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What’s that? Your top comment of the week? That’s right!

“I’m loving Billy’s Rebel-Without-A-Cause-cool lean here. ‘What are you rebelling against?’ ‘Whaddya got? No seriously, what do you got to rebel against, I have no access to the outside world or larger cultural trends.’” –Liz L

And your runners up are hilarious as well!

“I like the fact that Hi is seen having coffee with his breakfast and dinner, but beer with his lunch. The artist knows exactly how he’ll want to calibrate his energy levels to survive each part of this daylong family bore-fest.” –BigTed

“Kitty Cop is a series so formulaic and trite that an eight year-old can write the next installment in a week with no editing. The ostensible author of the previous books is incredibly excited about this realization. Somehow the fact that the walls keep changing colors in Vidpa House is the least incredible thing about this whole story line.” –But What Do I Know?

“Today’s Hi and Lois is squarely in line with the established characters, too: Hi can’t experience joy at all, Lois can if she takes amphetamines.” –matt+w

“Started out with ‘old people so blind,’ made a hard right into ‘old people so cheap.’ That’s a real M. Night Shyamalan they pulled there.” –Old School Allie Cat

“Remember last week when Shauna said Ashlee used to be a petty criminal and con artist from the wrong side of the tracks? Well, now Ashlee used to be a trendy, popular alpha bitch who ruled her school’s cliques with an iron fist. Do keep up.” –jroggs

“It’s one thing to make the punchline a pun. It’s another to expect us to believe that Shoe would shake off his ennui and misanthropy (misaviany?) enough to bother to go see the new pet of the woman who works at the diner he frequents until the bar opens.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“I’ll continue to think of these two as No Neck and Way Too Much Neck.” –Joe Blevins

“I think L’il Sparky’s complete lack of hooves might hold him back as a racehorse as well. He just has those flabby mushroom-like pods at the end of his legs, right? All the traction of a sandbag.” –Twinkles+the+Elf

“Ahahahaha! It’s funny because Mother Goose is so poor that she has to sell her blood, but also so ill that she can’t find a buyer!” –Ettorre

“Miss Buxley is shirking her own work to do whatever this is, so maybe she and Beetle are meant for each other.” –nescio

“I like the look on Killer’s face. Halfway through digging Beetle’s grave, he’s the only one that seems to be registering the gravity of the situation.” –pugfuggly

“You know what would be ‘nice‘? If I didn’t have to sit here clutching my nose to keep my cadaverous flesh from completely sloughing of my head!” –ArtOfWargames, on Twitter

“Good God! Grief has turned Judge Parker into Grandpa Munster.” –Everything Is Better With Monkeys

“It’s nice to see these legacy soap comics get back to their roots. Rex Morgan, M.D. has a young doctor torn between two lovers, Judge Parker tackles the legal ramifications of a using a child’s work, and Mary Worth gets to help this old man through a mental crisis. All is right with the world.” –Flipper

“Cool! Drew will be able to wear a lot more watches now!” –made of wince

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!

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Folks, your comment of the week in a moment, but first: you might remember that a few days ago Blondie made a joke about Blondie’s long-ago roommate, which prompted me to muse about the strip’s early history. Well, faithful reader Mantipath managed to find a relevant Blondie strip from that era, in which Dagwood is about to marry said roommate (named “Irma,” apparently), but hasn’t shown up at the church yet because he’s all doped up on ether.

Blondie, 2/1/32

Truly, the past is a different country! A different country where there comic strips were printed larger in the paper and so had art that was a lot more detailed, also. Be sure to click/tap the image to make it bigger!

Meanwhile, here in the present, specifically in this week, we have this week’s comment of the week!

“Once, on a visit to the world-famous San Diego Zoo, I got to witness an angry confrontation between two Galapagos tortoises. Their furious visages, scarred faces, and hyperextended necks are perfectly replicated by Ashlee and Shauna in panel one. I will take the presence of the accompanying guttural groaning and hilarious slow-motion posturing as a given.” –Vice President John Adams

And your runners up! Very funny!

“I’m just relieved the joke wasn’t ‘Crankshaft is constipated.’” –a.

