Today’s first complaint is simple: Either this is a multi-panel caption contest or GoComics didn’t print the black plate in Barney & Clyde (Counterpoint). But I scrounged around and found a different version. When I was doing education work, I ran Short Cuts, a weekly full-page educational cartoon that was sent in two parts for […]
Monty’s right. Nobody’s reading the paper today, and it’s only in relatively recent years that they’ve even bothered to print on holidays, which, by the way, had a lot to do with not being able to get them delivered because the kids were at Grandma’s. So you have your characters wish readers a happy whatever […]
Creative spelling, as seen in this Moderately Confused (AMS), is an editor’s nightmare, but one that fortunately has morphed out of control in tune with the technical revolution. I used to run honor role listings in the paper, and, for a while, I’d come across some ridiculous version of a common name and call the […]
Today’s Brewster Rockit (Tribune) got a chuckle but it brings up a topic I’ve been meaning to raise. It’s no secret that newspapers are in deep trouble, in part because of changes in how people consume media but mostly because vulture capitalists decided to slaughter the goose so they wouldn’t have to wait for the […]
Ted Rall was hardly the only person who, in 1995, pointed out that Bob Dole was old. And, compared to his opponent in the 1996 election, he was, given that Clinton was 50. Clinton was also the incumbent, but I felt at the time, and still believe today, that Johnny Carson’s flood of “Old Bob […]
We’re not doing political cartoons today, but let’s start with something blatantly political: This past Sunday’s Non Sequitur (AMS). Danae is not alone in her attitude, which is a weakness of the system. When I was going through some newspapers from 1898, I came across an opinion piece by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in which she […]
We’ll start the day with a serious piece of folly before we get into the fun stuff. Guy Badeaux reports that Gary Varvel (Creators) got himself into a jam in Canada after the Toronto Sun ran this anti-Ukraine cartoon in a nation with a very large Ukrainian population. {There are places on the prairies where […]
Zits (KFS) made me smile Sunday. Note that it’s not a slam on the Nutcracker itself, and I like classic ballet. But the guys agree that the same ballet every Christmas gets stale, even as a tradition. My smile came because I’m retired and no longer have the yearly discussion of whether we will send […]
Everything is horrible. We’ll talk about it over the weekend, which is to say, “Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight.” But we’ll start with a Public Service Announcement from the Other Coast (Creators), with a combination of a caution and a suggestion. A dog for Christmas sounds like a lovely idea, but Christmas can be chaotic and […]
Offer to make dinner. Offer to rub her shoulders. Just don’t offer advice. You’re stepping on a rake. Daddy’s Home (Creators) demonstrates something I learned from Deborah Tannen’s 1986 book, That’s Not What I Meant, an analysis of men’s and women’s conversational styles that has since been echoed and confirmed, though mostly by other feminist […]
Dark Side of the Horse (AMS) takes a second look at a silly expression and I’m glad I’m not the only person who thinks that dying young doing something pointless is not a good idea. I gather the expression is supposed to balance the values of a short, thrilling life and a long, boring life, […]
F Minus (AMS) offers an explanation for what’s gone wrong with the world which is both funny and, as is usually the case with funny things, thought-provoking. On the most mundane level, it’s a case of blaming yourself for what’s gone wrong in the world and, certainly, that’s a valid point, particularly if you’ve sat […]
Lemont, the protagonist of Candorville (KFS), spends too much time playing the pedant and correcting people for speaking the way people speak. Sure, he’s correct: “Pin number” is redundant, though I don’t hear people say it nearly as often as I did a decade or so ago. However, “being made redundant” remains both correct and […]
No need for an update today: Lynn Hsu lays out my life in all the detail anyone needs, several times repeatedly as ordered. To be honest, it varies greatly from department to department, which I know because I’ve reached the fabled three score and ten years, at which point you spend more time down at […]
Paul Noth having summed up the Nov 24 election, we move on to further action, later in the game. That phrase is a bit of nostalgia for fans of the Notre Dame Football Replay that aired on Sundays and depleted attendance at the 10:30 Mass. They had to fit it into the time slot, so […]