Comics Curmudgeon Archive

Comics Curmudgeon Archive https://joshreads.com Comics Curmudgeon Archive Doin’ it Amontillado-style – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/doin-it-amontillado-style/ <section class="post-content">Curtis, 1/3/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120103curtis.jpg" />I do need my Christmas-to-New-Year’s break from the site to recharge my comic-mocking jets, but it does always make me sad that I end up missing most of the Curtis Kwanzaa madness. For those not in the know, each Kwanzaatime (note to self: find out if “Kwanzaatime” is a word; if so, attempt to register kwanzaatime.com) the strip takes a break from its main characters to offer up a tale, generally set in a stylized pre-modern African locale, built around some kind of lesson. It also usually features hallucinatory madness, with <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=496" target="_blank">bat-winged bears</a> and <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=888" target="_blank">giant telepathic otters</a> and whatnot. This year’s story has been not quite that level of insane, though it has featured a protagonist so traumatically ugly that his features cannot be drawn, lest the newspaper comics readership be driven mad by the hideousness. Today it appears that we’re learning the tale’s moral: even if you are mind-warpingly ugly, people will like you if you’re rich.Apartment 3-G, 1/3/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120103a3g.jpg" />Since I am now becoming as mired in nostalgia as the comics I mock, there’s nothing that thrills me more than when continuity strips bring back random minor ancillary characters from the past. Take Mim, for instance! She was Lu Ann’s teenage niece who <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=212" target="_blank">showed up at the apartment one day</a> after she got <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=220" target="_blank">knocked up</a> by <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=242" target="_blank">some dude named Chuck</a> and then <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=234" target="_blank">Margo tried to sell the baby</a> but it didn’t work and then she <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=288#a3g" target="_blank">had the baby</a> and that’s the last we saw of her, I’m pretty sure? Along the way we learned about <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=231" target="_blank">Margo’s unreasoning hatred of the New York Public Library</a>. Anyway, that was in 2005, because I’m super old, and so that baby is seven now and Mim is an adult and has shorter hair and probably has some nice comforting things to say to Lu Ann or whatever. I can’t wait!Mark Trail, 1/3/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120103marktrail.jpg" />The last Mark Trail adventure ended with Mark not only refusing to write about the hot story that led him (presumably on his employer’s dime) to the Canadian woods, but also erasing Kelly Welly’s camera so she couldn’t write about it either. Looks like Mark finally screwed Kelly — just not the way she wanted! Ha ha! See, because Kelly desperately wants to have sex with Mark, but he finds anything have to do with “those parts” “down there” confusing and scary.Anyway, Mark’s line in panel two would be pretty high on the extensive list of Things Said By Characters In Mark Trail That Would Never, Ever Be Uttered By Actual Humans (Ranked In Order Of Improbability). Mark’s facial expression also strikes me as just a wee bit smug. “Tommy and his wife are struggling to scrape by on a dog-trainer’s salary in this ongoing, grinding recession! But don’t worry, honey, since I write for a print magazine aimed at outdoorspersons, we have all the money we need. I can even refuse to write articles if I want to protect the privacy of weird bear-domesticating hermit ladies!”Crankshaft, 1/3/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120103crankshaft.jpg" />I really love the look of shock on and guilt on Pam’s face! I assume that it means that the family is in fact building a prison cell for their hated matriarch.</section> Sun, 7 Sep 2025 08:00:08 +0000 Body horror fun times – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/body-horror-fun-times/ <section class="post-content">Gil Thorp, 1/4/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120104gilthorp.jpg" />So far this basketball season storyline has been all about the epidemic of tattoo-getting among Milford’s student-athletes at a sketchy tattoo parlor that occupies the extremely small part of the Venn diagram where “Pays rent on a <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=12004#gil" target="_blank">downtown storefront</a>” and “Will tattoo minors without parental permission” overlap! It promises to be the most laughably ham-handed look at serious teen issues since The Great <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=3365" target="_blank">Sexting Hilarity</a> Of Ought-Nine. Today, Coach Kaz makes a desperate plea for sanity by pointing out that his own barbed wire tattoo is a constant embarrassment to him and everyone around him. The biggest tragedy about it is that its presence makes him conflicted about rolling up his sleeves to show off his awesome biceps, so he only does that about 60 percent of the time! But anyway, he’s neglecting an important point, which is that barbed wire tattoos are tacky and gross, while getting a tattoo of your high school’s old-school sports logo is cool. Sorry, Kaz, you’re just humiliated yourself for nothing!Crankshaft, 1/4/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120104crankshaft.jpg" />I’m pretty sure that Rose (mother of Jeff) was introduced to Crankshaft when Crankshaft (father of Pam) accidentally became marginally likable, thus offending the strip’s core anti-old-people fanbase. I’m not sure how exactly her complaining about her new bedroom smothers out anyone’s joy, but maybe Jeff just hears “something something your mother is terrible something” and goes into his rote, dead-eyed spiel.