“I assume Ed’s tortured expression is because ‘crashing a vehicle containing mailboxes’ isn’t actually his schtick at all. This metaphor is flawed!” –Horace Broon

“Do you think Jeffy will mindlessly try and pledge his allegiance to anything with stripes? Have we ever seen him at the zoo?” –WLP

“Shauna proves right away that she’s a bad girl by being smoking hot right in front of a no smoking sign. Rules? Hmph. Rules are for good girls who return stuff they stole the day before.” –Weaselboy

“Skyler reacts with horror as he realizes his dementia stricken uncle has forgotten they can fly.” –nescio

“Good art can communicate deeper meaning with subtle visual cues. For example, Drew and Ashlee have matching colored shirts and her earrings coordinate with his entire ensemble, which causes the viewer to subconsciously connect the two of them as an in sync unit, united against this new threat. Shauna’s clothes, on the other hand, clash garishly against the gentle pastels of her environment, matching only the bright ‘no’ symbol in the prominent ‘no smoking’ sign. Ashlee is clearly a good match for Drew and can change and mature as a result of his good influence (he is an ‘influencer,’ remember), while Shauna is just trouble. It’s brilliant foreshadowing by the colorist, who uses… [touches earpiece] …sorry, this just in: apparently all of the food in Santa Royale is… beige? All of it? Really? Okay, wow. Never mind. Forget I said anything.” –The+Silent+Penultimate+Panel

“An interesting commentary on how pervasive capitalism is, to the point where we are unable to imagine relations of affections outside the concept of hierarchical workplace discipline imposed by the relations of productions… Oh sorry, it’s 1950s Dennis the Menace! I mean, wives be nagging!” –Ettorre

“You just can’t do a Zoom pizzeria. Sure, with a webcam you can see the discomfort on their faces as they choke down their third slice of grease and sawdust cheese, but no microphone is good enough to hear their stomach churning, and without the olfactory component of pizza burps and pizza farts, what’s the point? And when they run off to the bathroom, clutching their stomachs in agony, you can’t hear unmentionable fluids pour into an overtaxed toilet, you can’t smell waves of sickening odors flowing out from under the bathroom door. And that, my friends, is what Montoni’s is all about. So we’re reopening, and may God have mercy on our souls” –Voshkod

“I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a reference to an actual ‘bubbly blonde beauty’ that actually did flirt with Dagwood way back in the strip’s original incarnation 90+ years ago, even if that couldn’t have possibly happened that way given the state of the strip today. Sorry Dagwood, there’s no statute of limitations on memories in legacy strips; you bear the brunt of memories from well before you were born, and only the declining state of newspapers will keep them from remaining relevant well after you die.” –Morgan Wick

“I’ve never been conventially ‘hot’ before but even I know ‘Can you take a look at this rash and also have sex with me in that medical supply closet?’ is a shitty way to try and get back together with an ex.” –DevOpsDad

“Dermatitis? It looks to me like lycanthropy. So of course Shauna broke Drew’s heart. How else could she eat it, if not by smashing the breastbone first? Didn’t they teach you any anatomy at all at that medical school you bought your diploma from?” –seismic-2

“Serious question: Do backwards-cap wearers age out of it by the time they become pluggers, or will we eventually have a backwards-cap-wearing Andy Bear rolling his eyes at whatever science-fiction headdress tomorrow’s youth will be wearing?” –ArtOfWargames, on Twitter

“Are parents embarrassing? Does a bear shit on your posts?” –Pozzo

“The daily haul from the Periodical Bodega: $50. Cost of labor? $70. But sure I guess. Are the computers safe? I wrote that sentence without yawning so I’m impressed with myself. Scintillating stuff, Gil Thorp.” –Jerp+Jump

“I’ll be right over, babe, as soon as I finish this efficiency study. Can you imagine, that lazy cleaning crew insists that normal-sized mops are good enough!” –Peanut Gallery

“Normally the straight men in the comics have exaggerated reactions to the lamest of punchlines, but check out Dustin’s dad: absolutely no change in expression between panels one and three. Almost as if he isn’t paying attention at all. Hey asshole, if this stuff isn’t interesting to you what makes you think we’ll like it?” –pugfuggly

“Mr. Waverling plans to liquidate all of his assets and blow it all so that, being a cartoon poor person, he will have to wear a barrel instead of a suit. The idea of a mortician trying to fit him into a casket like that amuses him to no end.” –Tabby Lavalamp

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!

