Post Content

Dennis the Menace, 8/31/19

Lord knows I’m sympathetic to the dilemma that syndicated comics artists find themselves in, trying to generate new joke-bearing scenarios out of varying combinations of the same basic components year after year, but I don’t think today’s Dennis the Menace rings true. Could George Mitchell, who barely tolerates Dennis’s presence in his house, and who also generally can’t avoid Dennis because he never leaves his house, really have been convinced to take Dennis to a movie? Sorry, I can’t suspend my disbelief, though I do buy the idea that the precocious and mature Margaret would easily be able to navigate the cinema experience by herself, as we can see in the background.

Blondie, 8/31/19

You know, the whole goofy Dagwood food thing makes a lot more sense if we read it as an elaborate metaphor for sex addiction. Dagwood can get sandwiches in his own home any time he wants — his wife is of course very good at making sandwiches, and in a pinch he’s pretty proud of how well he can make one himself — but that can’t satisfy him anymore. He needs new sandwiches, different sandwiches, sandwiches in weird and unlikely places. He’ll make up any ridiculous excuse to go anywhere if it seems like he might be able to get a sandwich out of it, and now he’s gotten to the point where he’s not even trying to hide it from his wife anymore.

Hi and Lois, 8/31/19

If you want a more mature, realistic take on what happens when a seemingly innocent trip to the golf course descends into lies and marital strife, we recommend Hi and Lois.

Mark Trail, 8/31/19

We haven’t seen a lot of Andy the dog in Mark Trail lately, and now we know why: he’s no longer fit to appear in a family comic strip because, as we can tell by his wide eyes and lolling tongue in panel one here, he’s become a sicko pervert who gets turned on by watching humans “do it.” (A lingering closed-mouth kiss what passes for “doing it” in the Mark Trail universe.)

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/31/19

Oh, sorry, have we not spent enough covering the denouement of the whole “Rex unmasks the Miss Galexia scam” plotline? Well, buckle up, because Rex is about to tell June the whole thing, in detail.

Family Circus, 8/31/19

HOLY SHIT

THE KEANE KIDS LIVE IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE WHERE SEPTEMBER IS 31 DAYS LONG

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

OR MAYBE AUGUST IS JUST ONE DAY SHORTER AND EVERYTHING ELSE IS EXACTLY THE SAME

STILL, IT’S PRETTY WEIRD, RIGHT

Post Content

Folks: next Friday is the first Friday of the month, and you know what that means: my live comedy show, The Internet Read Aloud, is happening Los Angeles!

It’s a great batch of performers this month, so definitely you should come out and watch us!

And, as usual, Uncle Lumpy loves you all too much to choose favorites, but I have no such compunctions, so here’s the best comment of, well, the last couple of days, at least:

“We always assumed that the Phantom was an old colonial imperialist, but think about it! There is an old Bandar compound that stops blood loss and pain, but none of the past Phantoms ever used it to help the hemophiliac descendants of the arch-imperialist Queen Victoria. It also means that there must have been The Ghost Who Enables the Decay of the Tsarist Regime and Opens the Way to the Workers’ Revolution. Maybe when Marx was talking about a spectre haunting Europe, he had something more concrete in mind…” –Ettorre

And the very funny runners up!

“I love how, in his indignation at people questioning his intelligence, he’s also confused about whether or not they’re questioning his intelligence. ‘Hey Cherry? What’s a fuckwit? Is it something good?’” –Thomas Nolte, on Facebook

“I really like how it looks as though Guran is trying to upsell Phantom on some extras. ‘Ok, you’ve got the compound that stops the blood loss and pain, but this one makes sure you don’t get too much scar tissue. And if you have two bottles you really should have the carrying case…’” –pugfuggly

“Whatcha gonna do, Mark, come to my house and slam my head into my keyboard to ‘teach me a lesson’ about making snarky comments about you online? Why don’t you stick to teaching me lessons about the migratory habits of banana slugs you dumb sack ofshufwsepuihgriuhwsefgruiwshrg uiwgruihifgtwerguih
drggegrg greerge4t5efdrgwgtyrehtd” –The Silent Penultimate Panel

“Of course a plugger’s ‘honey-do’ list grows on long weekends. It’s important to keep him busy so they don’t have to spend any time together.” –nescio

“Pluggers adhere to a central doublethink principle where they are simultaneously the principled, hard-working salt of the earth and the laziest bastards in existence.” –TheDiva

“Why don’t they just go the full-on Scandinavian and put slashes through the o’s in ‘Voof‘? In for an øre, in for a krone, I always say.” –Pozzo

Thanks to everyone who became a Comics Curmudgeon Supporter to get an banner-ad-free site, put some scratch in my tip jar, or backed me on Patreon!. And we need to give a big shout-out to our advertisers:

• PicturePunches: Join our community of funny memers who like to earn from their sense of humor.

If you’d like to advertise on the Comics Curmudgeon, and get your very own shoutout in this space, head on over to my BuySellAds page!

Post Content

Hagar the Horrible, 8/30/19

One of the running gags of Hagar the Horrible is of course that it’s The Honeymooners or [insert up-to-date cultural reference to a sitcom where the whole gimmick is that the married couple at the center of it don’t seem to like each other very much and fight all the time], but in a 9th or 10th century Europe under relentless attack by vicious Norse warriors, with said warriors being the viewpoint characters. But every once in a while we see that, despite their constant bickering, Hagar and Helga are indeed a well-matched pair. Does Helga for a single moment indulge herself in sentimentalism about the scores of men and women her husband has slaughtered for plunder, about the whole kingdoms that were torched to keep her in finery? She very much does not.

Pluggers, 8/30/19

Hmm, you’re a plugger if … you have adult responsibilities you have to fulfill before you can engage in recreational activities? And if your family life involves negotiating how much priority to give to those responsibilities with other members of your family? I have bad news for … literally everyone.