<a name="hnl"></a>Hi and Lois, 1/4/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120104hinlois.jpg" />Oh, look, Lois the Realtor was just about to close a sale — not an easy task in the wake of the housing bubble bursting — when Ditto just had to talk to her about, I don’t know, his homework or his feelings or whatever. Hope you enjoy generic mac and cheese and community college, Ditto! His sister is much more practical and cold-blooded. The sight of her narrowing her eyes and muttering “She has business to do” ought to terrify you.Ziggy, 1/4/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120104ziggy.gif" />Uh oh, looks like the Ziggy’s fish is finally launching his <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=10425#ziggy" target="_blank">long</a>–<a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=11732" target="_blank">awaited</a> war against the wretched air-breathers that he hates so much! I thought we had a chance, but that was before today, when we learned that the tentacled and terrible Great Old Ones were on his side.Dick Tracy, 1/4/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120104dt.gif" />Ever since the Dick Tracy reboot, we’ve been forced to contemplate whether it’s been true to the spirit of the strip’s history, and today we have our answer. The Dick Tracy I know would never follow up “Spike Jr.’s different from most” with anything other than “and that makes him a dangerous subversive who must be neutralized.”Archie, 1/4/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120104archie.gif" />As Archie Andrews awoke one morning after disturbing dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect.</section> Sun, 7 Sep 2025 08:00:09 +0000 Return to FOOB Mountain – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/return-to-foob-mountain/ <section class="post-content">Gasoline Alley, 1/5/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120105gasall.jpg" />I won’t waste my time or yours trying to explain the Gasoline Alley plot that led up to this — it’s all summarized in the first two panels here, and it took months, and Slim and Clovia were very angry with each other about it — but I do think it’s worth pointing out that all this drama has very suddenly been resolved with no action on the characters’ part, and with enough time left over to slip in a joke about toilets to boot. It’s kind of disorienting to see it all end so abruptly, and on a Thursday too. I’m thinking that the original ending, which involved yelling and knives, was nixed by the syndicate at the last minute. The remaining three days until the next plotline starts will just consist of Slim and Clovia standing around awkwardly.For Better Or For Worse, 1/5/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120105fbofw.gif" />Ha ha, For Better Or For Worse, remember that thing? When it stopped with the ongoing storylines and became mostly reruns of young versions of the Pattersons talking in weird fake cute-speak it stopped being all that interesting to me, but I still feel compelled to read it daily. I also feel compelled to try to figure out, based on the art, whether we’re seeing old strips or new ones injected into the old continuity, and I think these are the latter, and I’m thinking: what if Lynn Johnston suddenly feels compelled to seize the reins and start aging the characters all over again, only this time John and Elly have a contentious divorce, leaving April to vanish in a limbo of never-was and Michael and Elizabeth with terrible emotional scars? Except look how they turned out when their parents stayed married, maybe they’ll be healthy, functional adults this way, who can say. Michael’s already showing a streak of self-loathing that, with years of therapy, might serve as a counterweight to his unbearable smugness.Gil Thorp, 1/5/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120105gilthorp.jpg" />I’m extremely amused by the low-key Mudlark reaction in panel two, though you know that deep down they’re thinking that a Pokémon tattoo would be kind of awesome. They’re also playing it cool so as not to anger the disembodied claw-thing that’s casually draped itself on Punisher t-shirt dude’s shoulder.Mark Trail, 1/5/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120105marktrail.jpg" />“Yes, why don’t I come and hang out with you and Sally and your blind dog for a few days? Sweet Christ, I’d do anything to get away from my wife and adopted son.”Beetle Bailey, 1/5/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120105bb.jpg" />After billions of dollars were spent, the Defense Department began to suspect that Camp Swampy may not have been the best test site for its robotic supersoldier experiment.