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Rosy-fingered dawn is here, and she’s brought the comment fo the week!

“Diane is cosplaying and posing for no one in particular, and the boys are backlit while she isn’t. The only way this makes sense is if Chip and Boy Not Named in Wiki Entry are in the dark garage watching a projected slideshow of potential girls to be rejected by.” –Lee Sherman

She’s brought these fun runners up as well!

“If the Mitchells would stop gossiping about their friends and coworkers in front of Dennis, they’d have something to talk about when he’s not around.” –Naked Bunny with a Whip

“Why should Marvin care about reading books? His generation will all experience, say, The Count of Monte Cristo in virtual reality, with the words beamed directly into their brains from their iPads or something. Best of all, no one will know his actual body is pooping the whole time.” –BigTed

“Maybe you lost your watch inside a patient. I haven’t known you all that long, but seems pretty in-character.” –Pozzo

“Marvin’s family is grotesque in any number of ways, but I’ll say this for them: they’ve never forced their unwilling friends to hear about their wife’s failed attempts to spark up their dead marriage with a bit of adult-baby play, unlike some people.” –Schroduck

“I appreciate that Marvin’s grandparents are playing a game named for both a food and an orifice. It fits the theme” –Mr. A

“If it takes you a minute to realize that that punchline is supposed to be wordplay, you’re probably reading Crankshaft.” –Francisco Arrowroot

“I love the idea that this guy’s parents are sitting just out of frame, patiently waiting to spend time with their son while he stares captivated at a phonebook-sized letter he won’t even open. ‘Seriously, your mom is starting to get really upset…’ ‘Just five more minutes, honey. I just want to smell the stamps a bit more.’” –pugfuggly

“Drew today: ‘What has become of my cherished watch, which my dying mother gave me before she passed away?’ Drew last week: ‘Hey, what happened to my Rolex™?’” –jroggs

“Beetle, you know what is also copyrighted? The character played by William Holden in Stalag 17! But satirical works enjoy an exception to copyright, and let us be very clear that satirical does not necessarily mean ‘funny.’” –Ettorre

“Drew: ‘She was buried in a matching watch.’
Ashlee: [grabbing shovel] ‘Go on.’” –Donny Ferguson, on Twitter

“At this point, Crankshaft wakes up, tangled in his sweaty sheets, gasping for air. ‘What a nightmare!’ he thinks. ‘Me, on a date? Having a heartfelt conversation? Horrible! I should’ve known. Since when have there been drive-in movie theaters, and since when were movies abstract pencil drawings on a white background? Well, at least now I know I’m not too old to dream.’” –made of wince

“So apparently if I see a bird-man with an aggressive pompadour, a Reservoir Dog suit, and a one-ball scrotum hanging under his beak I’m supposed to think ‘carpenter’ rather than ‘one of nature’s more tragic mistakes.’” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Are women after Chads or are they just golddiggers? Dustin enters the hottest debate in /r/incel history!” –Jerp+Jump

“A teenage boy who’s completely bald except for a single tuft of curly hair growing out of his forehead (?!) might need to lower his standards a bit if he considers ‘conventionally attractive girl who’s a little too into the Red Sox’ beneath him. Or honestly even if he doesn’t.” –Dan

“I’m just relieved Ashlee is wearing flip-flops so she doesn’t get tetanus from that sofa.” -Malaclypse

“You can Tell Ashlee’s on hard times because not only is her wall plaster and couch all torn up, she can’t even afford color for her apartment. Not to get all socialist about it but you have to ask whether she would have turned to petty larceny if she hadn’t been reduced to life in a greyscale flophouse while the residents of Santa Royale luxuriate in their vibrant washes of salmon and ochre.” –BananaSam

“Nice rendering of the down-at-the-heels People’s Clinic. I guess it’s Shithole Week at Mary Worth.” –Ned Ryerson

“Drew has two practices: the hospital, where he draws money from an exploitative healthcare system, and the People’s Clinic, where he draws money from people’s charitable donations. If Ashlee just hangs with him awhile, she could learn a thing or two.” –richardf8

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!