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Blondie, 4/8/17

So, confession: usually when I make a joke about being an old person who doesn’t understand the apps the young people like, I joke about Yik Yak, which has a dumb name and also hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, but what really makes me panic is Snapchat, a wildly popular app/messaging service (?)/content consumption platform (???) that I honestly could not even begin to tell you how it works or what using it is like. Still, I’m one step ahead of the folks who make Blondie, since I was already pretty sure that it works only on phones, not computers, which a quick visit to their baffling and terrifying website seems to confirm.

Having said all that, I don’t want to neglect the powerful and chilling core message of this strip, which is: this generation is so enamored with the idea of information being ephemeral that they’ve lost touch with the visceral world of matter. Dagwood destroys. Dagwood consumes. What once was, Dagwood makes not. If you’re not terrified, you should be.

Mark Trail, 4/8/17

One thing I definitely like in a kidnapper is that he takes an interest in the people he kidnaps. Like mostly they just throw you in the trunk of a car and hold you for ransom, but not this fellow! He wants to know Mark’s whole deal! What’s your name? What brings you to Rapid City, the city famous for people getting rapidly kidnapped at the airport the minute you get off the plane? It’s the final panel that really does it for me, though. “Oh, you’re going to the Indian reservation? Why? Are you some kind of writer or something? Just another white guy with a journalism degree looking to indulge your stereotype of a noble, vanishing people and write a 6,000 word pseudo-literary feature for some Condé Nast publication, where your kill fee is higher than the average annual income on the rez? You people make me sick.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/8/17

“I’m only going to say this one: We’re sending Sarah to public school because it’ll be better for her, OK? Not because we’re poor. Got it? Don’t you dare even think that.”

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Hey guys! It’s the first Friday of the month, so don’t forget: If you’re in LA, I strongly urge you to come see me and these other funny people perform, at 8 pm, at the Clubhouse in Los Feliz!

If you are a fan of my humor sensibility from this site, I think you will really like this show — it’s always a good time, it’s in a fun, intimate space, and, shockingly for central LA, parking is free and plentiful. Literally what do you have to lose? Nothing, that’s what! I hope to see you there — here’s the Facebook event, if those are helpful to you!

And now: your comment of the week!

“Actually I laughed at this. But then it gets sad when you realize she’s trying to slowly kill a dog with trans fats.” –Mikey

And your hilarious runners up!

“The plugger bear-man seems to be totally wedged in by furniture. How does he plan to get out of that chair? [reflective pause] Ohhhhhhh. That’s sad.” –Joe Blevins

“Plugger lives are bereft of wonder but full of crippling joint pain.”–Steve S

“The idea that her only point of reference regarding anything is her acid reflux is as amazing as it is pathetic, and I think both of those are what this strip aspires to on a daily basis.” –handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

“I like a good gallows joke as much as the next executioner but I’m more intrigued by the guy on the left. He’s got a corncob pipe which means this is at least the 16th century and Vikings like Hagar and Lucky Eddie are five hundred years out of date. Being an anachronism is apparently a capital offense, which is going to make Renaissance fairs a lot more interesting.” –Spunky The Wonder Squid

“Life begins at forty — 1940s. That’s when the TVA brought running water and electricity to that village, starting what humanitarian organisations call life, barely.” –Ettorre

“Interesting that this should run on Equal Pay Day, motherhood being the source of women’s greatest unpaid labor. It’s definitely murder those kids want, and on the cheap.” –pastordan

“A true plugger remembers when a ‘Milky Way cake’ was just buying two Twinkies and sticking a Milky Way bar between them before you went to see about that diabetes diagnosis.”–Voshkod

“Billy’s dead, Mommy! You promised us cupcakes, ‘member?” –Ruth McIlhenny Gormé, on Facebook

“Scenes like this remind me why I started drinking to bluff my way through social gatherings.” –Rusty

“Looks like Sarah has as much interest in trying to keep track of the characters in this strip as I do.” –But What Do I Know?

