Post Content

Why it’s Friday, which is our day to enjoy the week’s top comment!

“No one in this comic has a lower jaw. Why is steak even on the menu?” –A Concerned Reader

And we also enjoy the runners up on this fine day as well. They’re hilarious!

“Tfw you read it as ‘having to go number four‘ and are wondering what the living conditions in colonial North Africa have done to the human excretory system” –Carl Lund, on Facebook

“In the last panel, Marvin’s thinking, ‘That’s all you got? I could have gotten off three perfectly good poop jokes in the time it took you to make one lousy gold pun.’” –Pozzo

“Did you know that Humboldt Martins are incredibly high all the time? After raiding the marijuana, they’d roll the leaves with their tiny little paws, and light them with their tiny little lighters. And now they’re endangered! You can believe all this ‘pesticide’ and ‘habitat’ crap that the syndicate is forcing me to say, but you must know what the true menace here is!” –Dimensionalotter

“If you’re trying to sell Millennials on golf, I don’t think this is the best platform for it. Don’t you have access to a Snapchat or a Waze or whatever?” –TheDiva

“It took exactly 100 years, but Mutt and Jeff’s hipster mustaches and thrift-store formalwear have finally come back into style. But they’d better hurry — in certain parts of Brooklyn and Portland, Hi and Lois-style ‘suburban backyard normcore’ is about to be the next big thing.” –BigTed

“Mary, did you hear? Old Man Wynter’s dog has died. Yes, Fenrir, beast of slaughter, has died, and the Fates are in turmoil. Can the Fimbulwynter come without the wolf that devours the sky? Who will Víðarr kill if the wolf is dead? Anyway, I’m off to see Jörmungandr, the world-encircling serpent, to see if we can save Ragnarök and bring down the gods. Wish me luck?” –Voshkod

“Ha! It’s funny because, in real life, Ed would have suffered third-degree burns and probably died! But instead, he’s just bewildered and covered in soot like Wile E. Coyote after an Acme malfunction! Tell me again how someone in this same fictional universe had cancer and we were supposed to care about it.” –Joe Blevins

“Hmm … an early 2000s Toyota Tercel … and it’s been freshly chewed…” –pugfuggly

“Like steampunk, Hi and Lois is a curious paradox. On the one hand, today’s strip wouldn’t make sense before the invention of mobile phones, but on the other, it relies entirely on 1950s values (housewives, henpecked husbands, wearing suits to work, boozy workday lunch). Is there a name for this aesthetic? Picketpunk?” –Schroduck

“My wife doesn’t tell me what to order for lunch! She couldn’t anyway, we haven’t spoken in months.” –Ettore

“All right, I think I figured out what’s up with Toby and her attitude toward dogs. Her name is Toby. She probably heard ‘oh, that’s what our dog was called!’ a thousand too many times, and now finds only grim satisfaction in the mortality of those beloved pets.” –pachoo

“It’s starting to get boring? Has Dennis not been reading his own strip all these decades?” –JJ48

“We’re not even gonna address the fact that Beetle and Sarge have laid out a multi-course meal with wine, as is definitely super-appropriate for a drill sergeant and his private? Okay then, how about the incongruously informal chairs, which suggest Sarge and Beetle put this romantic meal together themselves on the DL, and Beetle is absolutely right to ask why Sarge is taking pictures.” –Dan

“Hagar the Horrible almost made me laugh out loud for Helga’s whiplash-inducing appearance in the strip. ‘Hamlet: How much do you know about ancient history? Hagar: Well son, it depends on– Helga: (there) HE KNOWS ENOUGH NOT TO REPEAT IT! Hagar: GAHH! I told you to carry tic tacs!’ Honestly, she looks tired. I’m worried about Helga.” –Maggie

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! 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

Beetle Bailey, 9/14/18

This is a cartoon clearly written by someone who’s heard about how the Kids Today like to take pictures of their meals, but has no idea why or ever how they do so. Like, some embarrassed colorist has attempted to make it look like Sarge is holding his phone, but that’s clearly supposed to be an old-school point-and-shoot camera.

Hagar the Horrible, 9/14/18

There are like two entirely different things happening in this strip. On the one hand, you have “ancient history” apparently being understood by Hamlet’s parents to mean “Hagar’s relationships with pre-Helga girlfriends” or maybe “Hagar’s infidelity early in his relationship with Helga,” thus injecting Hamlet’s eagerness to discuss his school lessons with his parents’ long-simmering marital drama. On the other hand, you have whatever “school” a Viking chieftain’s son attends apparently letting its young Norse charges in on the true international illuminati conspiracy that is biding its time until civilization rises up again to be worth ruling, watching all things with its unblinking pyramidal Eye.

Post Content

Pluggers, 9/13/18

Here’s some “behind the scenes” scoop: I was originally going to just do a drive-by “Haw haw pluggers don’t use computers” joke here, but then I thought: you know, in reality, pluggers have been going online for years now, as any visit to Facebook clearly indicates. And so I decided instead to do a deep dive on the rewards program at the Golden Corral, aka the “Good as Gold Club” and God damn if the FAQ isn’t a veritable gold mine of plugger-tastic questions presumably frequently asked by pluggers everywhere, including:

• “Why am I having trouble viewing my email?”
• “My coupon will not print correctly, what should I do?”
• “I do not have a printer, what should I do?” (“SOLUTION: If you cannot access a printer (at home or perhaps a public library), you will need to call ahead and speak with the management at your preferred Golden Corral restaurant to inquire about presenting your coupon via a mobile device” sorry about how much time you have to spend on the phone with pluggers talking about this, Golden Corral managers)
• “I received my birthday coupon, but my spouse did not, what should I do?” (“Most likely, this means that you and your spouse (or family member) both registered in one of our restaurants using the same email address.” HELL YEAH YOU KNOW PLUGGERS AND THEIR SPOUSES SHARE EMAIL ADDRESSES)

Anyway, other than the oblique reference to a “birthday coupon” there’s no actual description on the site of what you get for being a Good as Gold Club member or why you’d want to join. I guess only true pluggers understand the value of selfless loyalty to a family-style chain restaurant brand.

Dennis the Menace, 9/13/18

There’s been what’s to me a fairly noticeable shift in the Dennis the Menace art this week, accompanied by a change in signature from this:

To a more legible “S. Ketcham.” According to Wikipedia, “Hank Ketcham retired from the comic strip in 1994, turning over production of the strip to his assistants Ron Ferdinand and Marcus Hamilton. They continued it as a ‘zombie strip’ after Ketcham’s death in 2001, where the two, and since 2010, Scott Ketcham, continue the strip.” I guess the previous signature is a “Hamilton,” and even though Scott (Hank’s son) has been involved for eight years now, I assume he’s now … drawing it? Or something? I can’t find any other news about this online at the moment. Anyway, I doubt that this personnel change is going to lead to big changes like adding a new character to the strip, because you don’t run a cartoon for nearly 70 years because people like change, but just look at how horrified Alice is by the very thought of it! I’m not sure if her main worry is having another menacing offspring, or the process of childbirth, or just having sex with Henry again, but she’s definitely cringing in disgust at some combination of the three.

Mary Worth, 9/13/18

Now, I know everyone’s about to attack Toby for being cruel or heartless or whatever, but keep this in mind: you don’t spend the best years of your life married to Ian Cameron without occupying a great deal of your time calculating your loved ones’ remaining lifespan and figuring out the precise length of time one might be expected to mourn them when they finally, blessedly, die.