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Gasoline Alley, 11/10/22

Gasoline Alley is, I admit, one of those strips I read out of a sense of professional obligation rather than a true inborn enthusiasm. Yet one can derive a real satisfaction from achievements that are wholly professional in nature! For instance, I’ve managed to keep the “Rufus is fucking the mayor” plot thread close enough to the top of my mind that when I read the final panel of today’s strip I nodded sagely and thought to myself, “Ah, Walt’s going to get to ride on the back of a garbage truck, just like his hero Denzel Washington, because Rufus is fucking the mayor,” whereas I assume the typical comic reader simply shook their head in confusion and disgust before moving on to Garfield.

Judge Parker, 11/10/22

Oh, hey, remember how Abbey was running for mayor? Well, she lost, and she’s mainly mad that her ex, who for once in his life is doing something interesting, didn’t text her about it. Abbey is by my count the third character in this strip to unsuccessfully run for mayor, and frankly I can’t get enough of it. Keep losing, losers!

Dustin, 11/10/22

Look, I don’t care if Dustin dies first or his dad does. But one of them has got to go. At least one. They can’t keep taunting me like this.

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Funky Winkerbean, 11/1/22

Huh, well, I guess Funky really is shutting down Montoni’s after all? This of course provides a great opportunity to trace the experiences of these longtime beloved characters as they move into a new phase of their lives do some nostalgia bullshit about the good old days of the strip, which, in a visual medium like the comics, is obviously best delivered by a wall of text and some photos that would be 100% invisible to anyone reading this in a newspaper, if anyone still read newspapers.

Judge Parker, 11/1/22

Gloria’s righteous rage has led her and Sam to the home of the judge at the heart of this mystery, where she won’t stop righteously ringing her doorbell until she gets answers! Of course, you might find her righteousness a little misplaced given that the judge himself just had most of his family brutally murdered, either by crooked cops or meth gangs or maybe his own son, so maybe he doesn’t want to chat about your wounded but still alive husband, Gloria, jeez.

Beetle Bailey, 11/1/22

I was going to do a whole riff here along the lines of “Ha ha, you know your legacy comic strip has been going on for 70+ years when the only new joke you can come up with is ‘What if one of our characters were covered in ticks?’”, but then it occurred to me that this is a strip about golf, the official pastime of legacy comic strip creators, and maybe the risks of tick infestation are everyday “relatable” content to these guys. Good to know that I can add “could end up with Lyme disease” to “boring” and “expensive” on my list of reasons why I don’t play golf.

Mary Worth, 11/1/22

Mary Worth is not just entertaining: it also seeks to impart important life lessons to its readers. This week that lesson is “don’t stand on cliff edges,” which may seem obvious to you but you never know who needs to hear it!

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Mother Goose and Grimm, 10/20/22

You know what? You, yes you, have made the conscious choice to taked time out of your one wild and precious life to read a weblog called “The Comics Curmudgeon,” and sometimes the posts on that weblog aren’t going to be really very intellectual or high-falutin’ and will instead just boil down to “god I find this particular comic strip irritating.” Anyway, today’s Mother Goose and Grimm irritates me because I want the “lake” part of the setup to figure into the punchline. It rhymes with “bake and shake” but it turns out not be relevant at all? Usually the generic version of this kind of wish actually refers to the “ocean,” which is why using a rhyme like this that ends up a red herring is all the more annoying to me. Is there a lake that’s profoundly important to the Mother Goose and Grimm deep lore? One I don’t know about?

Judge Parker, 10/20/22

What’s it gonna be, Sam? Are you gonna listen to your soon to be ex-wife, who is divorcing you but still wants your life to be as boring as possible, or your former legal secretary, who wants to go after the the crooked cops and the meth gangs tonight with absolutely zero time spent strategizing in any way? Huh? What’s it gonna be? Think of your readers, Sam, your readers. They’re desperate for entertainment! And you’re one of the main characters in this strip, so you’re not going to die on this adventure! Probably!