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Guys, tonight is the second of two Internet Read Alouds in consecutive weeks, and, uh, I’m impressed by people who run actually weekly shows because turns out it’s hard! We’ll be back to our usual once-a-month schedule after this, but please reward my hard work and dedication by coming to The Internt Read Aloud: THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER at 8 pm, if you are in or near Los Angeles. I promise we’re all funny!

Is there a Facebook event? You better believe it!

And now: your COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“Kudos to the Rex Morgan colorists who can tell that guy and his weird kid apart well enough to give them different colored shirts. That’s more than I could handle.” –Roto13

And your very funny runners up!

“That guy we were chasing had no advance warning of the object which knocked him unconscious! If he wasn’t Spider-Man before, he is now! If he was Spider-Man before, he’s … Double Spider-Man?” –A Concerned Reader

“Can someone remind me how the hell did Buck manage to become a permanent character in this strip? I thought the whole premise of Rex Morgan was ‘rich, good-looking people without emotions doing what the want’, so why are we watching a family of bespectacled woodchucks plan a vacation for some point in the future when they might have saved up the money? We should be watching Rex buy a yacht with his pocket change on a whim, only to set it adrift in a week when he gets bored.” –pugfuggly

“I feel a more important question is exactly what did Gil use to make that ‘lemonade’? It can’t be water, the ice cubes have sunk to the bottom. 100% ethyl alcohol has a low enough density to let ice sink, so maybe he’s mixed himself a nice cocktail of Everclear, a hint of urine for color, and some ice.” –Dmsilev

“‘Did you pack any jorts, Corey?’ ‘Nine pairs, Dad.’ ‘Hmmm. That may be cutting it close, but it’ll have to do. TO THE AIRPORT!’” –Joe Blevins

“‘Don’t bother me with details.’ If ever there was a phrase that summarized Gil Thorp, this is it.” –TheDiva

“I think, based solely on my own prejudices, that Tommy was RAISED Catholic, lapsed into meth dealing, found the Evangelical Church of The Tiny Bible in prison, was saved from that cult when he got out and no longer had to swear fealty to Tiny to keep his teeth intact, and is now heading back to confession for the first time in a LONG time indeed. I hope that priest has all day.” –Sally

“It’s unsurprising that Marvin’s art would consist of brown excretions. I bet the crayon is scented.” –nescio

“I prefer to think that Jeffy is crying, knowing that he’s gone too far this time but — at the same time — admitting that he’s too far gone to really care. He’s hitting the bottle hard, damnit, and none of ‘Mommy’s Rules’ about appropriate syrup consumption matter any more.” –Richard

“We must first see if she wants him to disappear … we have a possible path to score Hamilton tickets, so let’s not screw this up.” –Foodar

“Meanwhile, at Timex, Inc., the Junior Vice President for Innovative Marketing is being escorted out of the building by security.” –Voshkod

“Hootin’ Holler Care Center: Come for the leeches, stay because of the secondary infections caused by 17th century hygiene practices.” –Dread

“I was going to joke ‘Leroy watches hentai lol’, but just look how traumatized he is. He’s living through an episode of monstrous bodily horror as his eyes burst out of the confines of their sockets, and even now at the worst moment of his life — one worse than any nightmare Leroy’s mind could ever have dreamed up — his wife turns away and mocks him. He knows there’s nothing he can do to stop the forcible reshaping of his skull by powers unknown, but even in his resignation, he still clearly feels a gnawing sorrow for the man he once was and fear at the monster he is becoming. Also, Leroy watches hentai lol” –Schroduck

“Kid, you’ll have to settle for a mango or something. We’re hundreds of miles from pawpaw territory, and they don’t ship well.” –Peanut Gallery

“I don’t think it’s ever been addressed but are the characters in Shoe normal bird size with adorably tiny furniture or are they human sized but the trees are absolutely gigantic? These are questions that keep me awake at night.” –Escape Zeppelin

