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Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/22/22

So Rex Morgan is trying to do a thing where they’re aging up the kids a bit, and … look, as a non-kid-haver, I’m just going to admit that I often have a hard time guessing the age of kids I encounter in real life, let alone really weird-looking ones from the comics, so I definitely feel free saying I’m not comfortable putting a number on how old any of these young people were or are, but just based on relative sizes I’m going to go ahead and say that Johnny and Michael should absolutely not require the Santa 101 Sarah is laying down here. But if it’s not for them, who is this exposition for? Us? Does Rex Morgan, M.D., think we need a primer on how Santa works? Just because I’m not clear on the distinction between roots country and the adjacent genres doesn’t mean I’m an idiot, guys.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/22/22

It’s bad enough that Snuffy is calling his parents and in-laws things, but I’m pretty sure that there are only four of them? Wait, is the fifth “thing” the moonshine jug? Do antique moonshine jugs have status equal to that of elderly people in Hootin’ Holler? Because that tracks, honestly.

Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft, 12/22/22

So Funky Winkerbean is spending its final days proving that the time discontinuity has now been resolved by having its cast and the Crankshaft cast meet up at a chuch concert in a snowstorm. I certainly hope that they’re trapped there for days and this turns into an Alive situation, with half the people eaten and the survivors left to malaprop about their cannibalism in Crankshaft in 2023.

Slylock Fox, 12/22/22

So Max, who usually wears shorts and no shirt, sleeps in a shirt with no shorts? This is honestly extremely disturbing.

Gil Thorp, 12/22/22

“I’m gonna go home and get divorced! I’m on a roll!”

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Crankshaft, 12/16/22

Hey, did you know that “deja vu” means “seen again,” and that “vu” is the past participle of the verb “voir,” which means “to see,” and that an earlier form of the same French word entered English after the Norman conquest and gave rise to the English word “view”? Or, to put it more succinctly, did you know that “view” and “vu” are basically the same word? And so this isn’t really much of a pun or anything at all? I know the bar for Crankshaft wordplay is very low, but surely it should be higher than this?

Mother Goose and Grimm, 12/16/22

It probably won’t come as surprise to you that I’ve been reading Mother Goose and Grimm for a long time, possible since it first launched in 1984. I have a vague memory that Ralph (the Boston terrier) was not an original character, but was introduced some time into the strip’s run, maybe? But if so he’s been around for years. Years. You’d think … Grimm would know if his friend had a job? Or at least, some politics weird enough that he’d she tears over Mr. Potter?

Crock, 12/16/22

I’d like to think that whoever on the Crock creative team wrote this strip in the 1990s or whenever this first ran had heard of boom boxes, by which I mean had heard the phrase “boom box,” but didn’t really know what they were. A box that booms, probably? That’s why they call it that, right? Not sure what the box looks like, better not draw it, but we can be pretty confident about the booms.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/16/22

You absolutely cannot make me care about this conversation Rex and June are having about not having any more kids, but I am profoundly unnerved by the way each frame is a closer and closer zoom in on one of their faces. Here’s hoping this trend continues and by Sunday we just have word balloons emerging from six panels of undifferentiated, featureless pinky-peach flesh.

Family Circus, 12/16/22

Uh oh! Big Daddy Keane’s gonna get arrested!

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Crankshaft, 12/14/22

I love the idea of this TV station boss threatening to make his staff pick up dog shit if they annoy him. There are just lots of levels to it. First of all, there’s the fact that they have a regular event where a bunch of dogs shit all over the studio, and they haven’t really figured out how to deal with that yet. Also, if nobody makes this pun, I guess the dog turds are just going to stay all over the studio? To prove a point? “At least nobody made a stupid pun,” the boss says, as everyone gingerly walks around all the poop that’s smeared everywhere. Anyway, I certainly hope that the station janitor is within earshot, so that he knows that his job is a punishment, actually.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/14/22

I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the gag writers for Barney Google and Snuffy Smith understand what “feudin’” entails in a culture where clan loyalties are paramount and the government is unable to claim a monopoly on legitimate violence. It does not involve playing wacky pranks on one another, I assure you! It involves Barlow trying to murder Uriah, with a gun.