Post Content

Herb and Jamaal, 5/21/13

I don’t expect naturalistic dialogue from Herb and Jamaal, but wow guys this is some badly-translated-from-the-Slovak weirdness right here. Herb’s facial expressions as he stares at the money and then ever so slowly pulls out his wallet and slips the cash inside it are also pretty creepy. Especially his heavy-lidded zonked-out look in the final panel. Pretty sure he plans on “blocking out the memories of the experience” with powerful opiates, which are what he needs the money for.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/21/13

Speaking of unnatural dialogue, “Another anniversary, Elviney?” is certainly a weird way to offer congratulations to your best friend and her husband! “Another anniversary, Elviney? I thought you swore you’d be widowed or divorced by now?” “I married Lukey fer life! An’ I assumed that our community’s poor medical care and unusually short life expectancy would either kill off my husband or leave me in the sweet embrace of death long ago!”

Marvin, 5/21/13

Normally when someone brings a baby to a movie theater — which, let me just mention, is one of the worst things you can do as a movie goer, what the hell could you possibly be thinking — you can’t blame the baby. You should blame the parents, for being thoughtless morons. But … look at Marvin’s face. That evil smile. He’s looking forward to disrupting the cinema experience for everyone involved. The question is, will he start off by crying, thus driving everyone around him into a rage right away? Or will his opening move be a massive diaper dump, filling theater patrons with disgust and nausea?

Post Content

Spider-Man, 5/20/13

Sometimes when I take a little break from blogging, I wonder if the comics landscape will have shifted in my absence, leaving me stranded in a world I no longer understand. Fortunately, the newspaper comics industry is incredibly ossified, so I usually have no worries on that score. For instance, Spider-Man is engaged in a battle against a super-villain, and is losing, pathetically, and in need of a bailout from another, better superhero! No changes here! Kingpin is at least being innovative in his attack on Spider-Man: he’s using a laser beam hidden in his cane to defeat the wall-crawler, rather than just bludgeoning him with the cane itself, which would surely have been just as effective and probably a lot more efficient, if less artful.

Apartment 3-G, 5/20/13

Lu Ann clearly did not take the opportunity afforded by my absence to become less of a moron. At first I was confused as to why she would be surprised that Greg, Margo’s client/love slave, was James Bond — surely this isn’t a secret to anyone at this point? But then I saw how she apparently shouldered Margo aside and grabbed hold of her freakishly huge laptop, so now I assume she thinks Greg is trapped inside the screen. “Whoa — is that Greg?! Greg, don’t worry, we’ll get Superman to free you from the Phantom Zone!”

Heathcliff, 5/20/13

It there’s one thing we can expect from our longrunning legacy comics, it’s that they do a good job of illustrating hoary old humor tropes. Haha, Heathcliff’s owner-boy’s trumpet (?) playing is terrible, resembling a bellow made by a yak! Specifically, a mating bellow made by a yak. Check out the hearts hovering above that yak’s head. It’s attracting yaks … for sex.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/20/13

Like many isolated, desperately poor, undergoverned enclaves, Hootin’ Holler can erupt in vicious, arbitrary violence at any moment.

Post Content

GUYS! First of all, thank you for your incredibly generous response to the fundraiser. Everyone who donated will be hearing from me in the next few days to figure out what sort of reward you’d be interested in and double checking on your mailing address. And let’s have a big hand for Uncle Lumpy for his always-awesome fill-in duties. It’s fun spending a week laughing along with the comics instead of thinking of ways to make you laugh, and he always does a great job.

Meanwhile, I have observed your hilarious comments from afar and have selected a slightly delayed comment of the week!

“Mister Fox, are you by any chance familiar with the article ‘Fever Response in North American Snakes’? Published in the Journal of Herpetology? 1996? I’m afraid, Detective sir, that your racist and inaccurate stereotypes are as offensive to me as your pose is to crabs.” –Annie

And some runners up! Also funny!

“‘Hold on Tommie — isn’t your mother that worker bee who never leaves the house?’ ‘Sure is, Margo. I guess this is what they call a “character reboot.” Seems odd to spell it out like this, since I’m sure no-one remembers my old mom. Maybe they’ve updated her into a smart, independent woman for the modern age? Ha ha, just kidding, of course not.'” –pugfuggly

Mary Worth: “Tomorrow’s strip will feature explicit drawings of Tom and Beth enthusiastically shaking hands. Demands for the cancellation of the strip will flood editors’ in-boxes by mid-morning.” –LP2004

“It is now established that Newspaper Spider-Man is less harmful than a feeble, backward-delivered kick to the shin from an incompetent undercover police agent. With each experiment we come closer to a more exact measurement of Spider-Man’s incompetence. In time we will establish a precise value for his ineptness, which will of course be the most useless knowledge on record.” –Droopy Says

“I’m not sure how Heathcliff trashing that sign is really sticking it to the dog, but I dig the triumphant Black Power salute.” –Doctor Handsome

“The PARROT/RAPTOR double anagram is a rookie mistake. Leave the Jumbling to the professionals please.” –LUJBEM FEJF

“Actually, when the Governor says he’s right outside her door, he means right outside her door. There’s a Lincoln Towncar parked in the hallway and Lu Ann will have to crawl through the open passenger window before he’ll back up into the service elevator.” –Drewbear

“Snark all you want about the Governor talking like a six year old, but think for a moment to whom he is speaking.” –Zerowolf

“Yikes! For weeks Beth has been necking and nuzzling with Tom only on her right side, and now she has this terrible crick in her neck. Did no one tell her to alternate sides? Mary Worth, where were you?!” –Amos Snarkadder

“I don’t even remember what my life was like before I met you! That’s … weird, isn’t it? I keep feeling like I’m forgetting something … do I have a dog I’m supposed to feed? Ah well, it’s been three weeks, whatever it was is probably dead, so who cares. Love is SO GREAT.” –Tophat

Again, huge thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.