Presidents’ Day invariably involves snow in this part of the country, and, yes, finding a stick is finding a treasure. I have varying memories of the day:The Great Ice Storm of 1998 occurred just after New Years, but an after-effect of that disaster was that because schools in Northern New York were closed for a […]
Before diving into today’s comics let’s give a little throwback love to Percy Crosby. That was a beautiful Skippy panel that Skippy Inc. and GoComics ran two days ago. It really makes us yearn for the days when cartoonists had the acreage to display their pen and ink talents. Hat tip to Jef Mallett for […]
When I was the at-home parent, I did most of my writing at night, and I had a clock on my desk set for 12:30, in part because I needed the reminder to get to bed, but also, as Kim notes, as a matter of quality control. Anything I wrote much after 12:30 was going […]
We’ll let Mads Horwath reply to all the strips in which kids try to be good in the week before Christmas, hoping to make up for 51 weeks of normal behavior. The idea of Santa Claus rewarding good children and punishing bad children goes back a long way, and I have to hope that not […]
The top tier of Jeff Mallett‘s treatise on Christmas traditions in today’s Frazz hits on the American Santa Claus as a long-standing part of Yuletide season, ending with Thomas Nast‘s personification of the elflord.The Birth of a Holiday and the American Santa ClausYesterday Talmadge Boston for The Dallas Morning News told us the story of […]
Christmas greetings from First Dog, who gets special placement today because he likes mince pies and fruitcake. I’ve made something of a tradition here of mocking cartoons that mock fruitcake, because it’s a grownup treat and so takes a lot of unwarranted abuse. But here’s a strip from 2002 that explains what has happened to […]
I suppose if you’re going to mock the word “stochastic,” you shouldn’t use a relevant cartoon to open the discussion. I finally looked it up because everyone has been writing about stochastic terrorism and stochastic this or that. It just means random, which is awfully close to not meaning anything, or at least, it’s close […]
It happens, and I’m leading off with Clay Jones’ version because he acknowledged what is known in the trade as a “Yahtzee.” I hate it when another cartoonist does the same idea that I draw, but honestly, this one doesn’t surprise me, as this might be an obvious joke. Oh well. If similar cartoons drop within […]
Back when I was that age corporal punishment in schools was alive and well, at least in the religious school I attended, and a comeback like that would have sent me to the principal’s office for a meeting with “the board of education”; if not an immediate slap upside the head. A Public Service for […]
If I were still editing a kid-written weekly feature, we’d have already had our annual Nutcracker-or-Christmas-Carol discussion. I miss the kids, but I don’t miss trying to cover this pair of mandatory holiday extravaganzas. The Nutcracker was easier, because, while it barely changes each year, we had enough kids who actually knew something about ballet […]
God Bless The Child That Got Their OwnIt’s very possible that the ages of the kids in Crabgrass and Frazz has been mentioned before and I never paid attention to it, but I always figured that they were a couple years older than what was established in today’s strips. Having grandchildren currently in the 7-9 […]
I’d like to apologize to the world for somehow having exported Black Friday around the globe. There are a lot things we Americans could apologize for, though Dancing with the Stars was not our idea, nor was the Amazing Singing Head, another program I only know about because they run promos during more interesting things. […]
My friend got some bad news at the doctor’s this week. A new endocrinologist said he was very impressed with how she handled her various health issues and assured her that she had several more decades ahead of her. That’s the sort of prognosis that would have been welcome in our 50s but isn’t particularly […]
I was just remembering all the time I spent in the principal’s office in high school, and here’s Andertoons pinging those memories again. The only time I was in there for anything serious was when I was caught smoking in the boys’ room (which would make a good song!). The others mostly involved mischief.It wasn’t […]
This Arctic Circle came the day after we were remarking that the geese seem as off-schedule as everything else this year. We’re in an extreme drought, so the foliage has been disappointing and whether it’s lousy weather or climate change, a lot has not happened on time. But suddenly we’re getting skeins of geese, and […]