Archive: Herb and Jamaal

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Herb and Jamaal, 7/19/14

As a former center for the NBA’s Phazers and part-owner of a local restaurant, you’d expect Jamaal J. Jamaal to be comfortable in the public eye, and specifically with attention from the ladies. What’s more, he and Rajni met cute when she retrieved his underwear for him Thursday, and he spent all day yesterday checking out the contours of her “Single and Looking” T-shirt. But here he is again paralyzed by self-doubt — just like the poor, forlorn, rejected characters Angelina Jolie plays in all those movies.

Crankshaft, 7/19/14

Hey, remember how Crankshaft doesn’t know how to use a remote? Yeah, well, forget that.

Mark Trail, 7/19/14

RRRRRMMUMBRUMBBLLE, and Mark cuts short his halting exigesis of Lori’s ladyfeelings to Get the Hell out of Dodge. It is the mighty Cape Buffalo, fiercest among the bovines! Of unknown ancestry, the Cape Buffalo is unpredictable and highly dangerous to humans, as anyone would be who grew up a bastard cow.

No more speculating on feminine ways today! I bet Mark is every bit as grateful as we are.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/19/14

In the annals of nephewism, the relationship between Jughaid and his Uncle Snuffy stands out as a particularly sweet example. Equally ignorant and lazy, they share interests in shif’lessness and petty crime, and seem to get along pretty well. Jughaid even looks a little sheepish about his cosmic arrogance. Maybe God will cut him a break come smitin’ time.


— Uncle Lumpy

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Momma, 7/10/14

For a brief and horrifying moment I was pretty convinced that Momma had descended into full-on nightmare, with its elderly characters’ organs liquifying, leaving them nothing more than wrinkled skin-bags waddling around full of audibly sloshing viscera-slurry. But now I think that maybe this is a pants-wetting joke? Old people have problems with incontinence? Ha … ha? Never have I grasped onto the possibility of an incontinence joke with such desperation.

Herb and Jamaal, 7/10/14

Generic Customer Guy is right to look so dubious about Herb’s dad’s advice. “So … you want me to relentlessly pursue a woman who made her romantic disinterest in me clear not once but twice? Sure, that can only end well for everybody.”

Pluggers, 7/10/14

Sure, most people tune into Pluggers for the lower-middle class exurban cultural resentment, but I think they’re going to like the new creative direction, where it’s just streams of absurdist nonsense, just fine!

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Six Chix, 6/24/14

Hey guys, here’s a comic that … I’m pretty sure is supposed to have a joke in it? Except it doesn’t seem to have a joke in it. Just a lady who feels that, due to her educational status and cultural position, she’s supposed to be better acquainted with the canon of Western literature than she is. And she feels bad enough about it that she’s willing to pay a therapist to listen to her talk about it. Which isn’t funny? It seems to not be funny. Maybe the way her therapist is looking at her with open contempt is the joke? It’s not very funny either, but it’s moderately funnier than the other thing.

Mark Trail, 6/24/14

TRUE FACT: Despite being adorable-looking and the subject of a popular and condescending tabletop game, hippos are actually super aggressive and dangerous and will just straight-up attack people for no reason at all. So I dub this Mark Trail depiction of wanton hippo violence accurate! I’m more dubious on the question of whether any African humans are actually named “Taurus,” however.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/24/14

Future rich dowager Sarah Morgan just heard the two most important sentences of her young life so far: “You’re allowed to do anything I want” and “If the museum wants my million bucks, we do it my way!” Mrs. Pierpont is writing on her little pad of paper, but Sarah is the one who should be taking notes.

Herb and Jamaal, 6/24/14

In order for the extremely mild “punchline” of this strip to work, it needs to be vaguely surprising when Jamaal compares his feelings for a jar of sourdough starter to the romantic attraction one would expect him to feel for a human woman. However, any such surprise is completely precluded by the frank and shocking scene of man-on-glassware intimacy depicted in panel three.