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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!

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Pluggers, 11/24/23

Pluggers remember when Black Friday was the day when President Grant’s brother-in-law caused a Wall Street panic in an attempt to corner the gold market, ultimately damaging the Grant Administration’s reputation. Apparently it’s a sale now? And it goes on for several days? Who knew!

Blondie, 11/24/23

For all you pluggers out there, Blondie’s beloved Blondie Bumstead is here to explain the new meaning of “Black Friday,” out loud to her husband, who presumably already knows what it is, at 4 a.m. But then she’s not going to go there! She’s going to do “cyber Monday” instead. She’s not explaining that one, though. Figure it out for yourselves, pluggers!

Judge Parker, 11/24/23

Welp, I guess Sam and Abbey’s sex vacation did in fact rekindle their mutual attraction, despite the fact that it started with them seeing a guy get mauled to death by a bear and has ended with nonstop CIA surveillance. Perhaps all that action has actually driven them to new erotic heights? Haha, just kidding, these two are boring as shit, it will just make them slightly more peevish.

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Judge Parker, 11/19/23

Way back in the early days of the War on Terror, “black site” was an ominous phrase used to describe grim, secretive locations in countries willing to look the other way when it came to various human rights laws where the CIA could torture people, but the phrase’s sense has shifted over the years, to the extent that in the 2019 film Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbes and Shaw, there’s a recurring location that is identified as a “black site” on-screen that appears to simply be some office space that the CIA has rented in London. You can see why the Agency might have given up on the phrase in exasperation and now just calls them “detention centers”. Anyway, I’m really enjoying the pissy-face competition Sam and this CIA lady are having, which I assume will end either with him defeating her and becoming a high-ranking official in the American intelligence apparatus, or with him getting tortured to death right there in the middle of this “detention center.”

Six Chix, 11/19/23

Like all right-thinking people, I get nauseated just thinking about cottage cheese, but I note here that this particular can (?) of the accursed substance seems to be glowing with some unearthly power. Has the Cottage Cheese Board figured out a way grant their repulsive product the ability to hypnotize hapless consumers to overcome their natural disgust?