Post Content

Folks! Two weeks from today, the Internet Read Aloud returns to the city of Los Angeles, with a very special guest: Washington Post columnist/Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me panelist/published author Alexandra Petri! Plus me, and some local favs! DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW if you are in the area, it will be very funny, plus it’s free, what do you have to lose???

Here is the Facebook event, if you wanna let Facebook know you’re coming!

But you know what’s arrived? Your comment of the week, my friends:

“I love that in Hi’s imagination, he’s literally just Slash. His long term plan to kidnap the Guns n Roses guitarist and steal his hat/identity was foiled by his age. Being 40-ish, he’s far too young to be a member of Guns n Roses.” –Schroduck

And your runners up are also very funny!

“‘There’s one thing I don’t regret,’ said Hi. ‘What?’ asked Lois. ‘Marrying you.’ Lois blushed and squeezed against him, taking comfort in his presence for as long as she could before the smell brought her back to the problem at hand. ‘There are two things I regret,’ she said. ‘What are they?’ asked Hi. ‘First, that we never had an intervention for Thirsty,’ Lois stood and walked over to their neighbor’s corpse, holding her nose as it released foul gasses into the air, ‘and second, that we gave him a house key.’” –Glod Glodsson

“As Yvonne and Hank sit among the newly dead, their particular brand of hell is hearing only new songs from an old favorite.” –Hibbleton

“Mud definitely thinks ‘intimate experience’ means he gets to fuck the drinks server.” –Dan

“It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to the US Civil War was these adorable moppets bring diseases with them that nobody will be prepared for. Covid-19, where the 19 means which century it first appears in.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“This is part of Mud’s ‘No Time For the Hits, I Got the Shits’ tour.” –nescio

“What I’ve learned from today’s installment of Daddy Daze is that, for some reason, you never see people dressing infants in black long sleeved (I want to say ‘turtleneck,’ but you have to nave a neck for that) shirts.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“‘Ba ba BA!’ ‘There are ways of writing dialogue between a verbal and a non-verbal character that provide adequate context for what the latter is saying without having the former mindlessly repeat what they say?’ ‘Ba ba ba ba.’ ‘I should look at C-3PO and R2-D2 for a good example?’ ‘Ba ba.’ ‘You’re going to sue for emancipation when you’re fourteen?’ –TheDiva

“I’m getting a ‘folk singer’s bodyguard’ vibe.” –Pozzo

“It’s clear what happened here. Mud Mountain Murphy took a dump of such proportions that he literally crapped out his trucker’s personality and all that was left was an emotionless but suavely dressed shell, like Agent Smith in The Matrix.” –Chance

“While Dennis’ eventual downfall will be his hubris, the prosecution at the UN tribunal for his many crimes will also be aided greatly by the accurate, timestamped and collated records of his lifetime of misdeeds kept by Amazon.” –Philip

“Leroy looks absolutely gutted that someone gave him a sarcastic answer complete with a prop. That’s my thing, he thinks. If anyone can do it, who even am I?” –pugfuggly

“I said I wanted a phone where I could talk all day and never have to charge the battery. I don’t know why I said that; I hate everyone and really don’t like talking much unless it’s to belittle you. Anyway, I traded in your iPhone 14 for this Bakelite rotary model. Fuck you. Your turn.” –Voshkod

“Isn’t that David Letterman after the transporter combined him with Paul Shaffer in that Star Trek: Voyager episode ‘Shafferman?’” –Garrison Skunk

Remember: If you want an ad-free version of this site sent to you every day via email, for $3 a month you can become a Comics Curmudgeon newsletter subscriber! And if you never want to see banner ads on this site, and want to get cool comment-editing features to boot, for the same low price you can become a Comics Curmudgeon website subscriber! And if you just want to give me money directly, you can put some scratch in my tip jar, or back me on Patreon! Thanks to all for your support and readership!

Post Content

Some sad news for folks who are longtime fans of Mary Worth (which, I assume, is all of you): Joe Giella, who was the strip’s artist for more than 20 years before he retired in 2016, passed away this week at the age of 94. A lot of people out there remember his lifetime of work in superhero comics, but we Curmudgeons know that Mary Worth is his greatest legacy. His successor June Brigman posted this heartfelt note on her Facebook:

Cartoonist and friend of the blog David Willis posted a long Twitter thread of his favorite Giella Mary Worth panels and I really do urge you to go through it, some truly delightful stuff here. He will be missed but it’s also great that he got to enjoy some years of retirement!

Meanwhile, please enjoy this comment of the week:

“In March all red-blooded American men are required by law to at least pretend to be experts on college basketball, but Paul’s one-upping everyone else by going full paternal with it. No longer content with just one biological son, Paul will daddily daze the entire NCAA. Chew on that, people who say single-parent homes aren’t a danger to society!” –jroggs

And your runners up! Very funny!