</section> Sun, 7 Sep 2025 08:00:10 +0000 Marvin was also up for adoption, but nobody wanted him – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/marvin-was-also-up-for-adoption-but-nobody-wanted-him/ <section class="post-content">Apartment 3-G, 1/6/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120106a3g.jpg" />There’s just enough wiggle room in this adoption talk to make me hope against hope that a hilarious and awkward misunderstanding is in the works. “Adopted me? No, Lu Ann, you’re the adopted one!” Hijinks would ensue, along with baffled tears.Marvin, 1/6/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120106marvin.jpg" />You know, sometimes I say to myself, “Look, you’ve got to stop showcasing Marvin’s constant poop jokes! It’s becoming almost as gross and lazy as the poop jokes themselves!” But then I hit a strip that actually focuses on COMPETITIVE DEFECATION and honestly I don’t see how I can be expected to restrain myself.</section> Mon, 8 Sep 2025 08:00:16 +0000 Violent Saturday – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/violent-saturday-2/ <section class="post-content">Gil Thorp, 1/7/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120107gilthorp.jpg" />Oh, man, this tattoo guy is something else. Not only is he evilly providing tattooing services to people who come and ask for them and pay him money; not only is he performing other forms of body modification that were shocking in 1995; but he’s also causing tingling sensations in the lady parts of innocent teenage girls, with his sexiness. Add in the fact that he’s apparently a filthy foreigner from Australia (or, worse, that he’s adopted the Aussies’ un-American slang) and we can all really get behind the inevitable threats of violence, and perhaps even actual implementations of violence, that Kaz will dish out to him sometime in March.Garfield, 1/7/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120107garfield.gif" />Speaking of threats of violence, once Jon accidentally stepped on Garfield’s tail, and Garfield responded by breaking Jon’s leg so savagely that it still causes him pain, years later! So, yeah, Garfield is a widely-syndicated comic that a lot of people enjoy.</section> Mon, 8 Sep 2025 08:00:17 +0000 Mostly soapy Sunday – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/mostly-soapy-sunday/ <section class="post-content">Mary Worth, 12/8/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120108maryworth.jpg" />I swore a blood oath to myself that I wouldn’t discuss Mary Worth until something happened, and now something has, so here you go! Anyway, Mary has proved herself history’s greatest hero by physically blocking the door briefly to give the cops long enough to arrive and apprehend our kidnapper. Bonus points for really trying to get into the depraved criminal’s head with her “That young girl you’ve kidnapped sure is attractive, you’ve definitely made the right choice there” technique. Look for Mary’s sense of self-regard to reach levels that scientists had hitherto believed to be impossible.<a name="a3g"></a>Apartment 3-G, 12/8/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120108a3g.jpg" />Oh my goodness you guys, is … is Ruby Lu Ann’s biological mother??? Who maybe got knocked up as a teen and handed over the child to her aunt and uncle to raise? Causing resentment in said aunt and uncle’s biological daughter, and, eventually, in said aunt and uncle themselves? Does this explain the weird family dynamic, and why Ruby showed up in New York a few years ago acting all maternal-like towards Lu Ann? Will Lu Ann and Margo finally find something to bond over (i.e., their sordid, secret parentage), leaving Tommie, presumably the biological child of the married adults who raised her, even more boring and left out than usual?Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/8/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120108rmmd.jpg" />Rex Morgan’s sexy rebellious teen plot has ended with a thwarted rape attempt and a mother-daughter reconciliation (i.e., it ended extremely not sexily), but I do have vague hopes for what’s coming next. Remember, Niki’s mom was a former <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=813" target="_blank">meth lab tech</a> who Rex <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=990" target="_blank">hired to work in his clinic</a> and who hasn’t been heard from since. I share Rex’s sense that “she doesn’t do the outdoors” is code for either “she’s in the middle of a six-week cross-country crank-fueled bank robbery spree” or “she’s been dead for weeks and I keep cashing her public assistance checks.” I was going to say that Rex ought to know more details, since he’s her employer and all, but then I remembered that Rex really doesn’t care about other people enough to pay attention to them.Six Chix, 12/8/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120108sixchix.jpg" />I know I usually only put up cartoons to make fun of them, but I really love today’s Six Chix! I especially like (a) the fact that only one third of the book group hated this week’s read enough to burn it and (b) that even in their rage these ladies made a makeshift fire pit, possibly out of the top of a barrel, rather than just burning the books in the middle of the floor. There’s no need to make a mess!