Post Content

Dennis the Menace, 4/5/21

I like that these two kids and their moms have similar facial expressions, as if both pairs were mirror images of one another. In particular, I’d like to imagine that, while Dennis is cracking wise about this kid living a life no better than a dog’s, the leashèd child is saying, “Look, mommy, that boy is experiencing freedom! Horrible, horrible freedom!”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/5/21

When I first saw this strip today, I assumed that it was maybe the anniversary of the first Mary Worth strip or something and there’d be tributes to our favorite gal all across the King Features comics pages today! But no, apparently all that happened was that someone in the Snuffy Smith creative team thought up this pun and declared “Tarnation, fellers, that there’s good synergy!” (For this bit, I’m assuming that a requirement for working on Snuffy Smith is that you have to talk in the fake and borderline offensive Snuffy Smith hillbilly patois at all times when you’re on the clock.)

Mary Worth, 4/5/21

Anyway, Mary has plenty of time to appear in other comics because, even though we all assumed that this storyline had finally, blessedly reach its natural conclusion and we’d need her back to set up the next one, it turns out that’s not true, at all! In fact, it’s never going to end and this is our hell, just two old people half-heartedly flirting by talking about how great dogs and forgiveness are.

Post Content

Quick reminder: If you’re interested in getting an ad-free version of each day’s blog post emailed directly to you every morning, you can now subscribe to the Comics Curmudgeon Newsletter for just $3 a month! Sign up and read more details here.

Blondie, 4/3/21

Not sure why but I’m very fixated on the choice to do a pink-to-blue gradient in the background here. Specifically, I’m very curious as to whether we’re looking at sunrise or sunset. Typically, Dagwood and Mr. Beasley the mailman crash into one another as Dagwood runs out the door in the morning to catch his carpool, but that usually happens because he’s running late, so it seems unlikely that our notorious snoozemeister would be up and around literally at the break of down. Mostly I’m curious as to whether the madness Mr. Beasley is displaying in today’s strip arises from beginning-of-day manic enthusiasm or end-of-day exhaustion verging on psychosis. I’m sure I could comb through hundreds of Blondie strips looking for clues as to the geographic orientation of the Bumstead home to determine whether we’re looking east or west here, but I’m proud to report that I’m not quite at that level of comics obsession.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/3/21

Man, this strip always does its best to extract grim laffs from its characters’ economically desperate situation, but “Snuffy begs Doc Pritchart to freeze his face into immobility with off-label botox, giving him a marginal advantage in the games of chance where the few circulating dollars in Hootin’ Holler are passed back and forth among the town’s impoverished residents” is really on another level.

Post Content

Marvin, 3/19/21

I assume Marvin creator Tom Armstrong has been drunk with power ever since he successfully fought off a lawsuit filed by a Mercedes dealership who was cruelly lampooned on comics pages across the nation for alleged bad service, but let me say this: the Flintstones, along with all other intellectual property developed by Hanna-Barbera, are currently owned by Warner Bros. Animation, a subsidiary of AT&T, which is a company with substantially deeper pockets and a much stronger urge to dominate than some hapless car dealer.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/19/21

The idea that divorces in Hootin’ Holler are settled via some legal process with attorneys involved, rather than by violent multigenerational clan feuds, has frankly shaken me to my very core.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/19/21

Wait, so Buck is supposed to be … comedy relief? He’s intended to be funny, you say? Huh. Huh.