“Snuffy gives the parson an orange can cozy rather than an orange hat or orange jacket because of the harsh economic realities of Hootin Holler: when parson Tuttle gets mistaken for a bear and shot, he’ll be there to scoop up the collection can, and he wants to make sure it isn’t shot up, too.” –gardenornament

“I found this group called ‘Not One More Vet.’ Turns out there are way too many veterinarians! You should retire!” –Peanut Gallery

“If Dr. Ed really is depressed it’s his nephew’s fault, you know. That kid was the one all bummed out about the job. Then he talks to Ed, and Ed catches depression. What if Ed infects Estelle? Oh, she’d be a huge downer. They need to find that nephew! You have to kill the head vampire to cure everyone else!” –made of wince

“The way the Doc is yelling and Bil is crying I figure ‘flu’ is their agreed upon code word for gonorrhea.” –Hibbleton

“I’m sorry that Daddy has the flu, kid, but the facts that Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne had a son in violation of his monastic vows, that his son still somehow lives over 1300 hundred years later, that his son has studied to become a doctor and a general practitioner, and that his son actually does his own medical billing instead of sending you down the hall to talk to the ‘ladies in billing,’ is the real story. We truly do live in a time of miracles.” –Voshkod

“I’m more worried that Keanes’ doctor makes him undress for a flu test. Next week’s panels are drawn by the courtroom sketch artist.” –Donny Ferguson, on Twitter

“Oh come on. There’s no way five Milford players know who Kareem is. At least one of them would say something idiotic like ‘Gordon from Sesame Street! What the hell?’” –KMD

“Ok kids, for starters, the most important thing in basketball is to be 7′2″. What? How can you expect me to help you if you aren’t willing to even do that? Goodbye, losers!” –cheech wizard

“Say what you will about Gil Thorp, but the strip is rendering its readers the ultimate daily comics service: the opportunity to be smug about knowing a celebrity the youngs do not. This will sustain their righteous snit for weeks, I tell you!” –pastordan

“Uh oh. Looks like Dr. Ed has mistaken a bottle of horse liniment for beer.” –Charterstoned

“Oh, that’s his LEG. I thought he was holding a burlap bag in the same hand as his beer for some reason. To put the cat in? Before pitching it in the river? There are easier ways to quit the profession, Dr. Ed!” –Twinkles the Elf

“I know that Ed is talking to his cat, but I think it would be pretty funny if it were revealed that he worships a pantheon of ancient Norse gods. I mean, something is going to get in the way of his relationship with Estelle, can’t it be something fun?” –pugfuggly

“‘Going physically to work to ask for the current day off‘ joins ‘dating Beetle’ in Incomprehensible Shit Miss Buxley Does.” –nescio

“Maybe coffee is the solution to every plugger problem. You just have to be creative enough to see it. Just imagine how much happier that rhino man would have been if instead of taking his TV to the pawn shop, he had thrown a cup of hot coffee into the face of the pawn broker, robbing him while the poor beast-man recoiled from second and third degrees burns to the face! Look out world! Pluggers have hot coffee, an increasing lack of regard for the welfare of others and lots of problems that need solving!” –Lionheart

“Snuffy and Barlow have been bitten by paralyzing spiders, who even know are fashioning their bodies into bait traps for flies.” –Schroduck

“Coffee? Coffee? Boy, the Duct Tape people and the makers of Bisquick are going to be absolutely furious when they see this.” –Old School Allie Cat

“Remember what I did last time you were here? I moved the furniture into awkward positions, and now we have to live with it!” –BigTed

“The ‘living it up’ version of this cruise seems to be having a drink on the balcony lounge chair while wearing jorts, so I am going to assume that no one involved with this creative team has much experience with ‘living it up.’” –Drew Funk

Remember: If you want an ad-free version of this site sent to you every day via email, for $3 a month you can become a Comics Curmudgeon newsletter subscriber! And if you never want to see banner ads on this site, and want to get cool comment-editing features to boot, for the same low price you can become a Comics Curmudgeon website subscriber! And if you just want to give me money directly, you can put some scratch in my tip jar, or back me on Patreon! Thanks to all for your support and readership!

Post Content

This week’s top comment won’t drive all the snakes out of your peaceful island, but it will make you laugh:

“I’m so glad that Slylock does the dopey, overly earnest ‘sitting on a chair backwards to be cool and relatable’ thing as he ‘raps’ with the kids about ‘the degenerate facial features of the lower, criminal types.’” –Dunkelcopter

These runners up will also do the trick!

