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Hi and Lois, 9/2/23

If you want a glimpse of how in mid-century America, syndicated newspaper cartooning used to be your ticket to a comfortable life, consider the central position the great suburban participatory leisure sports of golf and tennis hold in our legacy strips! It’s a different time now, but these strips can still teach us a lot about the folkways of suburban Connecticut and similar communities, and if I’m reading today’s Hi and Lois right, those places are on the verge of civil war. Hi thinks he can just ride this one out on the golf course, but there will come a time, and soon, where he’ll have to take a side.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/2/23

Oh ho, it looks like Rene, aka “Professor Mirakle,” is back to tie up some loose ends, possibly by murdering his erstwhile disciple Mud! Ha ha, everyone will be real sorry they didn’t accept his apologies, once they find his bullet-ridden corpse in this hotel room three days from now! Honestly, though, it seems much more likely that Rene is just trying to get a cut of the money from Mud’s apparently quite lucrative Li’l Fergus character and the songs he co-wrote and/or inspired through fake guru powers. It would be funny to see an attempted murderer make use of the legal system to enforce his intellectual property claims, but honestly, it’s not like he hasn’t done it before.

Between Friends, 9/2/23

Sorry to this lady who is being abandoned by all her friends and family, but I will never get over the phrase “We live in a global world.” Do we? Is it a global world we live in? Is it really? Is that why you can use a globe to depict the world with such uncanny accuracy?

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No fuss, no muss, just the first COTW of September:

“If he won’t get down on his knee for the proposal, he won’t be getting down there for the honeymoon either, Eve.” –Old School Allie Cat

And your runners up! Very funny!

“This is incredible. They found a way to make a strip about golf even more boring than just having the characters play golf: Having them sit and talk about when they played golf!” –Amelie Wikström

“No wonder nobody talks to Thirsty about his drinking problem. He’s absolutely insufferable sober.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“Look at Max Mouse, he’s eating a stolen cookie and nobody says a thing. Don’t tell me he had any money in his goofy little mouse-pants. HE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE POCKETS!” –astroboy

“Of course Silas Stork still has Warren Weasel’s scent — that’s who carried baby Warren to his family on the day of his ‘birth.’ I mean, ‘the stork brought him’ is as believable as anything else in this strip, and is certainly less frightening than the concept of animal-human hybrids being conceived the normal way.” –BigTed

Garbage wars usually start small. Right now, they’re probably just talking trash.” –Pozzo

A Cancer, if you will. You know, a crabby personality, hates small talk, really drags a locker room down. Honestly, I wanted to trade him for a Virgo, but the boss was being a total Taurus about it.” –Philip

“I’m not gonna say that Blondie and Dagwood are definitely in trouble, but if my spouse became obsessed with a show that was all about divorce, I’d have more follow-up questions than Blondie seems to have here.” –T Campbell

“[barges into son’s room while he’s playing] [calls him a friendless loser] [refuses to elaborate] [leaves]” –ectojazzmage

“‘Joke’ aside, I’m fascinated by that tiny book that Cookie is holding, which not only presupposes a canine publishing industry, but also a wide variety of publishing formats specifically tailored to different breeds.” –pugfuggly

“Doug runs a motel that has branded itself as a holy site for roots country pilgrims, so it’s only natural that when a genre superstar offers to autograph an indefinite amount of memorabilia for him to sell or display that Doug responds with wariness and irritation. If it wasn’t clear, by the way, Doug is intended to be a sympathetic character.” –jroggs

El Tigre here. Everything’s looking kosher for the kamikaze mission. If he didn’t get our RSVP, we’ll have schadenfreude. Capisce?” –Banana Jr. 6000

“Alice, you might want to back off a little? You are … way too close to your guest and her inadequate cup of coffee. If you’re trying to block her view of the matted-and-framed Oreo cookie you’ve got on the wall — I mean, I get it, that’s a pretty weird piece of art, but refusing to make eye contact with this woman while simultaneously getting close enough to her to let her motorboat you is an unorthodox way to hold a kaffeeklatsch, I’m just saying.” –els

“Well, if it were me I’d choose some enormous, delicious fish I’d never gotten the chance to eat in my entire short life up to then. Just really go out on an unbelievable high note. But we don’t sell miracle meals for trout here. I bet you’re real glad you asked.” –made of wince

“Four hours and one sledgehammering later, Coach Luke is being hauled off by the real cops. ‘They left me no choice! They labelled the Giganotosaurus carolinii as Tyrannosaurus rex despite the obvious differences in skull morphology! Paleontology is my true passion! Paleontology and coaching! My two true passions! Paleontology and coaching and raging! My three true passions! Paleontology and coaching and rage and unjustified revenge!’” –Voshkod

“I don’t normally want hear any of Dustin’s dad’s opinions, but I admit I do want to hear why he thinks you sit side-on to your computer facing it at a 90 degree angle.” –Schroduck

“‘That’s very interesting, sir. By the way, I got crop-dusted in Menards last night.’ ‘Uh, really?’ ‘Oh, sorry! I thought we were doing Elaborate Set-ups for Stories that Go Nowhere!’” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

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Marvin, 9/1/23

I usually wouldn’t describe the syndicated newspaper comic strip Marvin as “realistic,” but I gotta say, Jenny in panels one and two really vividly captures the expression of “oh my god my husband left our literal baby out in the hot sun by himself all afternoon and is gloating about it, I need to make a plan to get the both of us away from here safely without him knowing.”

Dustin, 9/1/23

If you, like me, hate Dustin’s dad with a burning passion, you probably read Dustin and think, “Obviously Dustin’s dad’s whole family hates him as much as I do, but is he blissfully unaware, or does he know, and it haunts him?” Well, today’s strip has some good news for all of us!