Candorville not only strikes a personal note, but prompts some consumer information.I’d like to see some kind of action against deceptive use of “pre-qualified,” but action against deceptive marketing went out of favor in the Reagan years. Caveat emptor, baby!Today, as Lemont learns, “pre-qualified” means you have a mailing address.When I got my first credit […]

I’ve known Brian Fies since the turn of the century, before he began unveiling pages of “Mom’s Cancer”at rec.arts.comics.strips for feedback, when he was simply one more poster there, though an amusing and insightful one.As his project evolved from webcomic to book, the group got a good look at how Brian views the intersection of […]

At Between Friends, while Maeve ponders quitting her job to gallivant off with her wealthy boyfriend, her assistant Helen contemplates what would happen to her then, and wonders if it’s time to retire.I’m sympathetic. Having “retired” at the start of my career in order to try being a novelist, I’m now in a position where […]

Start with a curiosity before getting into heavier topics: Francis, in which Brother Leo is a fool in the classic, Christian sense.I liked the Latin mass, both because liturgy should inspire a little awe, and because of its universality. I went to mass in Switzerland in 1965, as the mass was being divided into parts […]

Best way to start this off is with a Jimmy Margulies cartoon that admittedly is not his most recent, but which does seem to capture the Trump administration’s policy, to the extent that they have an actual policy at all.It’s an oversimplification: Trump is actually rolling back policies that go at least to Richard Nixon, […]

News update: Friend-of-the-Blog Brian Fies has lost his home in the California wildfires, as did Jeannie Schulz, though the Peanuts museum is reportedly okay. Everyone is safe, but a lot of memories lost. Pearls Before Swine cartoonist Stephan Pastis reported last night that he does not know the fate of his home in Santa Rosa, […]

Having done a lot of talk in the past couple of days, I’m correcting the average with a look back a half century at Oct 9, 1967.There were several strips I had forgotten, but also several I’d never seen before.Here’s a heaping helping of 10/09/67, with minimal commentary: (A little commentary here — We didn’t know […]

Just as I was discussing the inability of editors to either judge cartoons or find someone on their staff who can, a stunning example comes to the fore.The editorial page editor of the Jacksonville Florida Times-Union has begun putting pretty pictures on his Sunday editorial page in place of editorial cartoons.He explained the decision Sept […]

No major theme today, but some things I’ve wanted to share … Rex Morgan is, for the moment, leaving the Morgan family to sort out adding another toddler to the brood in order to focus on cartoon forgery.  About a year ago, the Morgans moved into a new house and discovered a cache of old comics […]

Mr. Boffo stopped me in my tracks this morning.At first, I thought it meant his parents had somehow switched him to something G-rated, but then it hit me and knocked me over.Joe Martin is not often this heavy, but he sure kicked out the jams today.I’m not sure when the Andy Griffith Show lost focus, […]

(Frazz)(Warped)I often kind of pray each morning for some funny stuff that’s more compelling than the political stuff. There are times it’s like pulling for a horse who was way in the back of the pack on the backstretch, but I’m old enough to remember Silky Sullivan, so wotthehell.Perhaps I should have said “wotthe#@*&” because […]

As frequent visitors know, I particularly like Juxtapositions when they happen to fall one after the other on the page. Such was the case this morning with Pros & Cons and Piranha Club.What I liked even more, in an admittedly dark way, is that 48 hours ago, they wouldn’t have seemed like a juxtaposition, in […]

Several cartoonists posted work from the past on Facebook and Twitter yesterday, and I began collecting it on the assumption that few would move quickly to address the Vegas shootings.In fact, quite a few did, but I’m leading with this John Cole 2015 piece because it’s an excellent summary of a common thread, and it’s […]

Today’s Monty got a particular laff because I was checking out a guy’s rug on TV yesterday and wondering why he would wear such a ridiculous hat, particularly since, as a guy rich enough to be on television regularly, he could probably afford a toop that looked like perhaps his own hair.I mean, I wouldn’t […]

Our theme today, to the extent that we have one, will be about people whose company you didn’t want anyway, and what better lead off than dear little Agnes trying to be a social success?And dear little Trout, ever the Greek chorus of uncomfortable truth.Agnes and Trout are part of a tradition of madcap girls, […]