Post Content

Hey all, your comment of the week momentarily, but first: remember the live twice-monthly Internet-themed comedy show I promised you, in Los Angeles? Well, the first one is less than a week away!

Come to the Clubhouse in Los Feliz, 7 pm this coming Thursday, to see me and five other folks make Internet-derived jokes! It’s gonna be a great show and you need to get in on the ground floor. Here’s the Facebook event, if you like Facebook events!

And if you like funny comments, here’s the week’s funniest comment!

“Mary Worth finally acknowledges that, in Mary’s world, all other characters are but human freight, introduced to serve their function and then trucked out by the gross when obsolescence arrives. Only Mary persists, because only Mary is necessary in her monstrous simulacra of the real world.” –lrubinko, on Tumblr

And here are the very funny runners up!

“Before Hi could break the law his family had to break his spirit.” –Philip Moon, on Twitter

“There aren’t enough bitter insults to go around — more than two would almost be like showing interest — so Ditto has to show his contempt silently, which he handles quite well with hands in his pockets, a slouch and a sneer.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

“‘Do you hear anything?’ Miss Buxley asks Beetle, the fear and agony apparent in her voice. The clams had already broken her arms for attacking one of their own and she dreaded what might happen next.” –ericrhouston

“This new version of The Walrus and the Carpenter isn’t very good.” –made of wince

“How do we know Hootin’ Holler is impoverished? They can’t even afford the obligatory baguette sticking out of the grocery bag.” –Rusty

“Say what you will, but I’m glad the artist forgot that Tommy got a stupid normie haircut to impress a waitress and others outside of prison. The glorious golden meth-locks are back, and they’re here to stay, baby!” –Bryan J. Simmons, on Facebook

“If you let him ride in the front seat and stick his head out the window you’ll be halfway to the vet’s office before he even knows what’s going on.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Oddly enough, ‘Ugh … Okay.’ is what I say every time Mary Worth is featured here.” –Lorne

“A hospital ate Tommy’s father and slowly digested him. It was horrific.” –Ettorre

“Add an atonal soundtrack and we’ve got a good start on a no wave film here. What’s Vincent Gallo doing these days?” –Pat Ferruzza, on Facebook

“‘You were over-throwing, putting your arm as risk.’ ‘Beneath a veil of brine and tears my eyes were blinded; I was conscious only of the cymbals of the sun clashing on my skull, and, less distinctly, of the keen blade of light flashing up from the aluminum bat, scarring my eyelashes, and gouging into my eyeballs. Then everything began to reel before my eyes, a fiery gust came from the stands, while the sky cracked in two, from end to end, and a great sheet of flame poured down through the rift. Every nerve in my body was a steel spring, and my grip closed on the ball. My elbow wound back, and the jagged crisscross of the stitches jogged my palm. And so, with that crisp, whipcrack sound, it all began. I shook off my sweat and the clinging veil of light. I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of this mound on which I had been happy. But I fired four pitches more into the empty strike zone, on which they left no visible trace. And each successive pitch was another loud, fateful rap on the door of my undoing.'” –Effluvius Erratus

“So we’re finally getting to see the strip’s recurring Frank Nelson-based snippy store clerk character dressed in something other than an old-timey suit, and it turns out he’s fit as hell.” –BigTed

“Wait, are they supposed to still be in that ratty strip mall pawn shop? Look at that enormous room filled with opulent gewgaws behind them. I guess Charles Foster Kane really needed some quick money for Oxycontin.” –Doctor Handsome

“‘I’ve planned a vacation — just for the two of us!’ Mark said after he’d turned his head away from Cherry. To whom was Mark speaking and what will Cherry do while he’s gone? Stay tuned to find out!” –Spunky The Wonder Squid

“Look! The moon is turned on all the way tonight! Is that why you were in such a hurry to get us up to the cabin? I don’t know why you put us in a cage up there every month, its not like we make any troublrrrRRRRRR OOOOOOOOOOO” –Chareth Cutestory

