The Comics Curmudgeon

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Comment of the Week

Well, I must admit, I have never seen 'yikes' used in a cartoon that conveys so exactly and accurately the reader's impression of the panel in which it occurs. I mean, yikes.

—Chance
180

Tales out of school

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Luann, 9/11/25

Many years ago, when I was a TA in grad school, I had a very precocious undergraduate student who used to come to office hours to hang out and shoot the shit with me. The final exam was three essay questions, and I graded them blind without looking at the name on the front until I was done, and I was disappointed to see that he had completely biffed one of the questions, and it was enough to drag down the A+ he had going into the final to an A-. But if I was disappointed, he was enraged, and after grades came out, he tracked down my home phone number and yelled at me about this, telling me at one point that his father said sometimes teachers give a bad grade to students they felt intellectually intimidated by, and because I had at that point already quit grad school, I got to just laugh at him and hang up. Anyway, I don’t really have the energy to go into the dynamic here between Bernice and [squints] “Alan,” but mostly what I’m trying to say is that if any student of mine included an unsolicited 12-minute animated graphic as part of their assignment, they would not be getting five bonus points, and it wouldn’t be because of my intellectual envy, I tell you what.

Dustin, 9/11/25

Wait, is Dustin’s dad saying he’s good at sex, or not good at sex? Or is he saying that having kids despite not having had sex very often or for very long is evidence that he’s good at sex, because I do not think that claim holds up to scrutiny. In conclusion, I hate this strip a lot, because it’s difficult to parse and in the process of attempting to do so I have to think about Dustin’s parents having sex, which — and I’m sure you, being in the same boat as I am now, agree with me on this point — is a profoundly unpleasant experience, for me, and, I assume, for them.

Family Circus, 9/11/25

God, I love Jeffy’s facial expression here. His brain isn’t hungry at all! He doesn’t know anything, but the important thing is that he doesn’t want to know anything, and he doesn’t care that he doesn’t want to know anything. He is nothing but true to himself.

167

The fish skeleton I just accept. There’s always a fish skeleton in these

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Slylock Fox, 9/10/25

This is one of the most baffling Six Differences cartoons I’ve seen in quite a while. Why does the horse have a butt wound? Why does he look high as a kite? Why does the kid look so smug? Why does the cow look so sad? Where are the birds leading the horse and the kid? Are they leading them to their deaths? None of these questions are meant as criticisms, obviously, they’re a series of delightful unsolvable mysteries that I will enjoy contemplating, unlike the question of whether the clouds in the two panels actually look different from one another.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/10/25

How much of Jughaid’s flesh do you think Sukey would eat before she realized he wasn’t actually a giant carrot? Would it be little enough that the lad would survive the procedure?

Shoe, 9/10/25

“No, he has a gang that sells drugs and stolen property out of ice cream trucks. He killed six people by burning down their house once. It’s really quite grim and I’m not sure why you’re making light of it.”

222

She’s flying AWAY from New York, she should be singing “California” by Phantom Planet

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Mary Worth, 9/9/25

Mary Worth’s use of bold font is … let’s say, unconventional, but I do think that Olive’s word balloon in the second panel being entirely boldfaced strongly suggests that she’s started belting out “New York, New York” at the top of her lungs, right? Fun fact: the song she’s singing here, which is performed in the 1944 musical On The Town by Gene Kelly, Jules Munshin, and Frank Sinatra, is called “New York, New York,” while the “start spreading the news” song is technically called “Theme from New York, New York,” and was originally sung by Liza Minelli in Martin Scorsese’s 1977 musical before Sinatra did a cover version that became iconic. Kinda weird, right? Where was I going with this? Oh, right: if I were on a plane and a child started loudly singing “New York, New York” (either of the two, frankly), I would attempt to open the emergency exit mid-flight so I could jump out and plummet to my blessed death.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 9/9/25

So, uh, Mother Goose is just kind of … standing around in the middle of the Y and, uh, swinging her interlocked fists around while wearing a bikini? And she’s judging the people doing yoga, who are, to be fair, three people standing so close as to be touching one another doing downward dog (?) without any kind of mats or anything? Not sure if anyone involved in the production of this comic has seen someone do yoga, or ever been to a gym, or watched videos of anyone exercising. I guess that “Twister” zinger was too hard to resist, though!

Archie, 9/9/25

Damn, I never had Dilton pegged as an Archie hater. Is he just doing it to appease Reggie? It’s sad when you see a man of science succumb to peer pressure like this.