Post Content

Daddy Daze, 4/28/25

One of my favorite little linguistic quirks is the existence of true homonyms: when two separate words with different meanings and different origins evolve in a language until they happen to be pronounced and spelled the same way. That’s what’s going on here with the word funk, or more accurately the two words funk(s): the “be in a bad mood” word derives from a Scottish and Northern English word of uncertain but possibly Flemish origin that means “become afraid,” whereas the “music to put you in good mood” word derives in slang from the sense (still in use today) of a funk as a bad smell, which in turn comes to English via French from the Latin verb for putting off smoke, fumigare. This is the sort of information I would convey to my baby, if I lived alone with my baby and had very little contact with the outside world and it drove me to a state of madness in which I believed that my baby’s incoherent babbling noises constituted meaningful attempts to communicate that only I could understand.

Andy Capp, 4/28/25

Nice try, Andy Capp. You think you can slip this kind of blatant falsehood past us because we’re dumb Americans who don’t know any better? We may be dumb but we do have access to Wikipedia, which informs us that the parliamentary constituency of Runcorn and Helsby has been vacant for nearly six weeks now. Sadly, the by-election to fill the seat is this Thursday, so it’s too late for Andy to throw his iconic hat into the ring. The sitting MP resigned because he got caught on camera repeatedly punching a man in the street, so it sounds like the locals would’ve been open to Andy’s whole vibe, frankly.

Crankshaft, 4/28/25

Remember “the burnings,” the apocalyptic event in the near-future of the Funkyverse that wiped out most printed literature? Well, it turns out Lilian invented them, as part of her cozy mystery series. And yet we know that her building-code-violating above-the-garage store survived them, which certainly is interesting in light of this new revelation, although we can at least take solace in the fact that she’ll eventually be replaced by a robot.

Heathcliff, 4/28/25

Heathcliff is finally starting a cult! And, you know what, good for him.

Post Content

Blondie, 3/15/25

You gotta imagine that, when you’re talking to Dagwood Bumstead, there’s always a danger that he’s going to stare off into the distance, licking his lips, as he descends into a food-driven fugue state. It’s probably pretty off-putting and it’s honestly surprising that more people don’t just avoid him. Certainly his mailman has no real professional obligation to interact with him as much as he does!

Daddy Daze, 3/15/25

The central mystery of Daddy Daze is, I suppose, whether the Daddy Daze baby actually communicates with the Daddy Daze daddy in an elaborate language of “ba”s that the Daddy Daze daddy can understand, or if literally every strip we see is just the Daddy Daze daddy doing an elaborate series of bits with a baby who is too young to consent to participate in them. But the secondary mystery is undoubtedly “Why are the “Daddy Daze daddy and the infrequently seen Daddy Daze mommy no longer together, despite the fact that they had a baby together quite recently?” Today, the answer is clearly that, whether the baby is a willing participant or not, a life with the Daddy Daze daddy is obviously a life spent subject to endless bits, and such a life is to be avoided at all costs.

Judge Parker, 3/15/25

Aw, isn’t that nice? Randy is sad about his sister going to prison, so his trained CIA assassin wife is helping him cope by cutting off his oxygen supply, sending him off to a peaceful sleep, possibly forever.

Post Content

Andy Capp, 2/21/25

Among the strips I’m starting to revisit is Andy Capp (never forget: ANDY CAPP!), and of course, there’s an important question one asks when starting to read this beloved British comics institution after the better part of a decade: is Andy Capp still a drunk? He’s a drunk, right? That’s his whole thing? Today’s strip, in which we learn that Andy would rather die horribly than spend his precious beer money on professional services of any kind, affirms this timeless truth.

Dennis the Menace and Bizarro, 2/21/25

One of my comics pet peeves is characters saying stuff they would never actually say (or having it implied that they said it moments before the in-strip action) just to set up a punchline. Take today’s Dennis the Menace, for instance: Surely a mail carrier would be much more likely to ask “Is he friendly?” or “Does he bite?” in a scenario where he’s encountering an unfamiliar and unleashed dog, as that would be relevant to his professional interests. Why on earth would he care about the dog’s peeing/pooping situation? I was planning on going on a whole diatribe about how cartoonists are simply obsessed with peeing and pooping, but then I read today’s Bizarro and immediately thought “Wait, is the implication here that Jesus drinks water and pisses out wine? Because that’s what the ‘In’/’Out’ labels pretty heavily imply to me,” so you know what, maybe I’m part of the problem.

Archie, 2/21/25

Reggie Mantle generally gets a bad rap, as he primarily exists in the Archieverse as an antagonist for our pals, but you know what? He’s absolutely in the right here. Is the student newspaper a joke to you, Jughead? Some of us are trying to learn about the practice of good journalism here!

Judge Parker, 2/21/25

Being best college buds with Sophie seems like fun — like, you get invited to bumpin’ party weekends out in the Hamptons. There are downsides, of course — like, said party weekends involve discovering corpses — but you have to take the good with the bad. Still, I don’t think it’s right that Sophie made Reena watch dronecam snuff footage without any warning or even anything fun as a lead-in (having to hang out with Randy Parker does not count as fun).

Daddy Daze, 2/21/25

Oh, Daddy Daze daddy, you and I both know that none of that ever happened! Why would you lie to your son about this?