The Phantom: The Challenge 2015-05-11 - 2015-09-12

Get comfortable everyone, because this is going to be a long one. Long and irritating.

The Phantom, 2015-05-12.

Love is a battlefield

Panel from Mary Worth, 2015-08-09.

That's an interesting choice of quotation. Is it supposed to imply that Toby and Ian are at war?

As though one Les Moore wasn't bad enough...

If you haven't been keeping up with Funky Winkerbean lately, you've been missing out. Although it's normally one of King Features worse offerings, Tom Batiuk has really outdone himself this time, descending to almost Brooke McEldowneyan levels.

I hope the pool has a good filter

Panels from Mary Worth 2015-07-26.

Ew.

Who likes golf? Not Dagwood!

In 1970 I interviewed the late Chic Young, creator of Blondie, when he had been writing and drawing that strip­ daily and Sunday-for forty years, or 14,500 strips. It was the most popular of all comic strips, reaching 60 million readers in every corner of the world and in many languages, and I asked him the secret of its durability.

"It's durable because it's simple, " he said. "It's built on four things that everybody does: sleeping, eating, raising a family and making money." The comic twists on these four themes are as various in the strip as they are in life. Dag­wood's efforts to get money from his boss, Mr. Dithers, have their perpetual counterweight in Blondie's efforts to spend it. "I try to keep Dagwood in a world that people are used to, " Young said. "He never does anything as special as playing golf, and the people who come to the door are just the people that an average family has to deal with."

- William Zinsser (On Writing Well)

Blondie, 2014-11-08.

Blondie, 2014-11-10.

Blondie, 2015-04-08.

Blondie, 2015-04-12.

OK, so technically he's not actually playing real golf in any of these strips, but...

Ziggy is even weirder than you thought

Between Friends, 2015-02-16.

Oh no, some complete strangers you'll probably never see again may have heard you singing along to some music! What a calamity! How will you ever live it down? Oh wait, I know - by just carrying on with your life and forgetting about it like literally everyone else already has.

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Six Chix, 2015-02-17.

I can't even focus on the whole "the cows don't want the bull to go because he's good at sex" aspect of this, because what are those horrifying lumps on their backs? They remind me of the stumps left after Matt Damon's wings are cut off in Dogma.

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The Buckets, 2015-02-20.

You know, someday you and everyone who ever knew you or even heard your name will be dead and forgotten. Your existence is a mere speck of dust compared with the vastness of space and time. Bet you feel pretty foolish for caring about things now.

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Nancy, 2015-02-21.

What's that you say? Having a character repeat everything the person on the other end of the line says back to them for the sake of the audience is lazy and sounds terribly unnatural? Well, how would you have done it then? Oh, have the dialogue balloon come from the phone like most cartoonists do? Well, sure, I guess that works. Have a panel showing the other side of the phone call? Yeah, you could do it that way. Just phrase the dialogue in such a way as to make it obvious what the second person is saying? Well, now you're just talking crazy.

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Ziggy, 2015-02-22.

The implications of this are staggering. Ziggy is a comic in which every single person or animal its protagonist encounters is a condescending jerk to him and everything he does ends in dismal failure - and apparently that's all his own weird fantasy. He's playing a virtual-reality game of his own design in which all this happens. And while he plays it, he's not wearing any pants. Just let that sink in for a moment.

Cupid should be locked up

Buni, 2015-02-13.

I don't think I've seen Cupid's arrows equated with date rape before. That's dark.

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Dark Side of the Horse, 2015-02-13.

Whereas this is just funny. No commentary, I just liked it.

The office of yesterday, today!

Office Hours, 1966-11-25.

I love how many things in this single panel are so clearly indicative of the time period it was published in, but what I really love is that you can still see all these things in comic strips being written and published today. Even the smoking in the office, if we count Shoe's open-air newspaper office.

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Marvin, 2015-02-10.

Because he's a baby! God damn, what the fuck is wrong with you, Tom Armstrong?

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Grand Avenue, 2015-02-10.

Perfect dialogue! Now it can be repeated at any time with no alterations!

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Blondie, 2015-02-12.

I can't decide if this is clever or not. It's Blondie, so probably not.

This blog also available on devices

Herb and Jamaal, 2015-02-09.

I just really love Herb and Jamaal's vagueness, especially when it comes to technology. Those things we have in our pockets? You know, you use them to make calls, send text messages... what do you call those things? Oh, I know, devices!

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Rudy Park, 2015-02-09.

Candorville, 2015-02-09.

Darrin Bell dedicated both of his terrible comics today to the same idiotic bullshit.

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WuMo, 2015-02-09.

Huh? What's wrong with February?

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Apartment 3-G, 2015-02-09.

So, I guess the twist in this Apartment 3-G storyline is that Diane is a clone of Gabriella?

Don't trust anyone over thirty

Curtis, 2015-02-05.

Are we seriously expected to believe that Curtis doesn't like any musicians who are over the age of 30? Really?

Bad pet owners

Marvin, 2015-02-04.

Does that mean his office is an entire floor?

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Hazel, 2015-02-04.

Don't feed your cat milk, adult cats are lactose intolerant.

Mysteries of physics and language

B.C. 2015-02-03.

How do those wheel contraptions work, anyway? There's no pedals, and you never see anyone putting their foot on the ground to push off like on a skateboard. Not that that would even work with that design. Once the wheel is in motion they'd be OK, but how do you get started?

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The Born Loser, 2015-02-03.

That's not what surf and turf is. Either of those options. Surf and turf is steak with seafood, usually stuff like calamari, mussels, scallops and prawns. I've never seen steak served with lobster.

Bad advice and inaccuracies

Dog Eat Doug, 2015-01-02.

They do though. They're called "comics".

Flo and Friends, 2015-01-02.

PSA: Chiropractors are dangerous charlatans.

I Don't Get It

B.C. 2015-01-30.

But Peter's wearing even less himself.