“The accusatory finger that guy is pointing as he says ‘You’re our historian emeritus’ makes me think the next step in this gathering may be the historian emeritus’s ritual death by burning.” –Anonymous

“You know, considering she’s never depicted doing anything but sitting around on the couch and almost getting Sarah killed the one time she attempted to take her to school, June sure seems to need an awful lot of help. Guess those mojitos won’t make themselves!” –Aphthakid

“Which stranger can I dupe into helping out with my airport kidnapping plans? I know! This fit, well-groomed man of action! Sure, he looks like he’s survived numerous boat explosions and knows how to use his fists, but he doesn’t seem too bright.” –Call me Dirty

“They are so ecstatic about the luggage that even ‘Never, dear friend!’ is an anticlimactic punchline today. Oh, Mary Worth doesn’t do punchlines? Have I been reading it wrong all these years?” –Hogenmogen

“‘Vap!’ is possibly the most Dutch-sounding sound effect I’ve ever seen in print. Looking forward to more examples over the course of this storyline, such as ‘Smajk!’ and ‘Plaap!'” –Pozzo

“‘Oh, good, the train is on time!’ ‘All hail Mussolini!'” –Christine Lehman, on Facebook

“See this here? Now do as I say or I’ll shoot my nuts off!” –Tom the Sailor Man

“‘Does Cane ring a bell?’ ‘Yeah! But why that name?’ [whispers] ‘I was the first murderer’” –Dan

“As a person who spends lots of time unconscious I am an expert on how they can help us.” –Liam

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! And as ever, we must give thanks to our advertisers:

• Two Party Opera: A daily comic that features the Presidents of the United States as they live on the stage of history with the day-to-day news of political mudslinging.
• Oh hey, and don’t forget, I wrote a book! You can get it in hardback, paperback, or ebook forms. It’s called The Enthusiast, and it’s about trains, comics, stealth marketing, capitalism, and joy.

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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Spider-Man, 4/7/17

One of my favorite shows that died too soon was The Grinder, which on paper was about a famous actor (Rob Lowe), whose long-running TV series in which he plays a lawyer (called The Grinder) has ended, and who moves back home to Boise to live with his brother (Fred Savage) and father, who are actually lawyers; he then decides to help with the family law firm, despite lacking any actual legal training other than starring in The Grinder (the show within the show). This is a cutesy premise that becomes dizzyingly self-referential as Lowe’s character approaches all real-life legal problems as he would on the show-within-the-show, which almost always seems to work albeit in unexpected ways, because applying the logic of the show-within-in-the-show fits right in with the characters’ reality, which is of course also a TV show; Savage’s character becomes increasingly agitated over the course of the show’s single season as the universe seems to come unmoored around him. Anyway, one of Lowe’s character’s trademark moves, both in the show and in the show-within-the-show, was to reply to someone who told him that something was impossible by dramatically saying “but what if … it wasn’t?”, followed by a swelling music sting. Again, within the skewed world of the show, things usually work out so he turns out to be right; but what I’ve always appreciated about Newspaper Spider-Man is its gritty realism. Spider-Man can’t do the impossible, even within the context of his heightened powers, because he’s just some chump making it up as he goes along, and even when he wins, it’s mostly by accident. Spidey isn’t saying “or maybe he can!” with any of Rob Lowe’s preternatural self-confidence. He hasn’t figured out anything at all. He’s just stalling for time.

Mark Trail, 4/7/17

I was going to make some joke about these dudes trying to armed-kidnap Mark in the middle of a crowded airport in these security-crazed times, but then I remembered that time I flew into Great Falls Airport in Montana, which had more mounted animal heads than TSA agents and didn’t even have bathrooms available once you passed security, so I’m guessing maybe you could pull this off in Rapid City? Guess we’ll find out, and also find out if this bald dude is capable of cracking a smile!

Gil Thorp, 4/7/17

“But they don’t call me that anymore. Because if there’s one thing we know about volcanoes, it’s that once they stop erupting, they never erupt again and anyone who treats them as an ordinary mountain and builds a home nearby is never in any danger whatsoever! Say, what do you suppose this spring storyline’s going to be about!”