</section> Mon, 8 Sep 2025 08:00:18 +0000 He comes from a land down under … no, not that one, the other one – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/he-comes-from-a-land-down-under-no-not-that-one-the-other-one/ <section class="post-content">Mark Trail, 1/9/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120109marktrail.jpg" />There’s so much I have to learn about the dog-training biz, apparently. For instance, having a hunting dog that can see is crucial to the whole operation, somehow! It draws in the customers! Is a blind dog considered a bad omen? When people bring their cockapoo or Havanese or whatever down to Tommy’s Dog Training Service to make sure it doesn’t poop on the rug any more or try to eat the baby, do they see ol’ blind Butch and think “Jeez, Tommy trains his dogs to be blind, that’s what he trains them to do,” and then head elsewhere? Truly Mark is the only one who can help Tommy finally realize his dog-training dream and avoid gainful employment once and for all.<a name="gil"></a>Gil Thorp, 1/9/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120109gilthorp.jpg" />Huh, so it turns out that last week’s off-hand <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=12183" target="_blank">“Sheilas”</a> wasn’t a misguided attempt at hip slang but was actually supposed to indicate that Ransom Hale (wait, what?) hails from the Antipodes. Do people from New Zealand actually say “Sheilas”? Do people from Australia actually say this? Feel free to discuss that amongst ourselves while I try to figure out which of these young ladies is about to have a picture of Leonardo DiCaprio’s frozen corpse tattooed onto her lower back.Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/9/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120109bgss.jpg" />Never mind the hilarious golf joke: I’m trying to figure out why exactly Truman Capote is impersonating a substitute rural doctor.</section> Tue, 9 Sep 2025 08:00:09 +0000 Near, far, wherever you are, our public domain tragedy will go on – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/near-far-wherever-you-are-our-public-domain-tragedy-will-go-on/ <section class="post-content">Beetle Bailey, 1/10/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120110bb.jpg" />Since all of the soldiers at Camp Swampy have long stopped being scared of or even vaguely impressed by Sarge’s bluster as a result of decades of exposure to it, we occasionally need an outsider character to show that he’s still a terrifying monster of shouting. We get that today with this poor plumber, who appears to be in a state of advanced psychological shock, or maybe having some kind of fear-seizure.<a name="gil"></a>Gil Thorp, 1/10/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120110gilthorp.jpg" />Oh, man, this is great! Milford’s mildly dodgy tattoo parlor is clearly going to be the origin of every mildly dodgy vice in town, including … knockoff DVDs! I’m not sure who those actors on the cover of TITHNIC are, but I’m guessing they’re named something like “Mutt Damone” and “Kathy Winslow”.Mary Worth, 1/10/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120110maryworth.jpg" />Yes, yes, Emily Smith has been saved from a horrible fate, blah blah blah, but what I mainly want to say is: if you can look at the hilarious chase scene going on in the background of panel one and not hear “Yakety Sax” playing in your head, you’re a better person than I am.</section> Tue, 9 Sep 2025 08:00:10 +0000 Next, she cuts his hair itchily short, and her master plan is complete – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/next-she-cuts-his-hair-itchily-short-and-her-master-plan-is-complete/ <section class="post-content">Dennis the Menace, 1/11/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120111dtm.jpg" />I never thought about itching the same way again after reading about how powerful and little understood a sensation it really is in <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_gawande" target="_blank">this New Yorker article</a>, which features, among other anecdotes, a horrifying account of a woman who had an unstoppable itch on her scalp that was so bad that she ended up scratching right through her skull. My point is that cutting your fingernails short enough that you won’t be able to scratch itches in a satisfying fashion is a 100 percent legitimate concern, and there’s nothing either menacing or cute about Dennis’s request, although maybe Alice’s smirk is supposed to indicate that she plans to do exactly this, as a subtle form of revenge for, well, pretty much everything Dennis has done since learning to walk.<a name="gil"></a>Gil Thorp, 1/11/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120111gt.jpg" />Are you tired of me talking about Gil Thorp yet? Well, too bad, because this is the first storyline that I’ve genuinely loved in years, so you’re just going to have to sit there and take it. For today’s strip, I’d like to point out that (a) most teenagers who want the new Twilight movie “for their girlfriend” (who “lives in Canada,” probably) are almost certainly capable of finding bootleg movies on the Internet, obviating the need to go offer some improbable story to a sketchy Kiwi tattoo artist, and (b) a vision of Batman t-shirt teen alternately crying and masturbating to the latest Twilight film jumped into my head unbidden upon reading the final panel.