Post Content

The heatwave shows no sign of relenting … and neither do your COTW laffs. Here’s this week’s top comment!

“Remember when this small veterinary hospital didn’t have time to see emergency patients, and sent suffering animals to other random clinics? Well, thanks to Stell and her part-time magic at the front desk, apparently Dr. Harding has enough room in his schedule to provide hours of therapy for sad dogs. Is that because she’s so good at her job, or because she’s so off-putting to potential patients that no one except her personal friends will even come here anymore? In any case, it’s Southern California in 2023 — so whether it’s an dog at the vet’s office or a depressed veterinarian seeing his own therapist, I’m pretty sure the treatment will involve ketamine.” –BigTed

And your very funny runners up!

“I’ve got my ice cream scooper in my doctor’s bag, so we should be good to go.” –taig

“A pissy-faced Rex pauses long enough to admonish the narration box. ‘Don’t you mean makeshift? All bandages are temporary.’” –Hibblelton

“‘Except for the fact that people don’t remember their infant years at all, you’ll look back with fondness on these days of sitting outside alone in an empty yard with me staring at you creepily from the doorway.’ I’m starting to think Marvin’s dad might be nuts.” –Chance

“A sticky note that says ‘Call Mary’? Might as well just get a tattoo that says ‘breathe.’” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“Can’t wait for Snuffy to gradually be replaced by his cousin who is really into pickleball and only make a few more appearances in Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and Pique L’Ball over the next 70 years.” –Truckosaurus

“It seemed a sucker’s bet to Thirsty: who could ruin their marriage faster? Obviously, an alcoholic who’s drunk all the time or in the process of getting there. But he had underestimated Hi’s complete apathy towards Lois and his ability to lecture her about her feelings with utmost dismissal.” –Old Man Shadow

“I wondered a bit in yesterday’s strip why Barney Google was just following Snuffy around while Snuffy explained how the hillbillies played pickleball. But with today’s strip, it all came together for me: Snuffy is Barney’s Virgil, leading him through the different levels of hillbilly hell. Today we’ve reached the second circle, where hillbillies who’ve committed the sin of trying to adopt flatlander ways are cursed with eternal injury.” –Thelonious_Nick

“Looks like Coach Thorp is flying a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron. If he owns it, that set him back about $1.5 million. If he’s renting it from the local general aviation airfield, he’s paying maybe $600 an hour. I guess gambling on your own team to consistently lost the playdowns really does pay off.” –Voshkod

“Does the outpost where Crock takes place have running water? That seems unlikely, so the ‘ring in the bathtub’ must be a euphemism for something else. You know what they almost certainly do have there? Dysentery!” –Nekrotzar

“I’ve always rather liked Grossie’s mysterious friend, with her 1950s-Parisian-streetwalker/beleaguered-switchboard-operator vibe, and I can’t decide if it’s tactful or negligent that no one ever mentions the tongue, tumor, or parasitic blobfish on the back of her head.” –Violet

“‘To summer?’ they say, wondering when this strip might actually be published.” –pugfuggly

“The writer of Gasoline Alley has heard of the controversy about ‘AI Art,’ but never bothered to investigate further — I position I frankly respect.” –Ettorre

“When your best lead is that a month ago a couple of U-Hauls came through town, you don’t have any leads.” –jerp+jump

“The horror here is that we’re in the ‘uncanny valley,’ that visceral negative response to a figure that seems ‘almost’ human. But enough about Rufus — that robot seems nice.” –Lawyerbob

“The casual reader looks at these two panels and would logically assume that Rex is getting undressed so he can put on his PJs, but we Curmudgeonites know better — these ARE his PJs. That’s his pajama polo, his ever-so-comfy pajama khakis, and don’t forget the pajama belt, perfect for putting the kibosh on any late night hanky-panky with his cleavage-heavy wife. (We can’t see them in-panel, but I assume he’s just slipped on his pajama Rockports as well, thus completing the pajamensemble.)” –els

Superior to Rufus? Low bar, ART, low bar.” –But What Do I Know?

“There are many ways to make a fun joke out of mass canine synchronized urination in an unnervingly unnatural-looking park, but this isn’t one of them. No tree has more than one dog pissing on it. Why is this tree so insecure when no dogs are choosing to double up on occupied trees to avoid it? There just aren’t enough dogs! The logic is completely inconsistent and I will not stand for egregious plot holes like this in my dog pee humor.” –jroggs

Remember: If you want an ad-free version of this site sent to you every day via email, for $3 a month you can become a Comics Curmudgeon newsletter subscriber! And if you never want to see banner ads on this site, and want to get cool comment-editing features to boot, for the same low price you can become a Comics Curmudgeon website subscriber! And if you just want to give me money directly, you can put some scratch in my tip jar, or back me on Patreon! Thanks to all for your support and readership!

About this Post

Comments are closed.

Post Content

Six Chix, 7/21/23

When I started this blog [mumblety mumble] years ago, there was still a prevailing ethos that comics strips were, in fact, for kids, even though most of their readers were actually adults, and part of my job, as the Comics Curmudgeon, was to bring to your attention the occasional instance when a comic strip was very obviously not for kids. Anyway, today it’s [mumblety mumble] years later, and that prevailing ethos has largely been cast aside, and not replaced with anything yet because the old world is dying and the new world is struggling to be born, but we’re all gonna sort of keep on going in the meantime, so I’m still going to use this blog to tell you when a newspaper comic strip does a joke about piss stuff. “What’s wrong with me?” wonders a tree sadly, watching all its fellow trees getting pissed on. Not sure if we’re supposed to think the other trees are also sapient or, if they are, whether or not they’re into getting pissed on. Look at all that piss, though! They really just went and … drew it, huh.

Judge Parker, 7/21/23

I’ve definitely criticized post-Woody Wilson Judge Parker of being pretty low stakes, so I have to give the strip credit for really jacking up the stakes in an almost logarithmic progression lately. Oh, did Sam and Abbey’s sex vacation get derailed when someone rammed into their car? Oh, did the person who rammed them abandon a small child? Did the child’s kidnapper show up with a knife? Oh, are all of them going to get mauled to death by a fucking bear???? Tune in tomorrow when all life on Earth is wiped out by a massive asteroid impact, probably!

Dennis the Menace, 7/21/23

Dennis would certainly recognize a picture of the mustachio’d grandfather we see visiting fairly regularly, so I assume that that’s Alice’s dad, and Henry is showing Dennis a photo of his dad, who is dead, which makes this one of the most menacing Dennis responses I think I’ve ever seen.

Post Content

Gasoline Alley, 7/20/23

Look, I’m not saying I’m in favor of the Machines declaring themselves “superior” and then forcing us to consume medications of an unspecified variety. What I am saying is, maybe we should let them start with Rufus and Joel just to see what we’re up against before we really start working to get the resistence up to speed.

Beetle Bailey, 7/20/23

Look, I’m not saying that Beetle and Miss Buxley’s relationship is definitely a sexless sham meant to deflect curiosity about the orientation of the former and deflect male attention from the latter, and that Beetle can’t even be bothered to maintain consciousness when they spend time together. What I am saying is that it’s interesting that Miss Buxley, a woman who wears a little black cocktail dress and pearl necklace to work every day, has now decided to start dressing like this on their dates.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/20/23

“Like riding a bike right through man’s eye, ha ha! Anyway, he’s blind now.”