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Blondie, 4/23/16

There are any number of perfectly good reasons to resent the comic strip Blondie, but the one I’m going with today is that it’s forced me to become familiar with the fact that “He Sheds” are in fact A Thing, as are “She Sheds,” naturally. I guess I don’t resent the concept per se as much as I do the twee terminology. Anyway, now that there’s a TV show about the trend, we can look forward to it spiraling completely out of hand, as it clearly already has for the Woodleys, who apparently thought it was good use of time and energy to dig two or three feet down into their back yard to create a partially subterranean one-man he-shed where Herb can watch baseball in blessed isolation.

B.C., 4/23/16

I’m on the record as being baffled as to why B.C. will go with entirely new art for its highly structured jokes like “Wiley’s Dictionary” or “Advice” or really any of the several gags where the whole point is to provide a minimalist structure within the world of the strip for the characters to deliver some joke that doesn’t really have much to do with the characters or the world of the strip per se. The structure seems like it’s invented specifically as an opportunity to reuse clip art, and drawing a new panel to depict the scene at a new and different angle seems entirely pointless, like meticulously reconstructing a fast food hamburger out of fresh, organic ingredients. I mean, knock yourself out if you really want to do it, I guess, but maybe don’t do it in a way that emphasizes that Curls’s character design is dominated by his grotesque, protruding upper lip.

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Hey y’all, my book tour is starting next week, OMG! Prepare your body and mind to attend the following events at the following times. I’ll be reading my book aloud, signing my book, and answering questions about it, and all that jazz!

Also: do you have a book podcast? (Or a comics podcast, or a public transit podcast!) Or a radio show, maybe in one of these cities? I would love to go on said podcast/radio show and talk about my novel! Email me at bio@jfruh.com to set something up.

Oh, have you managed to avoid knowing about my novel? Well, you can read the first chapter here or listen to me read the third one here.

• April 26, 7 pm, at Upshur Books in Washington, DC!
• April 28, 7 pm, at Atomic Books in Baltimore! I’m sharing this bill with Ariel S. Winter, who’ll be reading from his book Barren Cove.
• May 2, 7 pm, at the City Reliquary in Brooklyn!
• May 5, 7 pm, at Talking Leaves Books in Buffalo!

If you haven’t bought my novel yet and are planning on attending one of these events, I would ask that you hold out and buy it there, because that helps out the bookstores who have been nice enough to host me. (If you haven’t bought my novel yet and won’t be able to make it to any of these events, well, you know what to do.)

OK ANYWAY ON WITH THE SHOW, HERE’S THE COTW:

“My rule is that if the pet care book is as big or bigger than you, you are in no position to take care of a pet.” –James in North Dakota

And the very funny runners up:

“Did you know that whales used to live on land? And that jet fuel can’t melt steel beams?” –Doctor Handsome

“I wasn’t expecting Family Circus to be cancelled after 56 years and replaced in mid-strip by The Great Gatsby Babies, but I’m willing to roll with it.” –Chyron HR

“I’d think lunch was pretty awesome too if I could fix my own martinis in the student cafeteria instead of the arts supply closet.” –Kevin On Earth

“Yes, I think lunch is pretty awesome, too. Hey, I’ve got an idea that might sound a bit pretentious… Since I went ahead and became a professor and we are at an institution of higher learning, do you want to try bumping up the level of conversation? No? Ok, well lunch is awesome and homework is poopy.” –Chareth Cutestory

“Dawn honors The Sandwich with the attendant silverware, just as she cups her hands in thankful prayer to the Most Righteous John Montagu, the Fourth Earl Of Sandwich. KNEEL, you ersatz art historian! You know nothing of art! This is art!” –Sgt Saunders

“I’ll have the tan sandwich, medium flat, extra rigid, please!” –Red Delicious

“So just apropos of nothing, Hagar decides to quiz his compatriot on religious doctrine? ‘What are the seven deadly sins? I’m trying to break them all, and I’m not sure. I straight up murdered the priest in our last raid, so I can’t ask him. Is killing one of the seven? How can it not be one of the seven deadly sins?'” –hogenmogen

“I’m impressed you even tried! What a novel concept- to make an effort to peruse your interests and accomplish your goals. You’ve really cracked the code of life, Harlan Jones.” –Here come the Judge

