Ivan Turgenev’s On the Eve is one of my favorite novels, but it bombed in Russia when it was published in 1859, in large part because it was dismissive of effete student idealists who talked reform and accomplished nothing, as one of them admitted: Plus ca change, baby, though I’d suggest that Jeff Danziger (Counterpoint) […]
This first point isn’t trivial, but it is personal. Greg Kearney notes the looming cuts at UMaine Farmington, a school I had contact with when I was editing the local paper. The school impressed me because I’d lived in another college town and it was nice, for a change, that downtown merchants didn’t have to […]
(Rabbits Against Magic — AMS) (Prickly City — AMS) Politics are everywhere, and it’s good to see them on the funny pages because it just might get someone who actively avoids thinking to give it a try. That may be a pretty slim slice of the pie: I doubt the people who most need to […]
Arlo and Janis (AMS) offers some annoying truth about design over function. Granted, Arlo and I are both old enough to remember life before remotes at all, as well as corded remotes that you couldn’t lose but you could trip over. But flatscreens have done away with easy-to-use backup controls, because there isn’t sufficient depth […]
Our comment feature appears to be broken beyond repair, at least for our current platform, which inspires (finally!) a redesign, which will take a while. In the meantime, we hope you’ll give us feedback on the social media where we announce our new postings. (Illo by Henry Justice Ford) There’s a lot of political […]
John Deering (Creators) starts us off with a puzzler: How long do people think they’re going to be snowed in? I knew people who were without power for two weeks following the Ice Storm of 1998, but that was a major disaster and most of them were able to get out of their houses after […]
Nobody, I said, as I slid down the bannister, could call me a fussy man, but I’m not eating at a place — as demonstrated in today’s Zits (KFS) — where they go out of their way to prevent the dishwasher from cleaning the silverware. I assume putting the saucers together is to make unloading […]
Big Nate (AMS) has wisely enlisted Dee Dee to help him find a Christmas present for his sister, which sends our brave lad into the forbidden world of estrogen. I like that Dee Dee uses the term “cute,” because it’s one of the most flexible terms in the female lexicon and can be applied to […]
A laugh from Mr. Boffo to start the day. Joe Martin’s sense of humor is based on the loveable loser, and a formula in which a sensible opening tumbles into bathos, and it certainly works for me, particularly since, before going through the day’s cartoons, I begin with a stroll through social media to catch […]
Since my headline is a takeoff on a Churchyism, I’ll start the day with a suggestion for anyone within range of Columbus. Bado’s Blog passes along this news of a new exhibit at the Billy Ireland and so do I and, for that matter, so does the Billy Ireland its own self, which also has […]
Reply All (WPWG) speaks for me, though even in a virus-free world, I wouldn’t have to go through all that. It’s one of the chief benefits of retirement. I knew I had settled into my middle-management niche when I grasped the proper way to handle the holiday party: Show up, get one drink, eat some […]
Given the number of narwhal references already in social media, we’re bound to get a flood of narwhal cartoons as soon as everyone gets back to work. But it wasn’t Thanksgiving in the UK and so Bob Moran gets out front with a cartoon nobody’s going to match anyway. Moran’s depiction of these everyday Superheroes […]
Ben Garrison is almost certainly the most reviled cartoonist among cartoonists, not because he is conservative — there are several conservative cartoonists in the “agree to disagree” category — but because he is ham-handed and, as seen in this recent piece, prone to concepts that, if not clinically paranoid, are at least doctrinaire to the […]
Let’s at least start with something uplifting: Doc and Raider‘s lovely portrait of Montreal this time of year. Somebody was celebrating the resurgence of independent bookstores the other day and I made the point that, for all NYC types celebrate the original anchors, once Barnes & Noble and Borders went corporate, their big box stores did […]