The Comics Curmudgeon

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My little friend is not so little anymore, Toby! In fact, she's quite large! Enormous, in fact! Nine foot six and getting taller by the day! It's actually quite alarming! We're getting into I'm a Virgo territory here! Did you watch that miniseries, by the way? It was on Amazon Prime a couple of years ago! Jharrel Jerome is a treasure! Some great performances by Elijah Wood and Walton Goggins as well, which reminds me that I need to start my Justified rewatch. Oh, Margo Martindale is another treasure, especially as a voice in BoJack Horseman. Anyway, Olive is a giant, is the point I'm trying to make.

—els
131

Somewhere in time

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Andy Capp, 7/14/25

The question of “When does Andy Capp take place” is increasingly fascinating to me — characters are on modern dating apps but also they dress … like that? … which seems pretty old-timey to me. Today’s strip in particular feels like it belongs to an age before the UK Parliament passed the Licensing Act 1988, back when alcohol could only be served at pubs from 11:30 am to 3 pm and 6:30 pm to 11 pm. This explains the reference to Andy’s “afternoon nap”; presumably he routinely stumbles home at 3 o’clock pretty soused and passes out on the couch for hours. Normally he’d be up and around to go back for the evening session, but I guess he overslept today and has missed out on hours of the precious “aimless drunkenness in the presence of non-wife people who he likes or at least whose names he knows” time that makes his life worthwhile bearable.

Hagar the Horrible, 7/14/25

Ha ha, that got a little dark! Anyway, speaking of placing comics in context, you know I’ve long been fascinated by when exactly Hagar the Horrible takes place over the evolution of Viking culture and society, but the where matters as well. I’m reasonably sure it’s been made explicit in-strip that Hagar lives in Norway, which means that his world faces out to the North Atlantic. His Swedish cousins have established extensive trading routes through the Russian river systems with the Byzantines and Abbasids, so they have access to the delicious spices of the east, but Hagar’s Norse compatriots haven’t gone far enough south of Greenland to discover genus Capsicum, which means that in his mind “hot wings” are just wings that are currently or recently on fire. Sad!

Hi and Lois, 7/14/25

When Hi referred to “your honey-do list,” I briefly thought that we were turning a traditional sexist cliché on its head here, but nope! It’s just a joke about Hi feeling wounded and unappreciated — or in other words, “classic late-era Hi and Lois,” which around here we do respect.

197

I guess it could be a “green substance” gun, technically

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Dick Tracy, 7/13/25

It seems that the Dick Tracy time travel plot is now over … and the Dick Tracy ray gun plot has begun! This is one Dick should have a better handle on, right? Because it’s a ray gun, but it’s still a gun, which is the sort of thing Dick likes. Anyway, I’m not entirely sure what the “This ain’t the county morgue” line is supposed to mean. Maybe in the wake of the corpsenapping incident earlier this year “county morgue” has become Neo-Chicago municipal employee slang for any facility that’s easy to break into by night.

Beetle Bailey, 7/13/25

Ha ha, we’re all familiar with the Beetle Bailey running gag that we never see Beetle’s eyes. But what do you suppose they look like under there? Well, it’s now strip canon that they’re an eldritch horror beyond imagination, a window into demonic madness. Sarge was either struck dead on the spot or will be gibbering and unresponsive in an insane asylum for the rest of his life.

Hi and Lois, 7/13/25

You know I like to make jokes about how the Flagstons are depressed, but that’s mostly about the parents. The twins are way too young to be this anhedonic and it’s bumming me out!

204

Yet more teen action

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Gil Thorp, 7/12/25

Hey, remember when Keri was in horse therapy, for their eating disorder? Well, big news: they took their horse therapist Britney to prom! Is that … ethical? Like, I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t take your therapist to your prom, but is horse therapy really therapy, like in a professional ethics sense? I guess maybe it is, since Britney was accurately able to diagnose Keri as “sad,” even with no horse present. In the end, maybe this is the real reason why you shouldn’t take your therapist to prom: you will end up having to talk about, like, feelings and stuff, right there in your dad’s minivan, when you should be figuring out how to surreptitiously cop a feel.

Archie, 7/12/25

Ha ha, laugh it up if you will, Archie and Betty, but you have probably gotten Jughead into quite a bit of professional trouble, as all the dogs he’s being paid to care for have escaped, possibly running into traffic! Though I guess Jughead should have anticipated this possibility and not have allowed the dogs to gather at the unlocked front door. Frankly, given how crazed this pack seems, they may have devoured him hours ago.

Mary Worth, 7/12/25

Mary looks positively deranged with excitement in this second panel, proving that for her, there’s no more powerful drug than an opportunity to tell her boyfriend that they won’t be spending any time together for a while.