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Folks, a couple quick notes! Remember, you now have the option to get an ad-free email newsletter version of each post delivered to you daily, for just $3 a month! Also: my beloved live comedy show, the Internet Read Aloud, will return to the Zoom-based stage one week from tonight, on April 9, and 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern! Here’s the Zoom link (and please note that this is different from the initial link I used when I announced this show, so update your records if you’ve saved that somewhere) and here is the Facebook event!

And now, most importantly: it’s your comment of the week.

“Dustin has gained a surprising amount of knowledge by going through his parents’ medicine cabinet and googling phrases like ‘can you get high on warfarin.’” –Francisco Arrowroot

The runners up are also hilarious!

“I want to tip my hat to the artist of this strip for making an effort to depict human beings playing video games, the world’s most beloved activity that creators in popular media just can’t ever seem to understand. The use of the couch just as a backrest is very true to life, the controllers aren’t being June Brigman’d, and the artist seems to have used an actual game screenshot to portray authentic gameplay. So close. So very close. Unfortunately, the game in question is single player without a split-screen despite the two characters using controllers, which is like depicting a baseball game with two players batting simultaneously. Also, Sega has a strong defamation case against the strip’s creators for suggesting their valuable IP is played by people like Dustin.” –jroggs

“I found myself wondering what led to this phone call. Did Blondie or Dagwood decide to just check in during the workday? Or is Dagwood stalling before having to confess he lost the kids’ college fund on a very entertaining online poker game?” –jenna

“Not a good sign when your new storyline opens up with the dialogue box struggling to come up with something interesting to say, and characters immediately start fleeing the strip.” –pugfuggly

“In fairness, when Jeffy wanders the post-apocalyptic wasteland after the rest of his family is raptured, roaming between scattered tribes of survivors saying things like ‘they call it Thunderdome because it’s the sound of grampa clapping for me in heaven,’ that blanket’ll make a decent cloak.” –Dan

“When I die, imminently, from whatever massive and terrifying beast tore my blanket to shreds, can I take my blanket with me?” –The Great Joe Bivins

“Rather reluctantly, I have to admit that this passes the smell test. Ippon seoinage, the one-armed shoulder throw in judo, is intended to lessen the advantages of a taller, heavier opponent. When the opponent is this much taller and heavier, however, the move can be countered quite simply by stone-cold not giving a shit.” –boojum

“Dennis mocking Mr. Wilson checking the guest registry as he calls and thanks the people who came to his wife’s wake. Truly menacing.” –Hibbleton

“Personally, I wonder what Dennis’ companion is pondering so theatrically. Hopefully, it’s that this supposed friend promised to show him something cool, and now he’s just staring at an old man in a burgundy sweater calling his oncologist.” –Joe Blevins

“(Ominous music) ENTER SHADEBEAM.” –Peanut Gallery

“Today’s Baby Blues is about how human interactions are overrated, because your friends are not as friendly as you remember. That’s one way to convince people to stay quarantined until vaccinated, I guess.” –Ettorre

“I have to say, over the course of — what’s it been for this plotline, like, twenty years or so? — I’ve become a fan of Eve’s bandana: simple, one color, functional (good for catching drool and for robbing trains), and always tied precisely the same way. I like it.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“Something squamous holds a sign over a doomed man’s head as he contemplates in mute horror a sudden eruption of terrifying fecundity. It is April, fools, April, the cruelest month, and instead of lilacs from a dead land we get olives from the sterility of alcohol. Bacchus is emasculated, Athena seizes Athens from the wrath of Poseidon (again, a sea creature, with tentacles writhing) with a gift of olives, myth cycles descending into myth spirals all the way down into the madness that drove the wreckers from the sea (Viking, sea creatures, decorating their ships with kraken’s tentacles) to burn and pillage. Such depth in a simple comic.” –Voshkod

“A thousand bookmarks for a woman with one book and a few events a year is overkill. Especially if she’s writing a mystery series, which means the bookmark will be outdated as soon as #2 is published. On the other hand, if they tape them all together, they’ll make a biodegradable and appropriate burial shroud.” –Bill’s Tummy Brain

“Amelia is really good at cost-benefit analysis and economies of scale. We both work for free when you could easily afford to pay us, but don’t let that throw you.” –Banana Jr. 6000

“The Rex Morgan team carries out a daring experiment to test which is more exciting: The usual Rex Morgan action, or watching paint dry.” –matt w

“‘Does that mean your ghost boyfriend will have more time for you, or less?‘ ‘You’re thinking of my ex, Billy. Zane is transitioning. He hasn’t fully left the land of the living, that’s why he can still play ball.’ ‘You mean–‘ ‘Yes, he’s not the Wholly Ghost.’” –pastordan

Remember: If you never want to see banner ads on this site, and want to get cool comment-editing features to boot, for a mere three dollars a month you can become a Comics Curmudgeon Supporter! 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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Hello all! I have some news that a certain subset of you may find exciting! We all know that it can be difficult to keep up with your favorite websites today, what with the death of Google Reader and social networks’ algorithmic feeds sometimes hiding the daily links. Well, if you’re tired of missing your daily Comics Curmudgeon post, and want the burden of remembering to type “josh reads dot com” into your browser lifted, perhaps you would like to subscribe to my newsletter? Like, literally, subscribe to my newsletter! For a mere $3 a month, you can get a banner-ad free version of each day’s post emailed to you every morning. Just fill in your email and payment info below! UPDATE: The thing that was making this not work has now been fixed, so if you tried it once and it didn’t work, give it another shot!

