The Comics Curmudgeon

Main Menu

Social Media

Comment of the Week

Is Dr. Jeff's 'again’ meant to indicate that he's already (willfully?) forgotten what Mary's told him, or does it display his belief that Wilbur's life is a karmic circle of disasters that are superficially varied but basically the same thing happening to him over and over?

—Pozzo
Comments are closed

Friday quickies

Post Content

Blondie, 8/15/08

Having apparently decided that his nonstop regimen of bingeing and (I assume, based on his rail-thin physique) purging isn’t punishment enough for his poor body, Dagwood has now taken to torturing his innocent bladder.

Crankshaft, 8/15/08

Truth in labeling laws ought to require that every single installment of Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean contain the phrase “an undercurrent of melancholy that I can’t quite seem to put into words.”

Marmaduke, 8/15/08

Marmaduke is overplaying his hand here: his owner has made the baffling decision to try to balance a good-sized sandwich on a plate, a bowl of potato chips, and, um, a plate of some sort of cube-things on his lap with no tray or other support of any kind, so at least half of that food is going to be on the floor in short order.

Momma, 8/15/08

Ha ha! Momma’s doctor is a monstrous cannibalistic fiend who feasts on the organs of the elderly.

In unrelated news, for everyone who has been able to endure the Foob Wedding Of The Century by consoling themselves that once the vows have been uttered, it will all be over: Ha ha ha ha ha.

Comments are closed

Behold, the FRUITS OF MY HUMOR!

Post Content

Family Circus, 8/14/08

If you asked me what my favorite Family Circus character is, I’d say, “Aarrgh, what are you talking about? I hate all of those hideous melonheads with a burning white-hot passion!” But if you held a gun to my head and said, “Look, pick a favorite Family Circus character or I’ll blow your brains out”, I’d have to go with Angry Billy, and today’s strip is a good demonstration of why. I love his petulant, contemptuous facial expression. And he’s right to be bitter: he alone among the Keane Kids is old enough to realize that this is just more education disguised as “fun,” and yet he’s still at least four years too young to go boozing and whoring with dad after Mommy falls asleep.

Mary Worth, 8/14/08

Bad: Toby referring to this boring, mass-produced DVD that she purchased on the Internet as “the fruits of my search.”

Worse: The strip letterers putting “the fruits of my search” in bold italics, so there’s no human way not to fixate on it and realize how awkward and horrible it is. “The fruits of my search!” Aarrrrgh.

Pluggers, 8/14/08

If this is a plugger lifeguard, you’re probably wondering, who exactly saves you from drowning on a plugger beach? What, do you expect some taxpayer-subsidized elitist swimmer to haul you out of the water just because you’re about to sink into the ocean and die? Why don’t they just drive out there in a limo and serve you champagne while you’re at it?

Wizard of Id, 8/14/08

I like how this strip starts off being about soul-scraping loneliness, and yet only two panels later finishes up with a terrible, corny pun about lily pads.

Comments are closed

Rex at sea

Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/13/08

I’ve been having a pretty good day so far, and coming home to find out that Rex kicked off today’s installment of his namesake comic strip by saying “Speaking of cruising…” just made it that much better. Even though the plot being expositioned up seems to involve less sex with anonymous 18-year-olds in the park and more yacht-related high society hijinks, I’m still pretty excited about it. Rex’s shifty-eyed look in the final panel would seem to indicate that he’s Lenore Foster’s connection for banned performance-enhancing drugs before each year’s regatta; of course, this calls into question which drugs might enhance yachting performance. Gin?

Curtis, 8/13/08

Oh, look, Ms. Honeystump’s emblackenation has spread to his classmate Venus!

If I may talk seriously for a moment: some readers have speculated that these mysterious racial shifts have been designed to accommodate editorial grumbles about the merest hint of miscegenation. Truly, I think you’re giving the comics coloring world far too much credit, in terms of thinking that weird things actually happen for reasons. The online versions of the King Features strips are not colored by the artists, nor do the artists offer guidance for same. The colorists can only use the internal context of the strip to help them make their choices. When you realize that they often ignore explicit in-strip cues to product howlers like this and this, well, do you really expect some sort of multi-week trans-strip consistency?

For Better Or For Worse, 8/13/08

“I’ve known you both for a long time. I’ve seen you guys through a lot of crazy circumstances. You know, like when you were transparently lusting after her even though you were married and passive-aggressively browbeating your wife into having a child she didn’t want! And when you were still married and propositioned her right after she was nearly raped! And when she moved back to Millborough specifically because she heard you were getting divorced, but continued to string along her boyfriend! I gotta say … this feels like it’s gonna work. I say that because I’m a terrible, terrible person.”

Crankshaft, 8/13/08

Oh, that Crankshaft! Trying to warm up to his new housemate, he offered to “take [her] on [his] favorite ride!” By which he almost certainly means his penis! Ha ha, I have to go lie down and weep now because I thought of that.