Post Content

Shoe, 1/18/16

Last week I was on the I Haven’t Seen That podcast, a very funny and exciting podcast hosted by Whitney Reynolds and Mark Popham, and we talked newspaper comics, among other things, and it was interesting to see what people do and don’t pick up from the comics. For instance, Mark claimed that, despite reading Shoe regularly, he never realized that its damned bird-men characters work at a newspaper! But they do, and that newspaper apparently runs restaurant reviews, which is curious because the only places where we ever see the bird-people eating out are Roz’s, the sad ’70s fern bar, and I think maybe a fancy white-cloth restaurant with a snooty French waiter? Anyway, there’s three of them, tops, so I assume that each one is reviewed about once a month or so, which the Perfesser’s look of crushing ennui confirms. “Ugggh, what to write about Roz’s this time … old people? Old drunk people? A review for old drunk people? Sounds about right.”

Mary Worth, 1/18/16

You’d think a “professional bakery kitchen” would sound pretty dull even to a known square like Olive, but the alternative seems to be putting together a completely white jigsaw puzzle with Mary while enjoying cookies and water, so you can see why she’s jumping at the opportunity.

Heathcliff, 1/18/16

This is a joke about how Heathcliff and his girlfriend are going to engage in some pharmaceutically-enhanced fucking right here on this couple’s lawn! They brought props, to taunt them with! Let’s hear it for Heathcliff, and for newspaper features editors who just don’t care anymore!

Post Content

Family Circus, 12/11/15

Wow, Billy’s crass holiday greed seems positively charming now, doesn’t it? “Oh, come let us adore me,” sings Jeffy, “for I am the mashiach, the anointed one foretold in prophecy. I am the Christ. Come adore me. WORSHIP ME. WORSHIP ME. I AM YOUR LORD GOD JEFFY AND I GROW DISPLEASED.”

Heathcliff, 12/11/15

I mean, I guess if you’re going to engage in a massive orgy, you’re going to want to use a pagan fertility symbol to justify your actions.

Blondie, 12/11/15

I like the idea of poor Bernie, sitting alone in his studio apartment on Christmas Eve, thinking that he might not have any family, he might not have a hearth to call his own, but nevertheless he knows that somewhere, across town, Santa is coming — with presents for him.

Post Content

Blondie, 11/30/15

This strip has made a genuine attempt to plaster the Postal Service’s current stylized eagle head logo on everyone’s uniforms and various other surfaces, although the effect is somewhat ruined by the colorist’s choice to make it bright yellow — did they think it was a metal buckle or something? Anyway, I don’t know if it’s meant to be just off-model enough so as not to infringe on trademarks, or if the colorist error has botched a genuine symbol of partnership between the Postal Service and the Blondie creative team, but either way I very much would like to see Dagwood and his damn sandwiches wiped out forever by a drone-fired missile, thanks.

Mary Worth, 11/30/15

OK, so, technically NYC & Company is “New York City’s official marketing, tourism and partnership organization” rather than a government agency per se, but its spending still ought to be scrutinized, and I for one very much doubt that paying King Features to have Mary Worth and a neglected psychic child tour New York’s best known museums will really see a solid return on investment.

Gasoline Alley, 11/30/15

Reading this, at first I was like, “Ugh, I certainly hope the future children of today’s children aren’t still using jpeg files when they grow up,” but the file format is already more than 20 years old, so who knows, really? But you and I both know that neither “Mrs. Lopez” nor the actual Gasoline Alley creative team knows what exactly a jpeg is, and we should all brace ourselves for days — maybe weeks? — of this strip explaining why computers are bad and today’s students need to learn valuable scrapbooking skills in order to compete in the modern economy.

Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean, 11/30/15

Oh, hey, I hadn’t really noticed this before, but I guess … Christmastime is the season for intra-Funkyverse crossovers? Like last year, when the Funky Winkerbean crew reflected fondly about how Crankshaft is a monstrous dick to children, or the year before, when he caught sight of the vegetative husk that is his Funky Winkerbean-era future? A holiday bowling tournament seems to have less opportunity for grimness, but, you know, never count these strips out in that regard. They’ll find a way. Oh, yes, they’ll find a way.

Heathcliff, 11/30/15

In a desperate attempt to one-up a certain other orange comics cat that thinks he has a monopoly on unpleasant Mondays, Heathcliff is about to embark on a futile attempt to outrun a pelting rain of bird shit.