(Newsletter delivery infrastructure is taken care of by Buttondown, which handles payments in conjunction with Stripe. See the privacy policy for more details.)

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Please, another money making scheme?” Well, yes, yes it is. But I hope it’s a scheme that provides something that you want! Email newsletters are having something of a renaissance these days as various factors make it harder actually get web content you want on the regular, so if you’re sad about missing my posts sometimes and don’t want to deal with ads, this might be a good option for you. It’s the same price as being a Website Subscriber, which gets you an ad-free version of the website, if that’s more your jam!

It’s possible that this newsletter is a thing that’s nobody’s jam, and that’s OK! If I don’t get a critical mass of people signing up for it, I may cancel the experiment after a couple months. (Anyone who has signed up for it will be refunded in full at that point, so if you’re at all interested, you’ve got nothing to lose!)

I do want to assure you that the main website will always remain free of charge for as long as I produce it, and the ads upon it will not go beyond the industry standard for annoying, by which I mostly mean they won’t play audio without your consent. But if you do want to pay for some extras, well, I’ve got a couple ways you can do that now. And if you don’t want to sign up for a subscription but just want to throw a little cash my way, well, I’ve got ways you can do that too.

Also, something else that’s free: I’m going to be on What’s Going On, a free Twitch comedy panel show, tonight at 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern. Come check it out!

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Folks, it’s Friday, and that means it’s COTW day!

“Is this really the best time to cosplay as the Mad Hatter? I can’t blame Mr. Lilly for losing it. ‘Fifteen cents? And the price tag won’t even stay in one place? I don’t know what kind of drugs they have me on, but you’re not gonna testify against the Knave of Hearts if I can help it, you hear me? Go eat a teacup, doll face!’” –made of wince

And your runners up are also showcased today! Very funny!

“I can easily imagine Jeffy spending months just staring out the window, totally blank expression on his face. And, sure, we can pretend he’s thinking about tulips that whole time.” –Joe Blevins

“I firmly believe that if you are going to give Jeffy at least a faint hope of having functional elbows in the fall and winter, you should not cruelly yank that possibility away in the springtime.” –Poteet

“We don’t see so much of the women coaches, but this brief girls’ basketball storyline shows they’re more than a match for the men when it comes to half-assed motivation. Using implied threats to force players to celebrate the aftermath of a defeat is a morale booster Gil himself would be proud of.” –Schroduck

“Okay, I was able to track down a St. Hilaire and a St. Hilary, but no St. Hilarie. Is Dick Tracy allowed to create its own pantheon now? Will we start seeing fund drives for the St. Pruneface School for the Criminally Deformed?” –Pozzo

“That’s right, Harry L. Dinkle, and the L stands for Lyrical! Now, where’s that organ … ha, I kid, I know it’s that thing with the pipes and keyboard. Whata beaut! Gonna get some good sound offa that baby. OK, ladies, sit back and hold on to your garters, for here’s a little piece I call … Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! Yeah, I guess I should have said sit Bach, you get it? She gets it. Oh, I kill me.” –Voshkod

“Look, I’m trying here. I really am. But you can’t have a strip about Dinkle and the organ and expect us to hold off on penis jokes forever.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“There is a lady with half-lidded Garfield eyes on the right side of the first panel of Funky who looks like she is already just … so … over this we-need-an-organist arc. I’m afraid it’s just getting started, ma’am.” –jenna

“Does a bear shit in the woods? (No, but his wife wishes he did.)” –BigTed

“A plugger puts the seat down if he knows that what’s good for him is fiber, and that’s a big if. Otherwise he can leave it up for days.” –nescio

“This looks less like people birdwatching and more like a scene cut from that Alfred Hitchcock film. No-one seems to be that worried, which I guess is understandable: if I lived in a universe centered around a pun-loving nitwit of a kid, I’d probably welcome death too.” –pugfuggly

“The international System of Units had to invent a new unit measure to describe how little menace there is in a six-year-old boy enjoying bird-watching.” –Ettorre

“To celebrate Women’s History Month, Blondie features a woman with her own business and a woman who will resort to physical coercion in order to finally land a husband. You’ve come a long way, baby!” –Larry McAwful

“I don’t think I’ve ever before seen Family Circus so clearly created as a vehicle to express ‘my kids are morons,’ now of course in its second generation continuing as ‘we were, and possibly still are, morons.’” –Chance

“Anyway, here is the pose for the delightfully humorous cake topper we’ve picked out! We also have a sign for the ring bearer saying ‘last chance to run,’ ball-and-chain table decorations, and a fun pop quiz for the reception: ‘Is Dean getting married because a) he’s afraid of dying alone, b) he’s never figured out how to take care of himself and needs a replacement mom, c) pressure to conform to societal expectations or d) all of the above?’” –TheDiva

Oh, also, you’ll remember that earlier today I posited that the central figure in today’s Blondie was a caricature of someone specific. Well, faithful reader Zla’od did a little detective work and figured out exactly who that specific person is. The answer, given the “family business” nature of the comics, may not surprise you!

Remember: If you never want to see banner ads on this site, and want to get cool comment-editing features to boot, for a mere three dollars a month you can become a Comics Curmudgeon Supporter! 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!