Post Content

Click the banner to help sponsor Josh’s novel and to reserve your copy! Details here.

If you’ve always loved my blog, but want it in novel form, and also (mostly) not making fun of comics but rather with a plot, then please consider sponsoring my novel!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/10/12

I’m putting both yesterday and today’s Snuffy Smith up there to demonstrate that they’re both basically the same joke, which … I’m OK with? There’s something charmingly vaudevillian about having Parson Tuttle continuously lob the same opening to Lureen and seeing her bat “I’m so lonely and desp’rate!” punchlines back to him. Maybe they’ll keep it up all week! Or maybe tomorrow the Parson will stop hinting and just come out and say that he wants her to recruit men for the choir by going out and having sex with them.

Apartment 3-G, 7/10/12

Haha, will I ever get tired of Nina suffering and turning her physical pain and rage on anyone who gets too close? No, the answer is no. “You’d better be telling the truth! I know medical professionals lie to patients constantly. I know you’re a dirty liar! If you make me get into this awkward position and it doesn’t help, I will destroy you, Tommie, do you hear? I have connections! I’ll get your apartment building condemned and your nursing license taken away and have everyone in your family killed! Then I’ll strangle you, but I wanted to do that other stuff first to show that I’m in earnest here. And I’ll do it all using the rage-strength I gain during a single contraction!”

Funky Winkerbean, 7/10/12

Is Funky Winkerbean really going to make us worry about whether this kitten dies on the way up, or possibly down, Kilimanjaro? All signs point to yes! To be fair, the readership is wholly indifferent about the death of any the human characters, so dramatic tension has to be maintained somehow.

Crock, 7/10/12

So wait, Crock‘s done now, right? These are repeats? Enh, whatever, it keeps showing up in my online comics page, so I guess if I can rag on Archie reruns from the 1990s I can make fun of this. Anyway, today’s strip is about Trooper Benson, who was hit by artillery shells during combat and died screaming in agony.

Ziggy, 7/10/12

Despite all of the foregoing, nothing in today’s comics has discombobulated me more than discovering that Ziggy’s cat is a lady.

Post Content

Dick Tracy, 7/4/12

Oh, what’s that, Communist? You’re just a little too busy on this July 4th Freedom America day to admire the US flag? Dick Tracy would like to have some words with you. He’s in the middle of a bloody shootout with Mr. Crime’s gang, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have time to find an enormous American flag and salute it! Those explosions behind him aren’t fireworks; they’re actual gunfire. Dick Tracy won’t let mortal danger get in the way of his patriotism!

Funky Winkerbean, 7/4/12

How great is America? So great that everyone, even non-human primates, are trying to gain entry by any means necessary.

Luann, 7/4/12

Not that we should just open the floodgates to baboons, or, worse, Australians. Luann and Quill finally advanced from endless flirting to light making out, and within minutes, the U.S. government moved to deport his entirely family, making sure that he keeps his filthy foreign paws off of virtuous American girls.

Mary Worth, 7/4/12

Meanwhile, Wilbur has only been out of America’s nourishing atmosphere for a few days, and already he’s degenerating into a sadistic monster. “Imagine the history of this place! Gladiators stood here thousands of years ago, savagely murdering one another, or attacking innocent victims persecuted for their political or religious beliefs, or being torn to pieces by wild beasts … all for my amusement! I can almost smell the blood!”

Hi and Lois, 7/4/12

Back home, the Flagstons clearly believe that America’s independence is best celebrated as far from their fellow Americans as possible.

Post Content

Funky Winkerbean, 6/29/12

I had never given it much thought, but I can see why Les, a goateed self-styled intellectual, would feel a certain affection for Snowball, the character in Animal Farm meant to represent Leon Trotsky. It’s more of a stretch, but I’d even be willing to see Les and Funky’s sometimes strained friendship as a metaphor for the relationship between Trotsky and Stalin. You know, anything to move us along to the part where Les gets killed in Mexico by a guy with an axe.

Gasoline Alley, 6/29/12

So this week Gasoline Alley abruptly pulled away from its extremely mildly entertaining storyline about a demon-haunted cat to instead focus on Skeezix’s problems with his electronic equipment. “How could this get any more boring?” I said, but then I got to today’s strip and I was all like “Oh.”

Gil Thorp, 6/29/12

“You know, come over here unannounced and then whine to your two-year-old son about his athletic failures. I can’t decide if it’s more creepy or more pathetic. Is there a word that combines the two? Creepthetic?”