Frazz is my favorite educational comic: I didn’t know that “boutonnière” is French for the buttonhole you stick your boutonniere in.And that link taught me all sorts of other things I didn’t know, including that jackets not only used to have real buttonholes there (which I did know) but that there was a loop behind […]
Wyatt brings a touch of reality to kids’ “What if I were a superhero?” fantasy.There are many ways being a superhero doesn’t work in real life, ranging from the now-iconic moment in the 1978 Superman movie where Clark realizes there aren’t any phone booths anymore to Larry Niven’s classic discussion of his sex life, “Man of Steel, […]
Watson’s been on a roll lately, and today offers up a good intro for some themed parenting thoughts.It’s as dangerous to play the “all parents” game as it is to play the “all anybody” game, though comedy relies on stereotypes and assumptions. I’ve offered a quick “well done” to parents of young children as we […]
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 […]
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 […]
Last week, I praised Humon as an artist willing to try variety and new things.Now the latest Tom the Dancing Bug makes an argument about the web as innovation killer, which, at first glance, seems counterintuitive. The promise of the web was that artists and musicians would no longer be in thrall to gatekeepers.And that’s true, […]
Well, back to the real world, but, before saying goodbye Columbus (bet they never heard that one before), some deserving leftovers that didn’t fit in the previous entries but were certainly worthy of mention and may push someone just past the balance point into deciding to come out here.And while I wonder — in the […]
I said before that the Danny-Goes-To-University theme at Between Friends was going to be a rich vein for Sandra Bell Lundy, and it is proving to be just that.I also said then that she had set Kim up well, since Kim is not overly neurotic as a parent and so the issue can unfold on […]
Can’t relate to this Rhymes With Orange too directly because we only use the ATM, and the dog doesn’t expect food until he sees a person. On the other hand, going to the coffeeshop’s driveup leaves him disappointed indeed, since you don’t get french fries with a cup of coffee, and our routine is that […]
One of my favorite kinds of joke is the kind that plants a naughty, inescapable giggle, almost like an ear worm, so that it pops up every time you see the trigger.I don’t find the stick-figure families on the back windows of cars all that obnoxious. It’s not bragging, like the honor-role kid stickers, or […]
(Please, please click on the pic for the larger version)The Gutters is primarily an insider send-up of the comic book industry, with guest artists from within the business, which basically means it has great art but that, being a comic strip person rather than a comic book person, I don’t get the references most days.I got this […]
A few notable mentions as the comic community reacts to the shootings in Aurora CO. The Globe and Mail removed last Friday’s editorial cartoon because it contained a reference to the Batman movie. No information was given about the cartoon, so I’m not sure what exactly it was depicting, but because it was most likely […]
A near-mint first edition of a Batman comic book has sold for $850,000 in a private transaction through Heritage Auction. The edition was first printed in 1940. The new owners are only disclosed as an “investor partnership.”
According to an article on pinknews.co.uk (Europe?s Largest Gay News Network), Action Comics writer Grant Morrison says the Batman character is gay. “Gayness is built into Batman,” he said, adding, “I’m not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There’s just no denying it. Obviously as a fictional character he’s […]
It’s been just over a year since Joe Staton and Mike Curtis took over and revitalized the venerable Dick Tracy franchise, and they’ve really hit a nice stride with shorter arcs and villains that are just evil enough to be villains and just silly enough to be fun. Any nitwit can create a hero or a leading […]