mary, is that my dialogue balloon could have been half the length it is, but I doubt that would have made it any more interesting!

—Six Nit Pix
70

Wednesday quick takes

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Blondie, 10/28/26

Don’t really feel like engaging with the “joke” here, but I do want to point out that at some point in the past week the Bumsteads rearranged the TV table so at least one of them can now see the screen while seated normally. Dagwood still seems to be having trouble, though, if that lean is any indication. You can move the TV even closer, Dagwood! That’s what the wheels are for!

Dustin, 10/28/26

I feel duty bound to acknowledge when one of those comics characters I truly loathe does something praiseworthy. For instance, today I’m pleased by the fact that Dustin’s dad has decided to meekly await death rather than putting any effort into staying alive.

Dennis the Menace, 10/28/26

By iron-clad comics visual law, this guy’s red nose indicates that he’s pretty drunk right now, on the job, presumably in the middle of the day. And who can blame him, when the children who should be his primary customers are wandering in off the street and asking shit like this?

169

Tuesday diatribes

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Blondie, 10/27/26

I know I complain about Dagwood a lot as a character in this strip, but I have to say that one of my absolute least favorite Blondie running gags is when some tediously zany characters come in to Blondie’s catering business to request some wacky theme banquet, and Blondie just taps away on her keyboard like an idiot while they do their little routine. It’s all just depressingly by-the-numbers and unfunny. And, as today’s strip makes clear, these people apparently launch into their little routines rather than just explaining what they want in plain English, which is even more depressingly stupid.

Hi and Lois, 10/27/26

A frequent topic of chatter in the comments of this website is that Chip Flagston looks very little like Hi and very much like both like Hi’s next door neighbor and best friend “Thirsty” Thurston and the garbage man (named either Abercrombie or Fitch, and I refuse to look up which one the blond one is). I have taken the high road and ignored this salacious gossip, instead simply taking it as evidence that Hi and Lois has a single character model for “slovenly slacker type,” but today’s strip, in which Lois admires the garbageman’s physical prowess and asks him if he works out while they both smile broadly, is kind of hard to ignore.

Mary Worth, 10/27/26

“Yeah, he’s the one who I heard it from! So I guess talking to you has been a huge waste of time as per usual, Saul.”

186

Neither the kids nor the olds are all right

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/26/26

Well, a week was about all the time we could spare to dedicate to Augie’s grim determination to never feel a moment’s excitement about anything that isn’t an absolute certainty, so now we’re moving on to … ugh, fine, it’s Buck and “Shorty and the Beanpole,” Glenwood’s favorite neo-vaudeville double act, I guess. You get a sense of how deep these kids are into this lifestyle by the way Corey reflexively says “the ceiling” in response to his father’s question. There’s no joy, no whimsy on his face: he just says it automatically, the way a tennis player at the top of their game would lob a serve back at you without a second thought.

Dustin, 10/26/26

God, look at this kid’s expression in the second panel. He is extremely excited to be on the verge of learning a fun fact from Dustin, which is one of the saddest things you could possibly say about a child with his whole life ahead of him.

Pluggers, 10/26/26

You know who doesn’t have his whole life ahead of him? This plugger! He’s stuck in that beanbag, and he’s gonna die there, soon!