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Judge Parker, 5/13/16

I can’t really decide whether Judge Parker HQ has an elaborate “follow the money” chart on the wall that explains precisely the complex financial relationship between country star Rocky Ledge, movie star Godiva Danube, Rocky’s tell-all book about his marriage to Godiva, and Neddy’s old person sweatshop, or if the details keep shifting and the point is just to keep these two good-looking nutballs in the strip somehow. All I know is that there are plenty of people who would pay someone good money to stare at them with eyes like Godiva’s in panel three and order them to “get down on your knees and thank us for your tawdry windfall.”

Shoe, 5/13/16

You might think, based on my last eleven or twelve years of blogging, that I’m a cynical guy who hates joy. Untrue! For instance, today’s Shoe provided me with the image of a group of elderly bird-people gleefully dipping their heads into a giant vat of applesauce, and I’m grinning as goofily thinking about it as Biz is.

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B.C., 5/12/16

A common and amusing thing you see in Victorian-era English translations of ancient Greek literature is that sexual terms are translated into Latin, the logic being that if you were educated enough to know Latin, you were presumably morally sound enough to read 2,000-year-old dick jokes purely out of literary or historical interest, but we don’t want the unwashed masses reading Aristophanes and getting aroused, now do we? Anyway, I have to assume that’s the logic behind this strip getting through the editorial process: by the time you’ve learned that “coprolite” is fossilized feces, you’re presumably past the age where this punchline would make you gleefully shout “It’s funny because he touched a doody!” at anyone within earshot.

Beetle Bailey, 5/12/16

You know how Beetle Bailey adds a new character every decade or so to glom in the most awkward way possible onto trends that the strip’s creators only half understand? What I’m saying is that 2016 is probably the year Camp Swampy gets its newest recruit, a vaping soldier named Private E-Juice.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/12/16

Yes, Uhuru is praying

praying to her insect god

SPREAD YOUR CHITINOUS WINGS, O CHITTERING ONE

I YEARN TO BE TAKEN UP TO THE GREAT HIVE

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Gil Thorp, 5/11/16

I think we’re finally figuring out the theme this spring’s Gil Thorp storyline, everybody. The Baders père et fil are going to learn the value of teamwork. For instance, it’s unseemly to get too excited about your individual performance in a game where your team got shellacked. Similarly, all of us on the public roads are on a team together, and a good way to let your team down is to get real drunk and swerve all over the road. Anyway, get used to talking to your dad through some kind of barrier, kid!

Marvin, 5/11/16

I have to imagine that one of the most satisfying things about being a daily cartoonist is your ability to get your revenge on anyone, at any time, as long as that time is the six-to-eight week publishing lead time after the thing you want revenge for has happened. “Oh, there’s going to be a comic about this. Maybe multiple comics,” you think, silently, in your mind, as you glare at the person you’re mad at. “You will be depicted in an extremely unflattering light!” The person never finds out because literally nobody reads the comics anymore, but you know. You know.