Comment of the Week

I know somebody probably just woke her up but I'd be more interested in her as a character if Neddy waited until she was nice and cozy in bed because it soothes her to get Randy all agitated and that makes for a pleasant, restful sleep.

Tabby Lavalamp

Post Content

Your comments of the week in a moment, but first I must point to a blog of which I was wholly unaware, and which appears to have not updated since July, but to which attention must be paid: The Secret Life of Mark Trail. Pointed out in the comments by faithful reader True Fable, it pairs bizarre, out-of-context Mark Trail panels with funny captions. Do not miss!

And now, your gravy-stained COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“Drove by a local home furnishings store today whose sign was promoting some piece of furniture (I assume) called ‘The Cuddler.’ All I could think was ‘Damn, he’s gonna kick Spider-Man’s ass.'” –johnbpt

And your also delicious runners-up!

“Somewhere, an assistant is hanging a new number on a large sign in the Fred Basset production office that says ‘_ _ _ _ DAYS WITHOUT A DISCERNIBLE JOKE.'” –Muffaroo

“thatquietkid: According to your fine newsletter, Mark Trail is 32 years old and has been married for 15 years. I now have a glorious mental image of Mark Trail as a seventeen-year-old child bride, swathed in khaki with a mosquito net veil, having been sold to Cherry as breeding stock.” –Jessie

“Lynn, you clearly don’t know what you’re doing. By ignoring Mary’s biddying you’re just making the inevitable meddlegasm stronger and longer. Panel after panel of stale platitudes and broken metaphors rhythmically spurting out of Mary, covering you and your horrible father in layer after layer of fetid sticky cliche, until she lies, spent, in the busybody’s afterglow.” –Baka Gaijin

“Reading zombie Foob is like watching paint redry.” –Uncle Lumpy

“Peter Parker’s only saving grace is that his enemies are inevitably even more pathetic than he is. After such hapless losers as The Shocker and The Vulture, we have perhaps the most pitiful of all — Big Time, who has to work overtime to keep his contrived persona going: constantly reminding people of his self-imposed nickname, carefully hanging clocks around his sad little lair, planning boring clock-related crimes … I just hope he lucks out and gets to die at the end of his storyline instead of going to prison, thus depriving Peter Parker the opportunity to make some lame-ass comment about how BT will be ‘doing time’ or how he’ll have ‘plenty of time to think about his mistakes … while he’s being shivved in the weight room by skinheads.’ Oh, wait, even if BT dies, Parker will be able to say that he’s ‘run out of time.’ Sorry, Biggie, you’re screwed either way.” –Joe Blevins

“Doc: ‘Could I get a second opinion?’ Dagwood: [looks down at his pants] ‘There’s one right there!'” –Ptycho

JP: “It seems like an obvious point, but in most murder mysteries interest is sustained by having more than one plausible culprit. Means and motive can also be points of investigation. But since we got all those questions out of the way quickly, that leaves only the expected rescue by the leather pants lady to complete this story and get back to the exciting subject of applying for solar panel tax credits.” –Mr. O’Malley

“I just think Margo is simply reaching around her ear to remove the flesh-mask that hides her true, scaled, Velociraptor visage. Soon, the assistant will be nothing but stains and entrails, to be hung as art and received as genius.” –Lettuce

“Save ‘some’ of the animals in the swamp? So much for natural selection. Are Mark and Pop to sit in judgement on the swamp, picking and choosing which animals meet their warped sense of worth? In panel three, Mark has already swelled to god-like proportions.” –McManx

“I’m not sure if ‘forvever’ is Milford slang or just the result of the profound aphasia that develops in a society oriented entirely around games of hitting each other — or, indeed, if those two things are different.” –JohnsonDelegate

“I’m pretty sure that Jeff’s shirt really does say MILFORD and not MILF; he just had one custom made to be horribly off-center so it would better match his chin.” –peabody

“So Dixie somehow ties Sam to a chair next to the bed in the motel room (they are in a motel room, right? I’ve lost track in all that noir-ness). Then Sam and Dixie await the arrival of Detective Vavavoom. She, upon walking into the room, gazes at Dixie, who has already removed most of her clothes. Smiling, they wordlessly move toward each other, tenderly remove each other’s remaining garments, and drop to the bed to begin their entwined silken-limbed lesbian lovefest. Sam, still tied to the chair, falls asleep.” –Poteet

“When someone would pass gas, my grandmother used to say, ‘Someone stepped on a toadfrog.’ Mark Trail, however, seems to prefer the phrase, ‘I hear an old gator bellowing.'” –Perky Bird

“I’m thankful that Luann has taught me that just because something is maudlin doesn’t mean it can’t be creepy.” –Spunde

“Why does little Sarah look like a Venetian porn star in the second panel of that RMMD strip? I ask merely for information.” –Angry Kem