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

• Bluebeards Original is proud to join The Comics Curmudgeon as an advertiser! Company owner Paul Kaniewski is a longtime follower of this site, to the point that it inspired him to created the famed Aldo Kelrast MySpace profile. Bluebeards has been making top-rated beard care products for ten years now, so any bearded folks or those that love them, please check out the site and try their stuff.
• Oh, yes, and my novel is something you should buy, in hardback, paperback, or ebook form! It’s called The Enthusiast, and it’s about trains, comics, stealth marketing, capitalism, and joy

If you’d like to buy advertising on the site, you can do so on a CPM basis through BuySellAds. To find out more, you can go to my BuySellAds page or just click here.

Post Content

Family Circus, 7/8/16

One of my favorite things about the way the Family Circus constantly reuses art that’s decades old is that somewhere along the line some editor realized, “Oh, crap, everyone is supposed to wear seat belts now! The Family Circus, as an incredibly influential part of today’s media, can’t afford to send the dangerous message that not wearing your seatbelt is ‘cool!’ Looks like we’re going to have to add seat belts into all the old art, when we inevitably reuse it!” This has produced laughable results like today’s panel, in which, if I know my classic American station wagons, Dolly is supposed to be sitting in the “back back” or “way back,” i.e., the storage area where there’s no seat of any kind, where all of us kids born before 1980 or so were free to just roll around without any restraints or safety equipment and died in droves. Anyway, please join me in enjoying that seat belt, coming out of nowhere, hooking over Dolly’s back, and connecting to nothing. It almost makes me sad that once we got to the era when all children under the age of 10 had to be in car seats everyone involved in the production of this strip was just like “Enh, screw it.”

Mark Trail, 7/8/16

Hey, remember when Mark’s face accidentally fell on Carina’s face, back in the cave, and she tried to get him to do sex things with her, and the first thing he thought of to make her stop trying was to say “Yes, Carina, I am happily married”? Well, that definitely counts as being “made” to decide take some time off and invest in his relationship with his wife. Presumably they’ll voyage to the mysterious South Pacific, to frolic on a beach where they’ll discover these lovebirds’ mouldering corpses.

The Phantom, 7/8/16

I’ve sort of assumed that Kit Jr. was going to Tibet but I think they’ve only been saying “the Himalayas” so I guess it’s possible he’s headed for a Buddhist monastery in the northern fringes of India, or Bhutan or Nepal, which would qualify, barely, as “the subcontinent.” Still, has he considered that the monastery probably doesn’t have Internet? Also, you know where there’s Internet? The Skull Cave! He could learn a lot about the subcontinent back at the Skull Cave, is what I’m saying.

Post Content

Marvin, 7/7/16

So it turns out Marvin’s dad didn’t go to jail, and is now planning on taking his wife and child on vacation to the extremely cheap destination of “Swindletopia.” Today, his father-in-law gloms onto the trip using transparent emotional manipulation! The brief forays this strip takes into the lives of its adult characters makes you long for its usual witty and subtle baby poop jokes.

Gasoline Alley, 7/7/16

I’m trying, I’m really trying to not get worked up over the various historical horrors going on with this coin. I won’t goggle at the fact that the strip managed to accurately learn that Nero’s full name began with “Nero Claudius” but get everything else wrong: that he was never referred to as such on coins, only as “Nero Caesar”; that the picture looks almost nothing like Nero’s real coin portraits; that the “A.D.” dating system wasn’t developed until the 6th century A.D. and the pagan Romans wouldn’t have used it as a dating formula in 64 even it was around. I am, however, going to get mad about the fact that this terrible coin changes size radically between panels, appearing to be about the size of a quarter in panels one and three and about the size of a smallish plate in panel two.

Gil Thorp, 7/7/16

Oh, man, looks like Boo’s death is setting up a wacky summer Gil Thorp plot in which the kids discover nihilism! Watch them veer wildly between sullen inaction and wild self-destructive behavior, all while muttering “What’s the point of the playdowns? What’s the point of the annual bonfire? What’s the point of anything?”