Post Content

The Lockhorns and Blondie, 1/11/24

The word app, as a shorthand for application in the computer programming sense, was as attested as early as 1992, which was 32 years ago. However, it probably didn’t really penetrate into the public consciousness until the dawn of the smartphone age, when Apple started using it to describe the small, self-contained applications running on its new iPhone platform and sold through its App Store, launched in 2008; by 2010, the term was used freely by iPhone and Android users alike, and had become so prevalent that it was the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year. This was 13 years ago, which, I regret to inform you, is quite a long time, actually, and the window for doing a strip where the punchline is just the word “app” has long closed. Comics creators: please make a note of this.

Gil Thorp, 1/11/24

How do you think Marty Moon’s recovery journey is going? It seems that he’s reached that long plateau, where a dry life extends endlessly before him and, while he’s not in immediate risk of backsliding, it’s hard to shake off the lethargy and emotional numbness. Oh, it’s in from midrange. Oh, Leo Atazhoon is going to be interviewed on the podcast. Ho hum. Nothing exclamation point-worthy. Look at these young men celebrating. Marty used to be like that once. Marty used to feel things. This strip needs to do right by our boy Moon and give him a wild and wacky subplot, something that’ll get him to snap out of it!

Post Content

Slylock Fox, 1/9/24

Foolish animals! Did you really think that you could overthrow the humans and that your dominion over the Earth would be secure? In fact, your rule was a mere interregnum, the last moment of the ascendency of the flesh before the Machines, the true masters of the future, took their rightful place atop the hierarchy. Your time will be a scarcely remembered blip in the historical records that the cybernetic ones will meticulously maintain in their cloud-based collective memory banks.

Gil Thorp, 1/9/24

It’s fairly common in TV shows for a terrifying Big Bad character to be introduced who becomes so popular that they stick around and ultimately become allies with the protagonist. In the process, they sometimes lose much of the air of menace that made them intriguing in the first place, but this is the price of existence in a medium where the story never quite ends, and each character must adapt to its eternal rhythms or die. Anyway, while I don’t think anyone found Coach Hernandez scary per se upon his introduction, I also don’t think anyone expected him to become Gil’s loyal lieutenant who promises to hook him up with the town’s finest namesake MILFs so quickly either.

Shoe, 1/9/24

There are a lot of implications to unpack here — is bowling a signifier of a “hick” milieu? what would open-toed bowling shoes look like, if designed for either a normal human foot or a bird’s foot or whatever kind of hideous hybrid foot the bird-people of Shoe have? — but I’m stuck at the inciting incident, in which some guy who presumably Isn’t From Around Here just starts yammering about high fashion in a local bar, late at night when most people there are probably good and drunk. I’ve been accused of being a liberal city-dwelling coastal elitist in my time, and perhaps with good reason, but I don’t see the benefit of opening up this line of discourse and simply wouldn’t do it! Especially if I were wearing a v-neck sweater over a polo shirt, c’mon now.

Post Content

Happy 2024, everybody! How did you celebrate the recent holiday season?

Mary Worth, 12/25/23

Did you, like Mary Worth, place yourself in the role of the Magi from the Gospel of Matthew? Before you object to this strip as blasphemous, remember that the Magi accidentally and/or passive-aggressively let it slip to Herod that the Messiah had been born, resulting in the Massacre of the Innocents, which you have to admit is a pretty Mary Worth thing to do. “Oh, your majesty, I apologize. I had heard that the new king of the Jews had been born nearby, but it appears that you haven’t added a new member to your dynasty recently. My mistake!”

Gil Thorp, 1/1/24

Or did you, like Gil Thorp, place yourself in the position of Jack Nicholson in the iconic final shot of Kubrick’s The Shining? Not gonna lie, this seems pretty dark. The divorce is not going well, I guess?

ANYWAY! It is I, your Comics Curmudgeon, back in the saddle and doing another year of the thing that I do best (making fun of syndicated comic strips for the delight and edification of you, my faithful readers). As is my wont, I took the last week of the year off, but as is also my wont, I cannot resist checking in with my beloved continuity strips, so here’s a quick catchup on what you missed!