</section> Tue, 9 Sep 2025 08:00:11 +0000 Mommie dearest redux – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/mommie-dearest-redux/ <section class="post-content">Apartment 3-G, 1/12/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120112a3g.jpg" />Welp, <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=12188#a3g" target="_blank">as I predicted on Sunday</a>, Ruby is Lu Ann’s bio-mom (I don’t deserve much credit for this, as it was telegraphed fairly loudly). And now it’s all over but the copious weeping, and soul-searching, and family recriminations! Shouldn’t take more than a year or two. However, before we get started, I think it’s worth showing the panel from last Friday that started this hilarious and heart-breaking misunderstanding:<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/drhoward.jpg" />I dearly, dearly hope that Lu Ann’s comment is never explained again, just for confusing larfs. “Poor Lu Ann, it must be terrible to not understand one’s true heritage! Hmm, why is the name ‘Dr. Howard’ sticking in my mind? Is it important? Enh, probably not.”This shocking revelation about Ruby this week has made me wonder if this whole thing was planned out from the moment she was introduced more the four years ago, which made me dip into my archives to see where my first mention of her was. All I can say is that I’m <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=1143" target="_blank">apparently pretty smart about this stuff</a>.Mary Worth, 1/12/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120112maryworth.jpg" />Yes, Mary, we all know that your plan to bring Emily back to your hovel in the woods and bake her into a pie is finally coming to fruition, but perhaps you shouldn’t look so transparently gleeful about it?</section> Wed, 10 Sep 2025 08:00:14 +0000 St. Augustine almost certainly liked a good poop joke, actually – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/st-augustine-almost-certainly-liked-a-good-poop-joke-actually/ <section class="post-content">Marvin, 1/13/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120113marvin.jpg" />In this shocking panel, Marvin has taken two thousand years of theology and turned it on its head. In a direct riposte to Calvin, who started from the premise of an omniscient, omnipotent God and declared that our ends were predestined before we were created, leaving any seeming room to maneuver an illusion, Marvin instead preaches the existence of a smug, all-knowing narc, who gave us the power to shape our own destiny just to revel in the certain knowledge that we’ll screw it up and condemn ourselves to damnation. Whether or not you agree with him, you have to admit it’s a welcome change of pace from the constant poop jokes.<a name="spidey"></a>Spider-Man, 1/13/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120113spidey.jpg" />It strikes me as a pretty short trip from “I’ve no way to follow them” to “So why should I even try?” and from there to “I wonder what’s on TV!”</section> Wed, 10 Sep 2025 08:00:15 +0000 Family Circus making “app” jokes = time to jettison all technology forever – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/family-circus-making-app-jokes-time-to-jettison-all-technology-forever/ <section class="post-content">Funky Winkerbean, 1/14/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120114fw.jpg" />So I’ve been pretty much ignoring this week’s Funky Winkerbean, which has been all about the crisis caused by the removal of the vending machines from the school, because, enh, vending machines. Really the only thing of interest so far has been the fact that everyone insists on calling the machines “vendos”, which ranks up with <a href="https://joshreads.com/?p=1375#funky" target="_blank">“solo car date”</a> on the list of Formulations In Funky Winkerbean That Are Linguistically Probable But Nonetheless Never Uttered By Living English-Speaking Humans.BUT! Today we learn that all the angst about this move is not just because everyone loves delicious vending machine food. No, it’s because, like all death-haunted citizens of the Funkyverse, the teachers and students at Westview wish that death would stop haunting them and just show up and take them away from their suffering once and for all. Too terrified to hurl themselves from a bridge or put a shotgun in their mouths or even take up smoking, they at least hope that each day is the day that a bag of sodium-laden chips triggers a massive stroke, after which would come blessed emptiness. But even rides on the carousel of death are now denied to them by their cruel creator.Momma, 1/14/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120114momma.gif" />Ha ha, it’s funny because Momma is an unlettered philistine! Or maybe she got a Kindle? Gah, who can tell, with this art.Family Circus, 1/14/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120114famcirc.jpg" />Now that the Keane Kids, previously Yahweh’s most loyal servants, have switched their allegiances, I guess it’s time for Him to hand over the rulership of creation to our new God, the iPhone. </section> Wed, 10 Sep 2025 08:00:16 +0000 Nature’s fiercest struggle: Mouse vs. lobster – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/natures-fiercest-struggle-mouse-vs-lobster/ <section class="post-content">Beetle Bailey, 1/15/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120115bb.jpg" />This is another strip where the top row of throwaway panels — so called because they’re often discarded by newspapers to cram the strip into various arrangements — completely change the tenor of the strip. Without those first two