I’ve never been a big fan of the sort of international editorial cartoons that consist of metaphors instead of storytelling. I don’t necessarily want a gag, and, in fact, direct attempts at humor generally seem forced,though there are some cartoonists, like David Horsey, whose art style works well with sarcasm.But I generally want a coherent […]
Thanks to John Deering of Strange Brew for providing the silly joke I was just in the mood for.Smokey stars in about as many jokes and cartoons as he does public service announcements. He has got to be one of the most successful promotional characters ever created. When I was a little guy, I thought […]
It’s common for cartoonists of domestic strips like “Zits” or “the Lockhorns” to hear, “You must be looking in our windows!” from people who see their own lives reflected in the strip.With this story arc, however, Cul de Sac creator Richard Thompson is venturing into Vulcan Mind Meld territory. I cannot wait to see how […]
Jen Sorensen isn’t the first cartoonist to work with the concept that the president has gone too far for too little, or that the Republicans are being not simply stubborn but purposefully obstructive. But I like the blandness of this Slowpoke, the way the matter-of-fact depictions clash with the absurd demands they illustrate.There are aspects […]
Penny Arcade is one of the major commercial successes in web comics. I realize “commercial success” can sound condescending in some contexts, but I mean it in a complimentary sense here: The strip is well-drawn, breaks some rules and attracts the kind of geek audience that hangs out on the Internets. In addition, its creators […]
Stick with me on this one, because, while for most visitors here, South Africa is a world away geographically and pretty remote in other ways as well, the ongoing squabbles between cartoonist Zapiro and President Jacob Zuma are an important study in press freedom and responsible political commentary.The latest news is that, although Zuma was […]
A quick return to “Big Nate,” because, having escaped with his life from Junior Lifesaving training, Nate has now joined the summer book club down at the library. He’s there for the snacks, but, as you see, he’s about to read a book.Or pretend to. We’ll see.At some point, perhaps in just a few weeks, […]
Agnes is a quiet little strip that delivers a chuckle on its worst days and, on its best, the horrified giggle you get by watching someone about to blunder into a travesty of your own most feared social anxieties. Sort of like watching Mannix walk into a dark room and knowing that he’s about to […]
PC & Pixel is featured today based on a very simple rule: You don’t get points for a cartoon that I have to stare at while I figure it out. But you get megapoints if I bust up laughing when I finally recognize the gag.Now I’m reluctant to comment directly because maybe you’re going … […]
This past Christmas, I gave my older son, a Gulf veteran, a copy of “War is Boring,” the graphic memoir about the compelling addiction of covering armed conflicts, done by war correspondent David Axe and cartoonist Matt Bors. He took a while to pick it up and then reported that, while he liked it very […]
Vic Lee touches on a pet peeve with only a little bit of exaggeration in today’s “Pardon My Planet.”It’s nearly impossible to defend spanking, though most parents’s feelings on the topic are similar to the old Irish saying about fairies: “I don’t believe in them, but they’re there.”Anyone who believes in spankings is a barbarian. […]
Arlo & Janis touches upon one of the great truths of American education.It took me a little over a week, my freshman year, to realize, not that sophomores were all idiots, but that the biggest idiots on campus were all sophomores.I’d have tumbled to it a little sooner, but we had a week of orientation […]
Tank McNamara is a funny strip, and I don’t just mean that in the ha-ha sense. It is essentially the Doonesbury of sports strips and, as with Doonesbury, there are times when you have to check to see if Millar and Hinds are riffing on an actual event or just inventing an absurd situation […]
Mike Thompson takes on the latest idiot distraction, the alleged banning of incandescent light bulbs.There’s nothing new about populist demagogues pandering to the mob with distorted fears of things in their daily lives while more sweeping issues go unremarked. But Thompson does well to riff off the fact that there has never been a time […]
I’ve learned not to predict too much about what I’ll never do, but I did like today’s Rudy Park.Rudy Park is a partnership between Darrin Bell of Candorville and Theron Heir, who is actually Matt Richtel of the NY Times, using a pseudonym for reasons that probably made sense once but now mostly bring up […]