“Of course, no one has actually joined the cast of Beetle Bailey in at least a decade, so until we see this new friendly face again, I can only assume Beetle has lead him to Cookie’s tent and that there will be suspicious-looking meatloaf in the mess tonight.” –Black Drazon

“I can only hope that the teaser saying, ‘Is time running out for Spider-man?’ means the strip is going to star Maria Lopez after Peter Parker dies of apoplexy when his cable service gets cut.” –True Fable

“We are all reading TJ’s remarks with the wrong inflection. Should read more like this: Hey, ‘Mom and Dad,’ or ‘Big Jerks who won’t let me mooch off you anymore’ — I don’t care that you kicked me out and got that restraining order because I found a NEW family to ‘borrow’ credit cards from and impregnate ‘younger sisters’. Heh, heh, heh… You just can’t see all the quotation marks because of the dishwater.” –Rachel

“Watch out, Margo! The top button of Mr. Ken Doll Hair’s shirt is unbuttoned! He has no respect for society!” –Echo

“Josh, you’ve just made yourself obsolete. There’s really nothing more left to do with Momma than post ‘Momma: Hengh?’ every morning.” –teddytoad

As ever, I must give thanks to everyone put some change in my tip jar! And our advertisers will never be banished to the kids’ table:

  • Have an Indie Holiday!: Skip the mall — shop indie this holiday! Shana Logic has the coolest handmade and independently designed gear on the web, hands down! Great gift ideas — for him, for her, or under $10! FREE SHIPPING on USA orders over $75 with code: comicholiday.
  • Halo: The Cole Protocol: Continuing the New York Times best-selling series.
  • Josh teams up with MST3K alums! Enjoy MST3K-style ribbing of the weepiest Spider-Man ever — with Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy, and your very own Comics Curmudgeon!

To find out more about advertising on this site, click here.

Post Content

Gil Thorp, 12/1/08

Good lord, what … what is that that Gil’s wearing in panel one? It looks to me an awful lot like part of one of the uniforms from the earlier Star Trek movies, which suddenly throws the whole insanity of this strip into a whole new light. See, Gil was really a big sci-fi nerd in high school, relentlessly persecuted by jocks, until his mind snapped and he hatched a terrible plan of revenge: he’d take a job as a high school athletics director, and subject the next generation of jocks to a hellish regime of incompetent coaching that always resulted in either total failure on the field — or, worse, a glimpse of victory snatched away by cruel defeat in the playdowns. Then, secure in the knowledge that the dozens of student athletes in his care have had their little hearts broken, he goes home to his hot blonde wife and engages in his real first love: Star Trek cosplay.

Meanwhile, Marty Moon’s producers are plotting to put known fraudster Jeff Ponczak on the air to provide a counterpoint to Marty’s drunken, anti-Thorp diatribes. I love the way they’re plotting all this so carefully behind his back, as if he’s a brilliant but insane dictator with a hair-trigger temper and a platoon of fanatically devoted bodyguards who will kill on his command, when in fact he’s their employee. They can just say “Hey, Marty, your ratings are dropping because your shows are meandering and pointless, so we’re hiring that high school kid that lied about his heart condition to be on the show with you, and if you don’t like it, you’re fired.” And then he’d go and cry in his car.

Apartment 3-G, 12/1/08

Note: Starting tomorrow, the “Comics Curmudgeon” blog will be replaced at this URL with a new site, entitled “Margo Magee Says Hilarious Things That Make You Laugh.” Installment one will be entitled “Ya think?!” We thank you for your continued patronage.

Momma, 12/1/08

“Get it? Get it? ‘Correspondence’? Get it? Will you get it if I emphasize the first syllable even harder? ‘Correspondence’? Get it? Of course not, because it makes no fucking sense, you know? Correspondence? Hengh?”

Post Content

As America’s Thanksgiving weekend winds up, I just thought I’d give thanks for a few things:

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 11/28/08

I’m thankful for the greatest Apartment 3-G narration box ever. “As Margo’s despair deepens…” should be placed at the top of every panel in which Margo appears, and at the top of many in which she does not.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/28/08

June is thankful that Sarah hasn’t noticed that “loud older people alone time” mostly happens when Daddy is out “playing golf.”

Luann, 11/28/08

I’m thankful that we got to see T.J. talking to his parents, swatches of whose scalps he keeps in his wallet at all times, about at last finding a new set of victims.

Panel from Spider-Man, 11/28/08

I’m glad to at last see hard evidence that excessive TV watching can reduce your attention span.

The Middletons, 11/30/08

I’m glad to see that America’s funny pages can provide comic relief for those with loved ones suffering from senile dementia. Ha ha, she’s so far gone, she doesn’t even know what time of year it is!

Beetle Bailey, 11/30/08

I’m glad we got to see Beetle in charge of a whole soldier, instead of the dismembered soldier-bits he usually bosses around.