Maria Scrivan — whom I will see in a day or two at CXC — offers a funny/not funny Half Full, the kind where first you laugh and then you sink into a reverie. Oh, honey, nobody reads the terms and conditions. Well, except for Robert Sikoryak, who found a way to make Apple’s […]
A bit of politics before we go for the laughs. I was surprised that NASA’s asteroid deflection drew so much attention, since they’ve been talking about it for several years. I was also surprised that several cartoonists, including Kevin Necessary, greeted it with a “Why are we doing that?” response. I think the last time […]
I’m not in a political mood today, but I’ll feature this Carpe Diem (KFS) because I’m pretty sure that, since Niklas Eriksson lives in Sweden and his panel is not political, his lead time was significant and this is a coincidence. I wouldn’t run it if I thought he were drawing a fist-bump cartoon not […]
This Man Overboard is as close to political as I plan to get today, but I’m willing to stand by it. I like the idea that the bigot doesn’t think he’s a bigot, because we’re seeing a lot of that as people nail down their opinions and solidify whatever confirms what they thought before anything […]
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 […]
Pearls Before Swine (AMS) sets the mood for the day. Rat seems to have caught on to the fact that confrontation simply doesn’t work in a world in which team loyalty is more important than logic. Pat Byrnes (Cagle) is right: The current crop of Republicans would absolutely reject Abraham Lincoln’s stances, though they’re […]
Maria Scrivan is a pretty upbeat person, which makes today’s Half Full (AMS) particularly striking, because behind those lovely doughnuts she packs an exasperated punch. Having worked in both advertising and commentary, I’m aware that there is nothing you can say, however plain, however obvious, that someone won’t misinterpret or, as in her cartoon, completely […]
Existential Comics gave me a laugh this morning when most quasi-political attempts at humor have failed, and I suspect this one was in the works before last week’s upheaval anyway. We read “Das Kapital” in college, but I don’t remember much about Marx’s personal life. On the other hand, I have encountered this monomoniacal True […]
Timing Is Everything Dept. — Man, I wish I’d had today’s Non Sequitur (AMS) yesterday when I was defending Dylan’s decision to sell his catalog rather than administer it himself. Wiley penned this well before the announcement, but he does sum it up nicely. Arlo, in Arlo & Janis (AMS), frequently reflects on age, […]
(Non Sequitur — AMS) (Prickly City — AMS) The most unpleasant part of our current situation is that a pair of cartoonists, working from different sides of the political spectrum, could drop such spot-on strips today, despite each working with a substantial lead time. We’re that divided politically, and, more than that, we’ve also divided […]
Lead time can be as amusing as the comics themselves, and however long ago she filed this Half-Full (AMC), Maria Scrivan — one of the nicest cartoonists in the world — makes an inadvertent Jeffery Toobin joke. I have some sympathy for Toobin, because I often just restart my phone to get some persistent app […]
This week’s story arc in Betty has them contemplating the collection of snow globes they’ve accumulated in their travels, with the central question being “Why on earth did we accumulate all these snow globes?” Apparently, they weren’t being ironic, though snow globes from tacky gift shops might be an interesting thing to collect. And by […]
Half Full is one of several cartoons about the switch from Good Ol’ Reggaler Time to Daylight Saving Not “Savings” Time, but it’s my favorite. Maria Scrivan is more iconic than gag-oriented and this is a topic well-worn enough that there aren’t a lot of good gags left, but an illustrator with a sense of […]
We’ll start the Halloween rundown with Sunday’s Pajama Diaries, which raises the question, “What’s with all the ‘Sexy-whatever’ costumes?” I suppose one interpretation could be that Moms don’t get a lot of opportunities to be sexy, though, as suggested here, they’re too busy in the first place. For my part, I’m less fascinated by the […]
We’ll start today with an “I told you so,” illustrated by Wiley Miller, because I had been telling people to get up here and look at the leaves by Columbus Day Weekend. It was a very good, not quite spectacular year, with a lot of color though a little bit muted. Dr. Johnson said […]