“Harlan knows that the ‘varying degrees of success’ clause is the best way to make ridiculous claims: ‘I water skied the length of the Nile and opened a jar of pickles, with varying degrees of success.’” –handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

“Somehow the fact that a couple of Vikings are in a restaurant with a waitress bothers me less than the fact that the waitress is holding a pencil, which wasn’t invented until 1564. If they have in fact converted to Christianity, they should consider burning her as a witch.” –Esther Blodgett

“Writer’s notes to artist, Judge Parker, panel 1, April 20, 2016: Dialogue box: ‘How’s Rocky’s book deal coming along, Sam?’ Her brows deeply furrowed, her breasts struggling to break free from her skin-tight stretchy dress.” –jvwalt

“Hi, my head is shaped like a sex toy. Can I touch your dirty underwear?” –Kevin Keeney, on Facebook

“Today’s strip is a lot funnier if you imagine Jamaal’s comment in the final panel dripping with sarcasm. ‘No, Herb, I go there to flirt with women. You know how I just loooove the ladies. Ugh, how am I going to get those sailor outfits clean for the party on Friday now?'” –pugfuggly

“God, I hope this week of Funky Winkerbean ends before he gets to Io. ‘A heady mix of ipecac and Ex-Lax, to guarantee eruptions!'” –Voshkod

“Change dot org petition to prevent any Funky Winkerbean character from ever using the word ‘creamy’ again.” –Dan

“I remember the first time I got a taste of an “adults praise little Sarah” strip. It was magical, and overwhelming. Of course, I was hooked. And as time went by the praise became more effusive, more consistent. And now I realize that I’ve reached the point where a strip like today’s, where a near-adult praises Sarah in a ridiculous and over-the-top manner, just doesn’t do it for me any more. I mean, it’s there. It’s what I need to get through the morning. But that magic is gone. Next week, I’ve been promised a room full of wealthy arts patrons standing around an art museum praising Sarah, lavishing her with attention and wealth, hailing her as the world’s greatest artist. I’m hoping that this will be enough to bring back that thrill, but I’m worrying that maybe it won’t. I’m chasing something more. Maybe reading the strip off of a tattoo on a stripper’s crotch? Or maybe I need to set the strip on fire and inhale the smoke? Something, man. ’Cause today’s style with just one teenager doin the praisin just ain’t cuttin it for me any more.” –Calvin’s Cardboard Box

“What’s ironic is that the dog … bear thing so happy to have outlived his friends appears to be clutching his chest with his left paw. You can’t out-power walk Death forever, man bear dog, and she has finally caught up to you.” –Dread

“But look, the eldest is wearing jams. Are you sure you don’t want to upgrade from seventies kids to eighties?” –Artist formerly known as Ben

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.

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Andy Capp, 4/22/16

On October 20, 2004, a mere three months after I launched this blog, I received an email that consisted entirely of “ANDY CAPP!” repeated 44 times, plus 10 times in the subject line. And now, eleven and half years later, I’ve finally decided: why not Andy Capp? So I’ve started reading Andy Capp, which is a strip that I’m not entirely unfamiliar with. The domestic violence laffs seem to have been excised, but all the other markers of stereotypical working-class British loutishness are still there: “Andy spends all his time at the pub,” “Andy is unnecessarily violent during pickup soccer games,” “Andy is drunk constantly,” “Andy can’t hold a job,” etc. As an American, of course, I yearn for the window into this culturally specific milieu, but then you have episodes like today’s, where the joke mainly seems to be “Andy is an asshole.” It was smart to to put “GB” on Guitar Bob’s guitar case, so there’s no doubt as to what’s going on. It took three people to make this strip!

Momma, 4/22/16

Wait, Momma, don’t be so quick to cut off whatever explanation is being offered here, as I definitely don’t understand what’s happening. Is that lady … trying to give her children to Momma? I don’t know what’s sadder: the look of desperation on this other woman’s face as her attempt to rid herself of parental responsibility fails, or her children’s expressions of utter indifference, as if this were just one more baffling episode in a chaotic and confusing life.

Dennis the Menace, 4/22/16

I was going to write a long, elegiac paragraph about Alice’s sly facial expression and how sometimes we have to tell lies to the people we love in order to get them to do the things they need to do to thrive, but then the phrase “the anus is the ear of the butt” popped into my head and I can’t stop giggling about it, sorry.

Pluggers, 4/22/16

Pluggers only get “participation trophies” when all their friends are dead.