Archive: Herb and Jamaal

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B.C., 5/12/16

A common and amusing thing you see in Victorian-era English translations of ancient Greek literature is that sexual terms are translated into Latin, the logic being that if you were educated enough to know Latin, you were presumably morally sound enough to read 2,000-year-old dick jokes purely out of literary or historical interest, but we don’t want the unwashed masses reading Aristophanes and getting aroused, now do we? Anyway, I have to assume that’s the logic behind this strip getting through the editorial process: by the time you’ve learned that “coprolite” is fossilized feces, you’re presumably past the age where this punchline would make you gleefully shout “It’s funny because he touched a doody!” at anyone within earshot.

Beetle Bailey, 5/12/16

You know how Beetle Bailey adds a new character every decade or so to glom in the most awkward way possible onto trends that the strip’s creators only half understand? What I’m saying is that 2016 is probably the year Camp Swampy gets its newest recruit, a vaping soldier named Private E-Juice.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/12/16

Yes, Uhuru is praying

praying to her insect god

SPREAD YOUR CHITINOUS WINGS, O CHITTERING ONE

I YEARN TO BE TAKEN UP TO THE GREAT HIVE

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Herb and Jamaal, 5/2/16

Aww, an old friend … like whatever beloved buddy Jamaal killed, cremated, put in that urn, and stone-cold pawned to save on columbarium fees? Watch your back, Herb. Nice to know he’ll visit, though — I guess that’s what old friends are for.

Andy Capp, 5/2/16

Considering all the sexual directions this conversation could have taken, I’m glad it turned out to be about soccer.

Momma, 5/2/16

Am I the only person put off when medical staff say ‘Doctor’ as if There Were Only One? It smacks of status signalling, the way even soi-disant “horizontal” organizations signal their actual hierarchies by calling staff by last names, managers by first, executives by initials or nicknames, and CEOs only as “he” or “she.” OK for employees, I guess, but I’m the doc’s customer, dammit.

Anyway, for years I thought Momma’s surname was Hobbes — with an “e” — because she’s “… solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” I guess “Doctor” will find that out soon enough.

B.C., 5/2/16

Six thousand years ago, just before evolution stopped, moose — even the well-endowed ones — sported delicate little bird-tails that provoked religious zealots into orgies of murderous rage.


– Uncle Lumpy

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Funky Winkerbean, 4/21/16

[extremely science nerd voice] Excuse me Tony, but while it is true that Mercury experiences temperature extremes, the theory that you seem to be referencing here, that one side of the planet is always pointed at the sun and the other always pointed away, was disproved way back in 1965, as anyone who actually watches the Science Channel would know and … oh, no, I’m wasting my life.

Herb and Jamaal, 4/21/16

[extremely newspaper comics nerd voice] Excuse me, but everyone who reads this strip knows that Jamaal actually lives upstairs from a laundromat, so it would be highly illogical for him to refer to a “neighborhood” laundromat when he could just wash his clothes and annoy women in his own … oh, no, I’m doing it again.

Heathcliff, 4/21/16

I honestly think that “I don’t like that” should replace “I’m thinking of unfriending him on Facebook” as the go-to punchline for every Heathcliff ever. It’s less specific, but I guarantee it will literally always make sense.