The Comics Curmudgeon

Main Menu

Social Media

Comment of the Week

Maybe it's just that the standards of menace have been so raised by the likes of Calvin and Hobbes or Bart Simpson but I can't remember ever seeing Dennis engage in behavior that would make him a poor children's party guest. He wears a tiny suit to church for goodness sake! He's really just a menace because the strip is called Dennis the Menace but who told the inhabitants of the strip that? Who is going around badmouthing this precocious kid who at worst doesn't always live up to 1950s standards of etiquette? I ask but we all already know it's Mr. Wilson, Mr. Wilson is making the neighbor kid a social pariah out of a sort of misplaced dissatisfaction and inadequacy that his pension wasn't enough to settle him in a gated community with no children.

—BananaSam
Comments are closed

Hope she stabs someone on the Mudlarks, or possibly everyone on the Mudlarks

Post Content

Gil Thorp, 6/19/20

Good news from Gil Thorp, everyone! Mike “The Mayor” didn’t just slink off to the bad kid school and give up on his hopes and dreams after being expelled for bringing a butter knife into class; instead, he’s training the other bad kids at his bad kid school for an epic slobs vs. snobs baseball battle against his old Mudlark teammates. And he just found his secret weapon Corina Karenna (named, I assume, after the beloved (?) 1994 Ray Liotta/Whoopi Goldberg vehicle Corrina, Corrina), who’s very good at baseball and is a total anarchist. The infield fly rule? The “unwritten rules of baseball”? Corina will be ignoring all of them as the misfits roll over the Mudlarks in an unauthorized game played “thunderdome-style,” i.e., with no umpires, parents, or sense of decency.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/19/20

Today’s Funky Winkerbean made me realize that despite having read about the glory and pageantry of Lisa’s Story for years and years and years, I don’t actually … know what exactly Lisa’s Story is about? I mean, I know Lisa’s actual life story, but does the book/movie treatment cover the whole arc of her life, or just the cancer stuff or what? And, like, she died pretty young — Darrin, who was born when she was in high school, was in high school when she passed away, so she couldn’t have been older than her mid-30s. And she had two cancer bouts, over several years! I have no idea how young or old this actress is who Les just hate-masturbated to on the plane, and it’s true that Hollywood casts actresses young, but I’m pretty sure Les would only be satisfied without someone the age he is now, and here’s the thing, Les: Lisa stopped aging when she died.

Hagar the Horrible, 6/19/20

Ha ha, that got kind of dark, didn’t it? Well, suck it up, times are dark. Look, here’s the grimmest, realest Hagar the Horrible ever written!

Comments are closed

Quickies and sickies

Post Content

Family Circus, 6/18/20

The Family Cirus has been teasing us with hints that the Keanes exist in a world where the coronavirus epidemic is raging, but today is the first time we’ve seen confirmation, with everyone out and about in masks. Thank goodness that the Keanes’ home state has hit whatever phase of its reopening plan includes incredibly depressing stores that sell ugly earth-tone polo shirts to families who’ll give them as Father’s Day gifts to fathers they don’t really like very much.

Mutts, 6/18/20

Hey there, adorable lisping cat from Mutts! I know you’re a real sweetheart who loves everyone, but you aware of the term obligate carnivore?

Marvin, 6/18/20

OH WOW A MARVIN PUNCHLINE ABOUT PEEING ON SOMEBODY, WHO COULD’VE PREDICTED

Comments are closed

Child abandonment antics

Post Content

Mary Worth, 6/17/20

OK, so here’s what’s happened since we last checked in with Mary Worth: Lyle showed up with Madi, who predictably refused to make eye contact with Saul and just kept staring at her phone, and Saul suggested they all have dinner or something, but Lyle was like, no, sorry, gotta run, Venezuela’s not gonna coup itself! Anyway, I am absolutely loving — loving — Saul’s attempt to do a tough-guy face in panel one here. “Welp, I guess you’re just going to leave your daughter [I assume she’s his daughter? I actually don’t think they’ve made that explicit] with me for three months, after having spent less than five minutes here and made no attempt to ease the process of us getting to know each other or giving me, a man who’s never raised children, any kind of advice on what she’ll need or want, and it sounds like you’re not even going to be calling her while you’re away, but know this, Lyle: I will absolutely hold you to your vague promise to come back and collect your daughter [?], eventually.”

Mark Trail, 6/17/20

Good news, everyone! Andy smelled his way home! Also, did you know that Mark lives immediately next door to a whole different compound? Like my parents in suburban Buffalo have more space between their house and their neighbor’s than Mark does with his, and Mark is a weird hermit who lives in a national forest!

Funky Winkerbean, 6/17/20

More than 15 years ago, in a different, gentler age, this blog was called “I Read The Comics So You Don’t Have To.” And for years afterwards, I still saw that as my mission statement. But now, as the open-heartedness of youth has given way to the sourness of middle age, I have revised my thinking, and can best describe this blog’s mission as “If I Have To Think About The Sex Lives Of Funky Winkerbean Characters, Then So Do You.”