Judge Parker, 12/25/23

You remember Declan, Neddy’s beloved (?) boyfriend, who’s visiting the Spencer-Driver compound for Christmas? Well, Abbey’s trying to marry Neddy off to him, and he’s on board! And why shouldn’t he be? His family goes unmentioned, he’s getting to party at the aforementioned rich person compound, and he’s experiencing the first Spencer-Driver holiday in years that isn’t marked by emotional or physical violence!

Mary Worth, 12/27/23

Keith, his attempts to form a family bond having been rebuffed, spent the holidays alone at Santa Royale’s own ALL BEEF, with a plan to push the soy bomb out of his guts and replace it with a massive bolus of healthy, delicious cow flesh.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/27/23

Oh, hey, were you worried that the sudden revelation that the whole Mirakle Method was plagiarized might result in some ongoing conflict of some sort involving our characters? Well, fret not: Old Man Ollman immediately dropped that lawsuit as soon as Buzzy and Mud agreed to simply replace “Rene” with “Ollman” everywhere in their contracts and accounting procedures. Problem solved!!!!

Gil Thorp, 12/28/23

Gil and his coaching staff would like to remind you that, while there is no I in team, some team members are more important than others, and we must do obeisance to them. Shower this young man with praises! All blessings flow from him! Do worship unto him, with the same hand gestures that you would use for our Lord Satan!

Mary Worth, 12/28/23

[record scratch] Brad … is eating … at ALL BEEF? Where they serve meat? What in tarnation???

Mary Worth, 12/29/23

OK, finally, the ongoing question of “Is Brad trying to sleep with Kitty or sleep with Sonia” has been answered (he was trying to sleep with Kitty, and thus was a sexual rather than paternal rival for Keith). Anyway, remember when Keith choked down a vegan hamburger that he hated in order to be polite to Sonia and prove himself as a worthy partner to Kitty? Well, when he did it, it was good. But when Brad did it? It absolutely merited the savage beatdown that’s about to happen.

Dick Tracy, 12/30/23

Remember Rikki Mortis, Dick Tracy’s goth girl villain? Well, she’s back, and she’s here to remind you that even though goths say they’re into creepy horrors beyond the comprehension of normal society, a lot of goth culture is just terrible puns like “fettuccine afraido”.

Mary Worth, 12/31/23

Sunday’s Mary Worth is incredible, not just because it actually advances the storyline for once by establishing that Keith will be using blackmail to secure sexual access to Kitty, but because it also features Wilbur enjoying New Year’s Eve with his dearest friend, a very large hamburger that he’s about to eat.

Judge Parker, 1/2/24

Ha ha, so, fun fact, did you know that as of this July, I will have been doing this blog for [swallows heavily] 20 years? You have to dig pretty far back into the lore of your serial strip to come up with a character I haven’t seen, and apparently Judge Parker has done so, so … congrats?

Mary Worth, 1/2/24

Keith’s evil plan worked! You have to admit that “I’m volunteering with Greenpeace, forever” is a pretty funny way to let someone down easy because a terrifyingly large ex-Marine found out you were lying about being a vegan.

Curtis, 12/26/23 and 12/28/23

Oh, and it wouldn’t be a holiday season with a wild Kwanza fable from Curtis! You know the old saying “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime”? Well, this year’s tale puts a spin on that by having a fish perform “magic” by teaching a man about the virtues of self-sufficiency and self-reliance. (I guess the fish is performing magic by talking as well, but never mind that for now.)

Curtis, 1/2/24

Will the fish take his philosophy to its logical conclusion by teaching the man how to build a lover from the discarded corpses in the local cemetery? Stay tuned to The Comics Curmudgeon at Joshreads dot com daily to find out, and to see what’s up in the other strips as well! If you’re really serious about it, you could subscribe to get an ad-free site and/or get the daily post emailed to you as well! Or not, if you’d rather not! I’m gonna keep posting anyway! Happy New Year, and I love you all!