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The Phantom, 3/17/19

So the Sunday Phantom storyline has involved a little girl who’s stowed away on a historic airplane that’s using travelling to air shows around the world as a front for exotic animal smuggling in an extremely well thought out scheme. Mostly I like today because the Phantom has announced that these rogues are going to face prison … in Bangalla, a country that isn’t the site of any of their crimes and which has no legal jurisdiction over them, and it’s like, who does the Ghost-Who-Walks think he is, American?

Spider-Man, 3/17/19

Reading this, I assumed that longtime Newspaper Spider-Man credited writer Stan Lee famously said “Ditto” in a movie once, but turns out nope! So I guess that Peter and MJ are spending their last ever Sunday strip paying homage to, uh, the smash hit 1990 Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore vehicle Ghost. Excelsior, everybody!

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Spider-Man, 3/16/19

I’ve finally recovered emotionally enough to share some terrible news with you, which is that the current run of Newspaper Spider-Man is ending a week from today. Apparently King Features will be running some “classic” Newspaper Spider-Man strips from the ’70s, which I will definitely cover here because from what I’ve seen of them Spidey is even more of a dick than he is in his current incarnation, but I will definitely mourn the end of my beloved feeble, whiny superhero.

The note from King and Marvel said “We’ll be back soon with great new stories and art to explore even more corners of the Marvel Universe for you and your readers to enjoy. We’ll be announcing more about these new adventures in the very near future, so keep your Spidey senses tuned in!” It absolutely makes sense that Marvel wants to use the toehold they have in newspapers to further promote their various intellectual properties, although how anyone could possibly miss the MCU without literally blinding themselves and living in a cave is beyond me. It will be interesting to see how they do that in newspaper form; my only request is that it be laughably bad.

Meanwhile, how will this iteration of the Spiderverse be wrapped up next week? My hope is that the Parkers travel to Australia, where Peter is bitten by one of the non-radioactive but extremely large and very poisonous spiders they have down there, and then dies. We’ll all drop a brick in his honor!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/16/19

Apparently Rex Morgan, M.D, is considered more likable than Spider-Man, because his strip got a new creative team and new lease on life a couple of years ago. One thing I miss from the Woody Wilson days is how people would just give the Morgans stuff for doing relatively basic stuff like telling an unnaturally calm tween that probably the pilot knows what he’s doing during an emergency landing. So I’m pretty jazzed about this upcoming clothes gifting sequence, which I hope takes the form of a montage like the one from Pretty Woman, or maybe ZZ Top will magically appear to guide his sartorial choices.

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Folks, your COTW in a moment, but first, a note: I am making an appearance at a live comedy show not my own (whatttt????) one week from tonight! It is the always fun and hilarious Game Night, hosted by Laser Malena-Webber of the Doubleclicks and Joseph Scrimshaw of Rifftrax! The show is at Geeky Teas & Games in Burbank, and I’m jazzed about it! See you there!

But what I’m seeing here is the comment of the week:

“The power light on Mark has gone to the slow blink of ‘stand by’.” –Foodar

Along with the hilarious runners up!

“Henry rejects the authority of the state to legislate mandatory seat belt use, and has taken it to extremes by removing all the belts in his car. He is upping the menace by driving something that looks like it uses corrugated cardboard in lieu of sheet metal for the bodywork.” –Rusty

“Okay, I’ve come to terms with the fact that the throwaway panels on Dennis the Menace Sunday strips will no longer contain their own, self-contained jokes. Whoever does the strip now can’t be bothered. Fine. Be lazy. Yawn in the Grim Reaper’s face. Whatever. But now, the traditional Sunday subtitle isn’t even a pun? This one is called ‘A Nice Thought,’ and it’s about Dennis having a nice thought. That’s just … I mean, Jesus Christ, Dennis the Menace! You had your own prime time show for four years! And a movie starring Walter Matthau! He won an Oscar … not for that, but still, he won one. What I’m saying is, where’s the pride?” –Joe Blevins

“Alternative explanation: Doc Pritchart doesn’t actually have a working x-ray machine, that‘s just a drawing of what he imagines a skeleton looks like.” –Boston Unscientific, on Twitter

“I know it is difficult for the captain to go down with the ship, but he IS a duck.” –amarylliss

“[Sixty years later] ‘And once, kids, when I was twelve, I was on a plane that landed in the desert.’ [Grandchildren look up briefly from their phones] ‘Really?’ ‘Yeah, a bus came and picked us up.’ [Kids look back down at their phones] ‘I sat next to a doctor.’ [Kids get up and walk into the next room] ‘He said I could tell you this story!’” –But What Do I Know?

“Is this what phone sex looks like in retirement? I’ll just keep eating cheeseburgers and try to die at 50, thank you.” –DevOpsDad

“Pluggers’ contempt is usually reserved for younger people and the newfangled things they like, but I’m guessing from the waitress’s glasses and paunch that she too is a plugger, and salads have been around for centuries. Maybe the waitress-dog horrified look is saying, ‘Look, pal, I’m on your side, but we pluggers can’t just start hating everything. This isn’t Crankshaft, for Pete’s sake.’” –Jenna

“That ‘bearded‘ is awkward and gratuitous, but you have to get Mark emotionally involved somehow.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“Wait a minute, ‘our parents-in-law are going to live with us and make us miserable‘ is a plot point of Crankshaft. I believed that not even Funky Winkerbean would sink so low as to steal from Crankshaft!” –Ettore

“Yep, the Doc said that as long as you trust the pilot, everything will always be fine! Fatal crashes only happen when people don’t trust the pilot enough!” –JJ48

“Dennis’ fifth birthday is an infinite number that never repeats, which is why it’s celebrated on 3/14.” –cheech wizard

“There’s a non-zero chance that between panels 2 and 3, Dagwood tried to snort that phone.” –pugfuggly

“It’s clearly a catfish though. There are no successful men named Arthur.” –Dan

“The only people Dag actually talks to are his elderly boss and the kid from down the street, so his main cultural touchpoints are the Korean War and some 12-year-old girl who does unboxing videos on YouTube.” –BigTed

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