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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.

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Funky Winkerbean, 4/21/16

[extremely science nerd voice] Excuse me Tony, but while it is true that Mercury experiences temperature extremes, the theory that you seem to be referencing here, that one side of the planet is always pointed at the sun and the other always pointed away, was disproved way back in 1965, as anyone who actually watches the Science Channel would know and … oh, no, I’m wasting my life.

Herb and Jamaal, 4/21/16

[extremely newspaper comics nerd voice] Excuse me, but everyone who reads this strip knows that Jamaal actually lives upstairs from a laundromat, so it would be highly illogical for him to refer to a “neighborhood” laundromat when he could just wash his clothes and annoy women in his own … oh, no, I’m doing it again.

Heathcliff, 4/21/16

I honestly think that “I don’t like that” should replace “I’m thinking of unfriending him on Facebook” as the go-to punchline for every Heathcliff ever. It’s less specific, but I guarantee it will literally always make sense.

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Herb and Jamaal, 4/20/16

Let’s skip over the tired husband vs. mother-in-law banter here to point out something very sad: Herb is walking around his own home with a cardboard box full of forlorn knicknacks that’s just labelled “my stuff.” Does he not have even a shelf of his own where he can stash his lamp and his … smaller lamp, and his, uh, is that a book, maybe? Or another box inside the bigger box? Anyway, the point is, Herb as a vagabond within his own house, going to bed at night hugging a pathetic box of stuff because he’s afraid someone’s going to take it from him, is much fuller of narrative pathos than Herb’s mother-in-law implying that he’s trash or whatever.

Judge Parker, 4/20/16

It’s come to our attention that you didn’t really get the message when we named Godiva’s rival “Worbell Trilling.” We wanted to name her “Whorebell,” but the syndicate it nixed it. Anyway, she’s the queen of tramps! Just to make that clear. She also looks exactly like if Godiva got zapped with some kind of face-shrinking ray?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/20/16

I absolutely love Rex’s dubious expression in the last panel here. It’s as if he’s only just now realizing his family and friends have spent the last three years feeding his daughter’s megalomania. “An extravagant museum gala? For my six-year-old daughter? That, uh … that might … huh. Huh. Well, probably too late to anything about it now, but … um.”

Slylock Fox, 4/20/16

Just some helpful tips for new rabbit owners here! Do try to convince them to poop in a box! Don’t try to get them to barf, they’ll never do it! Definitely don’t try to get them to have sex with hares, that’s a whole different animal and that’s gross and wrong. Just try to sleep at night thinking about how their front teeth are growing, always growing, leading to an insatiable need to chew chew chew CHEW. You probably can’t!