“When Rex gets horny, his chin gets bigger.” –Ignatz

“Hey, way to suspiciously name-drop Doris the violent ex on the way to the wedding, Rex Morgan team! Seeing as how (1) there are way too many characters and storylines no one cares about in this strip, (2) all of said boring characters are going to Vegas, and (3) Rex hasn’t used his medical superpowers in a while, my hope that this strip can be saved through cast reduction via Game of Thrones-style wedding violence as provided by Doris is now in play! Rex can use his doctor skills to heroically save one of the characters. I’m thinking June.” –Drew Funk

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Crankshaft, 8/3/18

OK, so here’s everything in this Crankshaft storyline that hasn’t prompted me to discuss it: Lillian came to some kind of publishing industry convention to find an agent, and she ran into a lady determined to be a book agent who’s never had have any clients but was determined to find one at the convention, which … is not how you become an agent, I’m pretty sure? I think you actually go work for an agency, and you help the agents there and then you get promoted? Anyway, said aspiring agent lady informs Lillian that she’s schizophrenic and used to be homeless and did some interviews with a newscaster when she was on the streets, which newscaster of course was Cindy Summers because the Funkyverse is a tightly wound nexus of coincidence. I learned this from an unofficial history of Funky Winkerbean (hosted by Angelfire! Angelfire is still up, everybody!) that also lets me know that this lady, who went by “Apple Annie” on the streets but now goes by “Ann Apple,” had a particularly poignant interview with Cindy after losing a friend on 9/11 (I am dearly sad to have missed the 9/11-themed Funky Winkerbean storylines, you guys). Also Lisa had a French roommate that Les described as looking “like Juliette Binoche, but cuter,” but that’s a story for another day!

Anyway, all that has not prompted me to write about this dumb Crankshaft plot, but here’s what did: “I think you have the write stuff.” See, it’s a joke because “write” sounds like “right.” Sounds exactly like “right,” in fact. They’re homonyms. They’re spelled differently because they have different etymological origins, but in spoken language you can only distinguish them from context. And in the context of the phrase “the right/write stuff,” you’re going to immediately assume the phrase is just “the right stuff” because that’s a very common expression. This doesn’t work! It doesn’t work at all and I’m so very angry about it!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/3/18

This is as good a time as any to remember that Doris, Buck’s abusive ex-wife who shot him in the head with a nail gun, did some dry humping or what not with Rex back in high school. Anyway, shoutout to Rex for being conveniently vague in panel two!

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/2/18

Hey, remember when June’s childhood friend, whom she hadn’t seen since actual childhood, just straight-up gave the Morgans her baby because she was dying and had no living relatives, but then it turned out the baby actually had paternal grandparents and June was afraid they’d try to steal their grandchild away from her but it then they ended up apologizing for even implying they might do that and said just wanted to do normal grandparent stuff? Well, good news: the Morgans are using them for free babysitting services while they party in Vegas! All’s well that end’s well for everybody, except for Johnny’s grandfather, who’s going to die of a heart attack within the week.

Shoe, 8/2/18

There are basically two settings for the extremely common Shoe joke format “bird-man engages other bird-man, apparently a stranger or at best a very casual acquaintance, in banter that’s actually a strained setup for today’s punchline”: Roz restaurant counter, which we see here today, and the weird gross fern bar which, unlike most locations in this strip, appears to be inside a building rather than just furniture sitting in the open air on a tree branch. Anyway, I don’t pretend to understand how the location gets chosen for each gag, but I would suggest that today’s strip, in which Shoe initiates conversation with someone he doesn’t know with tales of his extremely dysfunctional romantic relationship, is more a bar strip than a restaurant strip.

The Lockhorns, 8/2/18

There’s a lot here that you could react extremely negatively to — is it really a “film festival” if you’re binge-watching stuff on some streaming service? would it have killed them to look up and use the name of an actual anime series? what the fuck is going on with Leroy’s skull shape, and shouldn’t we at least get a glimpse of his other giant anime eye from this angle? — but instead I’m going to spend the rest of the week thinking about where Leroy would come down on the perennial dubs vs. subs controversy.