Glenn McCoy leads off the weekly foray into politics with a plain statement about where we’re at.People who bridle at having to vote for the lesser of two evils might be tempted to stay home in November, except that the Republicans are providing two strong motivations for voting: Hatred or fear of one of the likely […]

One of the small frustrations I face on this blog is trying to figure out when to point out a promising arc, and Piranha Club is one of a handful of strips that repeatedly triggers it by having “suck you in” pacing, such that you don’t realize how good a story arc is until you’re […]

My trip back a half century the other day sparked some curiosity, and when I did a little poking around this morning, it turns out that a quarter century ago today, papers were covering the news that Saddam Hussein had announced his withdrawal from Kuwait. So here are some cartoons from that date, and let me […]

Between Friends is right at the head of the line among strips that sometimes get it so right that the humor sort of fades into the background and the response is “yeah.”Not “Yeah” and certainly not “Yeah!” but just … yeah.Lovely timing, because not 24 hours ago, I unfollowed — not “unfriended,” but close enough […]

 Today’s comics provided a cascade of health-related juxtapositions to write about, starting with Candorville (which happens to be a rerun, but it’s a really good rerun) and, yes, exactly, Lemont.And this is a good argument for having kids before you’re too old to get down on the floor with them and disappear into their world, […]

I’m not feeling blabby today, so here are some strips from a half century ago. I’ve cleaned them up a bit but, of course, there are limits to what you can do. There are also limits to what you can figure out about a strip when you drop in on a random date for a […]

The other day, I belittled comic book collecting and other speculative bubbles, and now comes the Blabbing Baboon to make the excellent point that, as long as buyers believe in the value, value exists. As it happens, when I went through my (mercifully shorter) period of unemployment seven years ago, I sold off the bulk […]

I think the place to start this foray back into politics is with Prickly City, because the biggest issue facing the country is not who’s right or who’s wrong but the incredible divisions growing between us.And we shouldn’t pass it off with a shrug and “they all do it.””They’re trying to kill me,” Yossarian told […]

The joke here is that, if I had used pen-and-ink instead of doing this on the computer, the results, given my artistic skills, would be pretty much the same.The point is more serious, though only my opinion and perhaps more of a kvetch than a critique. The old guys in the backshop at one of my […]

Since Jim Horwitz posted Watson’s tribute to the Phantom yesterday afternoon, I’ve been on a nostalgia trip almost as directionless and disjointed as the strip itself.I’m not even clear on whether “directionless and disjointed” is criticism or simply an accurate description of Lee Falk’s strip, which not only pioneered the costumed superhero genre — appearing before […]

Valentine’s Day seems to have gang aft a bit aglee this year, with so many strips saluting endangered or destroyed relationships that I can only feature a few, starting with Luann, who appears to have cut things off with her Aussie.I say “appears” because she also “appears” to be jumping the gun and assuming things […]

The John Locher Award has a new website and an expanded criteria for eligibility that includes graphic journalists and web cartoonists. Application for the award is now free. For full eligibility details, visit the new site. Entry deadline is April 15.

As this Lenten avoiding-political-cartoons things progresses, I’m finding how hard it is to draw the line, not simply because so many strips specifically include politics, but because even the ones that don’t — like today’s Daddy’s Home — take on a political spin when your feed is suddenly full of conspiracy theories based on Scalia’s […]

 Tank McNamara’s “Sports Jerk of the Year” awards are one of my favorite annual events, but, when I was thinking of potential nominees, Sepp Blatter never crossed my mind.I think the reason for that is that I don’t think of his style of corruption as being part of “sports” so much as being part of […]

While I’m adjusting to apolitical weekdays, here are a pair of worthy publications I’ve been meaning to review.Ed Stein’s Sleeper Avenue is a sometimes sweet, sometimes slightly biting, memoir of growing up a half century ago, and he’s gathered his stories into a book format.I was looking back in my archives for a sample from a […]