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Hagar the Horrible, 10/9/16

“Yes, Hagar, I found this mermaid tangled in a fisherman’s net, and yes, she promised me any price to free her. And so I took what was my due: her daughter, who I’m going to bring to the zoo to sell to the zookeeper. Don’t judge! I’m tired of the dangerous world of being a Viking. Do you know how many gold pieces I can make from selling her? Enough to never live in hunger or fear again! She said I could have anything if I freed her! Anything! I kept my end of the bargain!”

Judge Parker, 10/9/16

Years ago, I went on a date with a woman who picked the movie we would see: My Best Friend’s Wedding. The plot, if you’ve never seen it, involves Julia Roberts realizing she’s in love with her best friend, Dermot Mulroney, right as he’s about to marry Cameron Diaz, and she decides to sabotage their relationship. The date was unsuccessful, in part, because of our wildly differing reactions to the movie. She wanted Julia Roberts’ character to be more sympathetic, when in fact she becomes less so over the course of the movie. I, on the other hand, had fallen in love with the movie at a particular turning point, when everything I knew about conventional movie narratives taught me that Julia Roberts was about to confess the truth of her evil plotting to Dermot Mulroney and they would start growing closer; instead, she decides to double down on the madness. I thought about my dad describing to me the first time he saw the Stanley Kubrick version of The Shining; towards the climax of that movie, Scatman Crothers arrives at the Overlook Hotel to rescue the protagonist, only to be immediately murdered by Jack Nicholson. This doesn’t happen in the book, and my dad, who had read the book before seeing the movie, told me that when he saw this he thought, “Oh my God — anything could happen now.” That’s what I thought during My Best Friend’s Wedding (it’s the scene where Julia Roberts starts telling people Rupert Everett is her fiancé), and it’s a narrative high I’ve been chasing, and aspiring to in my own writing, ever since.

Anyway, there’s been a distinct shift in narrative tone in Judge Parker since Ces Marciuliano took over writing duties a few weeks ago, but I hadn’t experienced that feeling until now, looking at the next to last panel, when those shipping containers — containers Neddy browbeat her engineer/lover-to-be into using as the building blocks of her factory, then browbeat some poor sap into selling her below cost — collapsing in an awful ballet of twisted metal and, I hope, shattered bodies. Anything can happen now, you guys. Anything can happen.

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Funky Winkerbean, 10/8/16

Heh heh, why should famous gossip website DMZ care about the sexy sex affairs of sexy movie stars? That’s for its much more popular rival, TMZ. DMZ brings you all the latest non-scandals of shlubby nobody comic book writers who have lucked into lucrative screenwriting gigs for some reason, which works out well for Frankie, who’s determined to ruin his biological son’s life!

Dennis the Menace, 10/8/16

“Because he just mauled a little kid real bad! They’re taking him to the hospital right now! No, I don’t know why Mr. Wilson is standing in the sprinkler.”

Six Chix, 10/8/16

tfw yr girlfriend is sick of fucking a muggle

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Hey all! I have another article I wrote that I think is pretty fun, if you like True Tales of Corporate Chaos: “How to keep IT security together in a company that’s gone bankrupt.” Corporate failure involves a lot of drama, it turns out!

But maybe your idea of fun leans less towards “articles about IT” and more towards “live comedy that involves the Internet?” Well, if you’re in the LA area, good news: tonight my monthly show of Internet jokes is at its new great time (Friday at 8 pm) and same great place (The Clubhouse in Los Feliz, which has plenty of free parking and is close to the Metro Red Line). And it’s free! Get in on it!

Here’s the Facebook event!

Oh, what’s that? Your actual idea of fun is the comment of the week? Well, I’ve got one of those for you too, and it’s great:

“Well, Spidey, I know here we are shrunk to few inches and encased in polymers by Egghead, a scientist who loves technology, but it’s nice to see that Hank is tied up to an old kitchen chair with some hemp rope. Egghead still appreciates the classics.” –Joe Momma

The runners up are also very funny!

“The many punches to the head Sarge has given him over the years have rendered Beetle practically deaf. The sound of mid-century artillery is as a lullaby to him.” –Bryan J. Simmons, on Facebook

“Pluggers is funnier if you assume that he’s just desperate to see the football scores while the font-page headline he’s looking at says, ‘FRANCE DECLARES WAR ON PORTUGAL’ or ‘PRESIDENT INDICTED.'” –Doctor Handsome

“Perfect, I bought a million dollar mansion so you can hang out in a 3′ x 5′ crawlspace. Well, the dog is getting you room.” –pugfuggly

“I was going to make a joke about Dog Plugger using the little blue pill to alleviate his elbow pain for ‘sex’ but I didn’t want to visualize a hunched over geriatric dog masturbating to racy chicken pictures but then it happened anyway.” –Mikey

“You’re a plugger if you explain your jokes even though they’re built on what you believe to be universally recognizable stereotypes … because your audience has a high incidence of old age dementia.” –Amake

“Sarah Morgan knows that you start small. She’s studied these things. Hitler tried to start a coup from a beer hall. Genghis and Attila started in tents. This little space, the cupboard beneath the stairs, from here she would start her empire. ‘I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space,’ she whispers, before putting her child’s mask back on. ‘Mom! Dad! Check this out!’ As her simpering father croons some soft words, she considers what she would carve into the walls of this haven: ‘The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.'” –Voshkod

“I assume tomorrow’s Judge Parker will pan over to a dramatic reveal of Sophie in a swivel chair. ‘And Sophie Spencer does not tolerate incompetence!’ [trap door button] Why? Fuck if I know, but Judge Parker characters are all two panels of character development from billionaire super villain at any given time, so why not.” –Dan

Panel two finally gives us some classic Judge Parker T&A. That’s ‘tears and ass,’ naturally.” –Joe Blevins

“Having shrunk your enemies down to ltty-bitty size for some reason that has to do with being Ant-Man’s nemesis, some fixation with ltty-bitty people, there are several fine ways to kill them. Squoosh them with your thumb. Putting a glass over them and watching them run out all the air might be fun. For god’s sake, man, there’s a magnifying glass right there, and two bugs: do the math! But, no, Egghead has decided that the way to handle this would be to make little rectangular molds, get some kind of epoxy that does not need to be heated to skin-searing temperatures, and put them on the table to talk to them. All to show off the fact that he has neato ‘magnifying goggles.’ There’s still hope that he might flick their heads off with his fingernail, but frankly, that hope is dimming.” –handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

That doctor is obviously new to the Dick Tracy universe. Not only does he not appear to have a pun-based name commenting on some personal disfigurement, he has also neglected to frame his diagnoses in a turn of phrase that acknowledges his patient’s pun-name. ‘Coffee is cooling off in the OR … but he isn’t iced yet!’ See! How hard is that? And this man somehow got a medical degree.” –Doug Wykstra

“I wonder what’s going on over at the Daily Bugle right now, especially since its owner has been more preoccupied lately with keeping three separate men tied up in his hideout. I guess he’s just really good at delegating.” –Chareth Cutestory

“Were the documents properly notarized? THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME!” –The Cranky Tank, on Twitter

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! And let’s give thanks to our advertisers:

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