Today’s Rubes (Creators) brings back memories of being a reporter at a paper in a city on Lake Champlain, which has its own cryptozoological mascot that people honest-to-Marlin-Perkins believe in, “Champy.” A lot of people believe in him but nobody seems to have ever gotten a clear shot of him, but I do remember one […]
Best way to shut me up is to draw the perfect cartoon. Too Much Coffee Man has done just that. Fortunately, the effect is temporary. Matt Golding usually ends up in political cartoon postings, but this one is purely social, and let’s note that obnoxious people with leaf blowers are blowing leaves Down Under. Up […]
I believe comics can be educational without being educational comics, and today’s Rubes (Creators) brought to mind a visit to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo when my boys were about three and seven. We had a family membership and visited often, and I think the boys learned something every time, but never so much as the […]
Frazz (AMS) starts us off with a head-scratcher. I think the observation is right, but it comes from a direction I hadn’t explored, so it set me back a bit. There are those who object to fans using “we” at all, but that’s nonsense. Why bother having uniforms or selling gear if you don’t want […]
The world is full of weighty matters, but we’re going to, in the words of Eddy Arnold, make the world go away and get it off our shoulders. And, yes, I know it was written by Hank Cochran, but this is being written by me and we’re not picking nits today. Okay, we are. But […]
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 […]
Let’s start with Daddy’s Home (Creators) and no, I haven’t finished doing my taxes yet, but I’m finished dealing with the cost of putting kids through college, and somewhere in my storehouse of columns I wrote in the 90s is a rant about how college costs should be tax deductible. And now they are sorta […]
Francis (AMS) combines the dread news of the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with the beginning of Ramadan to make a point about the sudden urge to Do Something as compared to having an ongoing tradition of Doing Something. Ramadan began this week, but, of course, an observant Muslim like Gabby […]
It’s National Grammar Day, and Day By Dave (AMS) celebrates it by dragging fingernails across a blackboard. Using “should of” for “should have” is not a grammatical error, dammit. It’s a usage error. Or, if you really want to shut them up, point out that it’s a case of catachresis. And note, that, as it […]
Good thinking, Willie. I’m gonna throttle back a little myself. It’s not that there’s no news to analyze, but much of it is News of the Stupid, and I don’t have the energy. Critical analysis isn’t like declassifying top-secret documents: You have to do more than just think about it. For instance, while I […]
If you’re old enough to remember The Comic Weekly Man, you’re also old enough to make the connection between Big Ben Bolt (KFS)‘s current opponent in the 1963 Vintage Sunday arc, Chief Thunderhand, and his very close namesake, Chief Thunderthud. I don’t know why it didn’t hit me until today, but, once it did, Cowabunga! […]
Macanudo (KFS) offers an uplifting thought, and we could all use one about now. There is a kind of conceptual collision between the saying “Curiosity killed the cat” and the semifolkloric belief that they possess nine lives. Well, a cat may look at a king and also become fascinated by a laser, and the ability […]
In Agnes (Creators), Trout is only pretending to be obsessed with uncertainty, but she’d do well on social media, where knee-jerk skepticism is generally mistaken for wisdom. It’s good to be skeptical. You should question everything. Howsoever, there is a level of fundamentalist disbelief which is every bit as irrational as fundamental belief. Also, equally […]
Timing is part of context, at least to the extent that, had this Rubes (Creators) run in December, it wouldn’t have taken me so long to get the joke. Not saying that’s a bad thing or a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with making an extra demand or two of your audience, and I probably […]
Before we get into the Juxtapositions, a couple of cartoons that pinged me on a personal level. Macanudo (KFS) hits on a particular favorite, because we read “Great Expectations” in junior high and I didn’t get it, except, wow, a surprise ending. But, yes, I can put a peg in the ground to mark who […]