The Comics Curmudgeon

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Comment of the Week

Wizard of Id has succintly portrayed the difference between Early and Late Medieval modes of warfare: while his Dark Age companions are boldly dying for their feudal lord, the canny Sir Rodney treats war as a profession. He is akin to the condottiere who would dominate later Italian warfare. That sly look and crooked smile is that of a man who sees human corpses as nothing more than money in his purse, arguably far more barbaric than his predecessors. But trebuchets suck for hitting single guys so we're probably about to see Sir Smarty Pants' insides in spite of his historically progressive role.

—m.w.
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Off-putting Friday

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Blondie, 10/2/20

One of Blondie’s less pleasant running bits is about how most poor people are scam artists, actually, and I feel like today’s strip started out as being a variation on that but somehow become something much, much weirder. This dude isn’t drawn as the typical long-haired scruffy Blondie panhandler; he’s just a regular guy with normal clothes, a respectable haircut, an unsettlingly piercing gaze, and a desire to engage with you about the professional upkeep on his toes. The fact that he’s actually wearing closed-toed shoes makes the whole interaction even more off-putting for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, maybe because the strip is demanding we think about this guy’s feet but isn’t showing them to us so we need to use our imaginations.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/2/20

Well, it seems what “does it” for Buck and Mindy, sexually, is when things more or less work out for the best without anyone having to really do all that much, so I have some good news for them about the comic strip they currently inhabit.

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It’s Hillbilly-tober!

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Gasoline Alley, 10/1/20

A thing I often wonder when reading Gasoline Alley is, “Who is this for?” Like, are we meant to identify with its cast of stylized mid-century rustics and diner denizens? Are meant to laugh at them? Are we meant recognize them as a faint echo of a time almost gone from living memory now? Should we be reading the footnote in today’s second panel and thinking “Ah yes, I there was once a time when a real American would refuse a latinate word like instrument and instead simply call these music-producing boxes what they are, and that time was better than the corrupt era in which we now live”? Or are we supposed to be thinking “A music box is the thing with a ballet dancer on top that you wind up, what an absolute bunch of morons these guys are, I certainly hope they get sent back to prison?”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/1/20

Meanwhile — and I say this not on the basis of any insider industry knowledge, just a gut feeling — Barney Google and Snuffy Smith feels, well, more established. More sure of itself. Who is Snuffy Smith for? Well, at some point it was for people who enjoyed the Depression-era vogue for cruel jokes about hillbillies, but those people are all dead now, so it’s actually just for people who enjoy, or at least cannot imagine a world without, Sniffy Smith. And so it gets to do what it wants. If it wants to do a strip about starving hillbilly babies turning to cannibalism, can it do it? Sure. Why not? It has nothing to prove and nothing to lose.

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Looking for joy in all the wrong places

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Beetle Bailey, 9/30/20

You’d think that General Halftrack, who has an extremely cushy job and despite his high military rank seems neither to have never been to war himself nor to have ever been burdened with the responsibility of sending others to fight, would sleep easily at night, or, for that matter, in the afternoon. Turns out nope! Turns out his mind is haunted by unimaginable horrors. That’s why he drinks so much, probably!

Slylock Fox, 9/30/20

For too long, the cartoon community has stigmatized people who live on tiny tropical islands as haggard castaways who yearn only to return to civilization — or, worse, are driven insane by their isolation. What about those who like the islet lifestyle, who have perfectly seaworthy rowboats at their disposal and yet still choose to embrace their exile from humanity and enjoy the benefits for an occasional cetacean shower? Finally, they have their own media representation!