Post Content

Folks, it’s that time of year again: time for me to get the hell out of dodge and gently put this blog to sleep for a couple of weeks for its Chrishanukkwanzaa rest. But I don’t want to depart without sharing lessons from the comics about the reason for the season:

The Lockhorns and Blondie, 12/23/22

The reason for the season is wives spending too much money! Ha ha! Amiright, fellas? Wait, I don’t think I’m actually right. Let’s check in with a woman named Mary who has a lot to do with the real reason for the season:

Mary Worth, 12/23/22

The real spirit of Christmas involves wives and wives-to-be suppressing their petty jealousy and instead giving thanks to the hot baby sitters who came before them and blazed a trail for the hot MILFs to come. Pretty sure this is in the bible somewhere. Wives: they’re just like us, and in many cases are us!

More on this story as it develops … in 2023, when I’ll be back blogging about the comics again, don’t you worry. I wanna say … by January 3rd or so? The 4th, maybe? We’ll see what the vibe’s like. But I before I head out, I want to acknowledge one final comment of the week from 2022:

“Honestly, I don’t care what weird roundabout way they get there but I’m all in for refreshing legacy strips and if Blondie is going to transition to a comic about Dagwood adrift at sea alone because he ate the anchor and then Herb then this will be the most interesting thing to happen to the comics page in decades.” –Tabby Lavalamp

And the runners up? A fine collection to round out the year!

“‘Mommy! I don’t want my hair to turn green!’ –a menace, allegedly” –jroggs

“Well, that’s one reason not to use a wad of cash as a prop when you’re trying to make the point that the family needs to save money. One of several.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Gotta love how the chicken is singing along. Doesn’t have the whole picture, that chicken.” –Uncle Lumpy

“Does Mary actually own a kitchen table? Or does only serve tea and oddly shaped hors d’oeuvres on the sofa, just so she won’t have to look directly at any of these idiots when they’re pouring their hearts out to her? Basically, if you want advice from Mary without your hands touching uncomfortably, you’ll have to buy her a fish dinner at the Bum Boat.” –BigTed

“Jesus, what is going on with Dag’s hands in that last panel. It’s like someone mentions cake and he starts reflexively stroking his nipples.” –pugfuggly

“Not understanding today’s Hagar the Horrible, I took a closer look at the paper the lawyer was holding to see if I could find some clue to the punchline, and was conned into reading the date. Well-played.” –Austria

“Why is the jury so enraged with the lawyer? They are the one deciding the case, why should they blame him instead of themselves?! ‘Damn, I was going to punish this obviously guilty person, but his silver-tongued lawyer enchanted me with the power of his rhetoric and the soundness of his legal arguments! The real crime is being too good at his job!’” –Ettorre

“Don’t make the same mistakes Wilbur did — which I will now illustrate with a PowerPoint slideshow. Get comfortable; this may take a while.” –Pozzo

“Living rent-free in Luke Martinez’s cowboy hat is going to come in real handy when Mimi kicks Gil out.” –But What Do I Know?

“So many questions … after the animals rose up and overthrew the humans, they kept Christmas? Do they still worship Jesus Christ? Did they replace him with some sort of animal stand-in? Santa (seeing how happy he is to see Slylock and Max) approves of all of this? Did his reindeer help with the animal-pocalypse or stay neutral? Are his reindeer anthropomorphic now?” –The Rambling Otter

“The difference between you and me is that YOU fear failure, and I have experienced it over and over again so often and so regularly I have developed a form of Stockholm Syndrome towards it and instead fear success!” –Applemask

“The methanol laced moonshine Snuffy’s been drinking has him seeing double but he can only count to five.” –Hibbleton

“I can tell by their expressions that the dogs are suffering from seasonal depression. Or maybe they’re sad because if the kids have aged, so have they. What’s five years in dog years? Uh oh.” –made of wince

And if you still need a last-minute gift for that special someone, or just want to treat yourself, look no further than a Comics Curmudgeon subscription! 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! Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night!

Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/22/22

So Rex Morgan is trying to do a thing where they’re aging up the kids a bit, and … look, as a non-kid-haver, I’m just going to admit that I often have a hard time guessing the age of kids I encounter in real life, let alone really weird-looking ones from the comics, so I definitely feel free saying I’m not comfortable putting a number on how old any of these young people were or are, but just based on relative sizes I’m going to go ahead and say that Johnny and Michael should absolutely not require the Santa 101 Sarah is laying down here. But if it’s not for them, who is this exposition for? Us? Does Rex Morgan, M.D., think we need a primer on how Santa works? Just because I’m not clear on the distinction between roots country and the adjacent genres doesn’t mean I’m an idiot, guys.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/22/22

It’s bad enough that Snuffy is calling his parents and in-laws things, but I’m pretty sure that there are only four of them? Wait, is the fifth “thing” the moonshine jug? Do antique moonshine jugs have status equal to that of elderly people in Hootin’ Holler? Because that tracks, honestly.

Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft, 12/22/22

So Funky Winkerbean is spending its final days proving that the time discontinuity has now been resolved by having its cast and the Crankshaft cast meet up at a chuch concert in a snowstorm. I certainly hope that they’re trapped there for days and this turns into an Alive situation, with half the people eaten and the survivors left to malaprop about their cannibalism in Crankshaft in 2023.

Slylock Fox, 12/22/22

So Max, who usually wears shorts and no shirt, sleeps in a shirt with no shorts? This is honestly extremely disturbing.

Gil Thorp, 12/22/22

“I’m gonna go home and get divorced! I’m on a roll!”

Post Content

Between Friends, 12/21/22

So Monday and Tuesday’s Between Friends were about one of the families in the Between Friends gang watching the Twilight saga, which, for those young people who aren’t aware, was a popular series of films about sexy teen vampires and werewolves that came out in the late ’00s and early ’10s, primarily remembered now for delivering so much cash to its stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattison that they can now afford to spend time doing weirdo art-house films directed by David Cronenberg and various French people. Monday featured the mother and daughter of the [note to self: look up the names of these people, or maybe don’t if you’re too busy or it seems hard] family lusting after Pattison, and Tuesday was about the father getting excited that he recognized Pattison from the new Batman movie, but now it’s day three and we’ve got to reckon with the question of why on earth a syndicated comic strip would spend time making Twilight jokes in the Year of our Lord 2022. Turns out that it’s because some of us were too busy raising a family ten years ago to get horned up over teen vampires acting out some really regressive sexual and gender roles, OK? Thank god for streaming services that allow us to catch up now! Ultimately the upshot of all this is that it got me to look up where you can stream the Twilight movies, and it turns out the only place is on something called “Fubo,” so if Fubo paid for this subtle sponcon in Between Friends, then congrats, I guess, it worked.

Gil Thorp, 12/21/22

Oh, whoops, it looks like Gil lost the big game to his arch-rival and … wait, we have a last minute-reversal of that call, it looks like Gil is the real winner because he coaches for the love of the game and competition, not because he’s obsessed with winning. Who could have seen this one coming, Gil triumphing over all by being the bigger man, and I mean that quite literally, as panel one makes very clear. “Is someone talking?” Gil asks in panel three, as he gazes over Coach Martinez’s head. “I think I hear something, but I don’t see anyone.”

Curtis, 12/21/22

Hmm, Greg is a stickler for rules and a civil servant to boot, so I’m kind of surprised he isn’t aware that mail carriers aren’t supposed to accept cash tips. Maybe he’s never looked into the regs because, as a DMV employee, this hasn’t really ever come up for him personally.

Family Circus, 12/21/22

Look, I don’t want to say that the Family Circus is just a bunch of clip art mashed over decades-old panels, but … what is going on with this closet door. Why does it look like this? Did the Keane Kompound get featured on some second-tier HGTV show that just shiplapped everything?

Mary Worth, 12/21/22

We’ve all wondered why Wilbur hasn’t yet been formally ostracized by the Charterstone condo board and forcibly exiled to the Outer Wastes. Well, it looks like Mary has learned from Dawn how useful he is as a foil and is now using him to really cut down on the work that goes into her meddling. Instead of needing to come up with bespoke advice for everyone’s specific problems, she can just ask everyone WWWD: What Wouldn’t Wilbur Do?