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Hello all! Your COTW in a moment, but first, a link that may be of interest: I wrote an encomium of sorts for Mort Walker over at the Village Voice, focusing on how General Halftrack came to stop sexually harassing Miss Buxley. Check it out!

Also, I wanted to give a sendoff to Piranha Club, formerly Ernie, which is hanging up the pen after 30 years this week. I never really discussed it here but it’s always been on my list of strips I enjoy, so let’s wish Bud Grace well in retirement!

One person who isn’t going anywhere is me, and I’ll be continuing the stately rhythms of comments of the week and comment blogging forever. Here’s this week’s top comment!

“Rex trusts Lou for legal advice because Lou arranges the fake law books on his shelves by color, which is how Rex arranges the fake medical books in his library. Lou considers child custody cases, along with grand theft auto and capital gains tax, to be ‘yellow’, which coincidentally is Rex’s diagnosis for male pattern baldness, dementia, and strep throat.” –seismic-2

And here’s the hilarious runners up!

“The only part of this I like is the brief moment when Dennis struggles to come up with an answer to Margaret’s question. ‘I do … It’s a … new TV channel.’ It’s like he’s thinking, ‘Must not show weakness in front of Margaret.’” –Joe Blevins

“The greatest menace Dennis ever pulled was convincing the world that he wasn’t a plugger.” –livingonvideo

“Yep, I think the main problem was that we gave you these helmet-shaped hats instead of actual helmets. Felt just doesn’t absorb the shock that well, I guess. Well, live and learn!” –pugfuggly

“Not in this universe. If it sounds like that response doesn’t make sense, just remember that I’ve taken a LOT of universes to the head in this trauma.” –JJ48

“This is Mark Trail. It’s OK if a dental lab technician looks like a ventriloquist’s dummy, as long as the Crested Caracara that will eventually feast on her entrails is field-guide quality.” –Richardf8

“He’s run from the swamp to a downtown hospital. He’s given blood and received blood. He’s not turning into the Hulk again anytime soon. Do you think that maybe it might be time to put some clothes on?” –handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A tree, a rock, a garbage pail,
Beside the barracks,
Beside the lake, next to the Sarge,
Confused and standing in the breeze.” –Voshkod

“You ever notice how there are never any ‘muffin actors’, just ‘muffin stars?’” –The Mighty Untrained FOOZLE

“One of the nice things about not really paying attention to a comic is I can read today’s strip and imagine Randy’s talking about his daughter as the one who escaped federal prison and now he’s hoarding a minuscule fugitive, which sounds more exciting than just sitting around polishing his kid with a pair of tighty whities.” –Spunky the Wonder Squid

“‘The more the merrier!’ says Rex, laying the groundwork for some future swap action.” –Pozzo

“‘So, Jeff, I’m wearing my frilliest pink robe…’ ‘Mary, you’ve got to cash in on this muffin thing! Ted has seen every episode of Shark Tank so he knows what he’s talking about!’ ‘We can talk about that later. Right now, I’m about to get into my big, double bed all alone. If only…’ ‘Mary, the muffins! You could be spoken of in the same breath as Dolly Madison, Little Debbie, Bob Entenmann, the titans of baked goods!’ ‘…Goddamnit, Jeff.’ [click]” –Aphthakid

“Agatha Christie’s characters are usually rentiers who, thanks to some vaguely defined inheritance, do not work for a living and can spend all their time committing murder, doing activities that will make them suspect of murder, or solving murders. What I am saying is that Mary Worth is Miss Marple in a universe where nothing interesting happens.” –Ettorre

“There’s only one way to convince Ms. Worth to become a famous muffin entrepreneur: Tell her the name of the brand will be ‘Thank You, Mary!’ Then she’ll finally get the one thing she’s always desired, which is to have people far and wide say those words. ‘I’d like some muffins, please.’ ‘What kind?’ ‘Thank You, Mary!’ [Mary somehow hears this from a thousand miles away and sighs in ecstasy.]” –BigTed

“Standing still with the ball super-glued to your hands is definitely one way to ‘control the tempo’ I guess.” –Schroduck

“Oh, of course! Saul Lewman! Wasn’t he in that movie, Bat on a Heart Tit Woof?” –Old School Allie Cat

“Spider-Man’s only real talents are being able to walk up walls and shoot webs that allow him to swing around after jumping off of roofs and your grand plan to defeat him was to THROW HIM OFF OF A GODDAMN ROOF?” –Mumblix Grumph

Thanks to everyone who became a Comics Curmudgeon Supporter to get an banner-ad-free site, put some scratch in my tip jar, or backed me on Patreon!. If you would like to buy advertising on the Comics Curmudgeon, and get a text shoutout in these posts, get the details on my BuySellAds page.

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Mort Walker passed away yesterday the age of 94, and the many, many, many people who emailed and tweeted me to let me know are a testament to the huge impact he had on cartooning as an art form and as a business. His Washington Post obituary is a great summary of his life and career, but to me, these are the high points to show how he and the team he built affected the medium:

• “Beetle Bailey was among the first cartoons to mark a shift in the funny pages from the serial strips of the previous decade to the graphically simpler gag-a-day model that predominates today.”
• “He delighted in the history and tricks of his trade and wrote a tongue-in-cheek textbook, The Lexicon of Comicana (1980), in which he described commonly used cartooning conventions. Grawlix were the symbols deployed to convey foul language; briffits were the clouds often found at the end of hites (horizontal lines indicating speed). To Mr. Walker’s amusement, his book sometimes appeared in the art instruction section of bookstores, and his neologisms would pop up in discussions about the art of cartooning.”
• “He eventually found himself in charge of 10,000 German prisoners in a POW camp in Italy. At the end of the war, he helped oversee the destruction of binoculars and watches from an ordnance depot in Naples. His job was to make sure nobody stole anything before it was destroyed. ‘I began to realize,’ he wrote in the memoir, ‘that army humor writes itself.’”