“So Herb and Dag play ping pong Matrix-style, jumping off walls and defying the laws of physics to win a best of five. Has this never come up before? Seems more interesting than that office bullshit.” –pugfuggly

“I choose to believe the women are just trying to coax the two guys out of the poorly designed horse costume. Their jobs suck, but they are definitely marriage material.” –made of wince

“I thought Dagwood was saying that he had single-handedly turned Facebook around, and you know what? That would be a much better film than the real Social Network. ‘A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what is cool? Do you? Please tell me, I haven’t kept up with popular culture since the 1920s.’” –Schroduck

“Count Weirdly’s are the only human fingerprints on the can. The others belong to an aardvark and a banana slug. And when it comes to crime, who’s guilty? That’s right, the humans. You think I’m going to accuse Mayor Barbara Banana-Slug’s son of stealing? Come on now, this was why we fought the war in the first place.” –The Ghost of Jarrod

“The effort, the brainpower, the tens of seconds that went into the name of that restaurant: (salad) chef’s kiss. I say this with complete sincerity: This is my favorite thing on the comics page in years. Everything about it is perfect. The name ‘Salad Town.’ The salads themselves, indistinguishable from the flowers on the table. The fact that the name — again, SALAD TOWN — was clearly both conceived and written on the window while the proprietor was drunk. Salad. Town. I’ll never get over it.” –els

“Someone was listening! Someone was actually listening to my sermon! Maybe being a priest is for me after all!” –RogerBW

“You can really tell Dagwood and Lou are up on current trends by how they are reading a newspaper.” –Drew Funk

“The good news is that the time travel experiment was a success, and I brought back this miraculous piece of medical technology. The bad news is that I’m not actually putting the stethoscope in my ears, so it’s not actually doing anything. The worse news is that a stethoscope, even if used correctly, isn’t going to help with your missing hands. The even worse news is that I have a pair of iron gauntlets I’m going to weld on to your stumps. The worst news is that we have no anesthesia. But the best news is that you’ll be known as Eddie Ironfists in the new Edda!” –Voshkod

“I prefer to think that Dagwood and Sandwich Guy (I don’t remember his name and I frankly don’t care to) are just sports illiterate and don’t understand any sort of physical activity besides eating. ‘Baseball? I don’t know what that is but y’know what I do understand? Stuffing my fucking face.’” –ectojazzmage

“No, of course it doesn’t make any sense for Hootin’ Holler to have a golf course, but just as the Magicians’ Union requires every professional magic act to include at least one card trick, the cartoonists’ union requires every comic strip to have at least one golf panel a year. You wouldn’t want John Rose to be accused of scabbing, would you?” –Rube

“Mommy, it used to be a cookie! At least when it went in the mouth end anyway.” –2+2=7

“Oh… you didn’t mean your actual heart … you want something to deaden the emotional pain. Why that’s easy, Barney, I got all kinds of cure alls for that. Most of them contain opium, so if you see the Feds pokin’ around, shoot first, and say, ‘Am I being detained?’ second.” –Old Man Shadow

“So this is what a plugger’s hook-up dating site profile looks like? At least it’s direct.” –jroggs

“Randy Parker has turned into … Legal Chameleon, Cavelton’s newest superhero! No capes, no masks needed. His disguise is his background, with his ethics, opinions, and complexion all changing to match his surroundings!” –Charterstoned

“Pluggers don’t need your hoity-toity French philosophers to know continuity of self is an illusion! The rapid decay of their body teaches it much more efficiently, and they didn’t even have to read Althusser.” –Lark L

“Mentioning a specific moment in time near Ida Noe will activate her curse, transporting everyone in the room to see Waldo Wallet lose a game of ‘Give me five, up high’ to the legendarily gangly Abraham Lincoln before pitching forward into the horse-turd-filled muck of 19th century Gasoline Alley.” –Mantipath

“It’s wild what goes through their digestive tracts, judging by the way they’re standing.” –nescio

“‘A giant leprechaun…’ So Dagwood gets confused by average sized Irish people?” –Tabby Lavalamp

“I didn’t initially see the clock over Leroy’s head, and just assumed that he was extremely unhappy that people were glad to see him. Now that I see the clock, I stand by that interpretation.” –Vice President John Adams

“Memo from corporate: the good news is, we’re getting that high-rise Manhattan office with a window that looks out over the city. The bad news? Rent is so much that we can only afford one desk for all six of you, plus a digital clock from Five Below.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

Remember: If you want an ad-free version of this site sent to you every day via email, for $3 a month you can become a Comics Curmudgeon newsletter subscriber! And if you never want to see banner ads on this site, and want to get cool comment-editing features to boot, for the same low price you can become a Comics Curmudgeon website subscriber! And if you just want to give me money directly, you can put some scratch in my tip jar, or back me on Patreon! Thanks to all for your support and readership!