panels, we have the story that we’ve always been sold about Beetle: that he’s smugly and pathologically lazy. But with those added strips, we see that he only spends as much time as possible in bed because he’s in constant physical pain, no doubt because of some combination of forced manual labor and the beatings he receives daily from Sarge. So too his final panel fantasy becomes much more poignant: it doesn’t represent some kind of apotheosis of sloth, but rather his dream of a job that helps alleviate his all-pervading agony.Mary Worth, 1/15/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120115maryworth.jpg" />So Mary Worth and this waitress have basically been congratulating themselves on saving Emily since about Tuesday, and you know how sometimes something irritating in small doses can become awesome in mass? That’s pretty much how I’m starting to feel about this. I’m hoping the two of them just keep saying this stuff back and forth for another week or two. “Do you think she’ll be OK?” “Hopefully! But the real important thing is that we saved her, together, as a team! We’re amazing!”Panel from Slylock Fox, 1/15/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120115slylockpanels.jpg" />I don’t know what I like best about this: that the sentient lobster is making a desperate bid for freedom to avoid being eaten by the sentient mouse, knowing that it’s either kill or be killed, or that Slylock finds the whole thing so amusing. “Ahh! Ahh! Ahh! It’s tearing my nose apart! For the love of God, Sly, why won’t you help me?” “Heh, heh, Max, looks like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew! Should have had your food-animal killed and slaughtered before you tried to eat it, like I did!”</section> Thu, 11 Sep 2025 08:00:11 +0000 Barely concealed horror edition – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/barely-concealed-horror-edition/ <section class="post-content">Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/16/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120116bgss.jpg" />When I saw the first panel of this strip, I thought, “Wow, it’s a representative of the Hootin’ Holler law enforcement apparatus who isn’t Sheriff Tait! You almost never see them!” Then in the second panel I realized why. Sheriff Tait may have come to some sort of modus vivendi with the violent criminals who inhabit his jurisdiction, but those scofflaws won’t hesitate to murder one of Tait’s employees in cold blood when he tries to do the basics of his job.Hagar the Horrible, 1/16/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120116hth.jpg" />This wizened Viking chieftain may no longer be physically fit enough to join in on his murderous clan’s annual expeditions of rape and plunder, but he still has enough social standing to demand that the raiders bring him back the sex slaves that are his right.Six Chix, 1/16/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120116sixchix.jpg" />I may be revealing my failure as a plugged-in consumer of popular culture here, but I’ve never actually seen the Saturday Night Live “More Cowbell” sketch. My understanding is that it involves Christopher Walken as a music producer, demanding more cowbell over the course of recording a song? I don’t really see how that relates to the scene here, which makes me suspect that the reference was a last-minute nonsensical substitution for the original text, in which this beady-eyed cat expressed its contempt for and violent intentions towards its sleeping family in terms that simply could not be published in a family newspaper.<a name="hero"></a>Panel from Mary Worth, 1/16/11<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120116maryworthpanel.jpg" />Oh, and hey, is Mary Worth using her recent kidnap-foiling to demand that everyone kiss her ass even harder than usual? You’d better believe it!</section> Thu, 11 Sep 2025 08:00:12 +0000 Also, if any of them are smiling, that’s just a clever disguise – The Comics Curmudgeon https://joshreads.com/2012/01/also-if-any-of-them-are-smiling-thats-just-a-clever-disguise/ <section class="post-content">Dick Tracy, 1/17/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120117dt.png" />Hey, everybody, the Dick Tracy gang is on the case, going undercover in a hip (?) nightclub to track down an actual gang, of the drug-smuggling variety, who something something son of old friend of Dick yadda yadda guy named Cueball blah blah cocaine hidden in instrument cases. (Hint to the cops: There are two Cueballs, or Cueball has a twin, or something!) Anyhoo, I mainly want to bring your attention to the little explanatory label in the first panel. Normally these kinds of boxes-with-arrows in Dick Tracy are used to identify bits of improbable high-tech crime-fighting gear, but today’s example mostly seems to be all about assuring us that our law enforcement officers aren’t having even the slightest bit of fun on their mission, so please let’s not have Internal Affairs auditing our expenses, please.Luann, 1/17/12<img decoding="async" src="https://joshreads.com/images/12/01/i120117luann.gif" />Oh snap Ann Eiffel just outed TJ! Or maybe she just intended to insult him in a somewhat homophobic and mildly actionable manner? Either way, even though we’re only like two days into it, I think Ann vs. TJ is going to be less fun than I’d hoped, like everything else that ever happened in Luann ever.</section> Thu, 11 Sep 2025 08:00:13 +0000