There are many anecdotes around of his good humor and kindness to younger comics artists, and his ambitions for cartooning. He also helped create the workshop model of cartooning, and like many legacy strips Beetle Bailey (which he created) and Hi and Lois (which he co-created with Dik Browne) have long been written and illustrated by the next generation over at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC, so I look forward to making fun of them for years to come. But think of Mort the next time you see a grawlix or a briffit.

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OMG HERE’S THIS WEEK’S FUNNIEST COMMENT

“There’s far more interesting story that we’re not being told in Blondie. Dumb kid with fighting parents, boring. Who stole Blondie’s voice, and what sort of quest they’ll send her on to recover it, that’s a good tale. I’m thinking Dagwood sold her voice to the Devil in exchange for free food.” –Voshkod

WE LUV U RUNNERS UP!

“The police wrist wizards in Dick Tracy are large because of the integrated hi-res body cam. The recordings are used not in court cases, though, but in a weekly game show in which a prize is awarded to the cop dealing out the best, most imaginative violence to criminals.” –Gerry Quinn

“I really think this strip should consider changing its name to Least Of All, Spider-Man.” –pugfuggly

“I usually think of malapropisms about habitual lawbreakers as the Snuffy Smif beat, but I guess for this set up to work the characters have to be able to read.” –matt w

“Max Mouse is reciting a crime puzzle while balancing on a log in front of a fire with his shirt off. This is the weirdest key party ever.” –Glod Gloddson

“Save room for dessert! We’re having Giant Bowl of Flour!” –Peanut Gallery

“Ted Miller is an anagram for ‘red millet.’ Clearly Mary is getting tired of sharing bland white flour with Jeff, and is ready to cook with an alternative grain, if you know what I mean.” –BigTed

“Wow! Snuffy Smith today perfectly illustrates the Atlantic article I just read about the idea of food deserts. Despite her botanical knowledge (and possibility of reaching a Whole Foods by broom? Maybe?), her food choices reflect her locale and culture and are deeply entrenched.” –Janna L., on Twitter

“I just love that Granny Creeps is buying blonde hair dye. I can imagine her back home in her hovel, surrounded by glass jars full of grotesque animal parts suspended in some nasty liquid and staring at her green visage in a cracked looking glass. ‘Y’know what the fellers would find fetching? Blonde tresses!’” –Joe Momma

“‘Meet my Mary‘ indeed! Because don’t we all have a Mary, in a very real and muffiney sense?” –Hopester

“When the forces of earth move outward to conquer the rest of the solar system, I hope we attack the asteroid belt with Mark’s battle cry on our lips, ‘Remember the dinosaurs!’” –seismic-2

“How timely! Ripped from today’s headlines: Mr. Dithers calls Marlene into his office to watch him masturbate.” –handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

“Dagwood engages in some teen-text-speak of his own. MFGBL in this context is clearly Make Facebook Give Bumstead Likes. If it weren’t for me keeping up with the hip kids of today, you fellow ‘mudges would never learn these cool, new things. You’re welcome.” –Hogenmogen

“‘What totally bored person would even care about what I do?’ is a little too on-the-nose for a meta-comment about the Blondie strip.” –nescio

“Blondie has a long tradition of Mr. Dithers abusing Dagwood for not working. Those lazy workers, amirite? But today we glimpse the real truth — it’s not like the boss actually does work for his money either. He just hypocritically blames his subordinates. I say this subversive deconstruction of our class system is long overdue in newspaper comics, and if it has to be disguised as a joke that doesn’t quite make sense, so be it.” –pachoo

“The likelihood that Doc is yelling into the phone at his AA sponsor makes this the saddest Mark Trail ever.” –Where’s Rocky

“I’m guessing that mirror behind the Keane parents is actually a two-way mirror, confirming my suspicions that the Keane Kompound is actually a long-running psychological experiment.” –Andrew

“Bil reads the paper aloud as Thel tries to interpret the news according to the Book of Revelation.” –lumaca morente

“For at least a decade (probably two), Radiohead have been more into droning ambient electronica than any catchy rock stuff that anyone might scream at. I’m pretty sure that in keeping with Marvin’s themes of awful humans doing awful things, Jeff and Jenny just spent the whole evening yelling ‘PLAY CREEP’ at the top of their voices to spoil everyone else’s enjoyment of ‘Lotus Flower.’” –Schroduck

“The contact lenses Mary uses to hide her yellow snake eyes appear to be slipping out of place in that first panel. Is she preparing to unhinge her jaw and consume Ted Miller, the latest sacrifice brought to her by her faithful high priest Dr Jeff? Find out next week on Mary Worth: Snake Goddess.” –Truckosaurus

“Smash cut to Mary and Ted trying to drum up venture capital for their muffin business while a 28-year-old dead-eyed investment banker asks them how they’re going to connect baked goods to an app. ‘Like Uber for muffins!” Ted desperately blurts out.” –Dan

Thanks to everyone who became a Comics Curmudgeon Supporter to get an banner-ad-free site, put some scratch in my tip jar, or backed me on Patreon!. If you would like to buy advertising on the Comics Curmudgeon, and get a text shoutout in these posts, get the details on my BuySellAds page.