Comics of the Day

Worst: What bothers me about this strip is the fact that Connie seems upset about spoiling Jeremy. But of course she has agency in this problem. If she pampers her kid too much, she must accept that he is going to expect to be pampered. Any kid old enough to get a learner's permit is old enough to handle his own water. The comics are rife with poor parenting.

Runners-up: Family Circus (the split dialogue is very awkward, Dolly looks like a complete idiot), Hagar the Horrible, Blondie, Red and Rover, Rhymes with Orange, Mother Goose and Grimm, Close to Home, Beetle Bailey, For Better or For Worse, Tank MacNamara (if an outfield did nothing well but made no mistakes, they could be average), Agnes

Best:
No comic really jumped out at me today, but this is my winner. I'm intrigued by the potential plot developments here. BD once thought about having an affair with Melissa. Could Garry Trudeau be revisiting that idea? Might BD become a therapist? Am I reading to much into this? Anyway, I found BD's response in panel four to be kind of sweet. In general, I don't think Doonesbury has gotten enough love on my blog because it's often not that funny. But it excels in character development and storytelling. It's definitely one of the better strips out there.

Runners-up: Get Fuzzy, Pooch Cafe, Curtis (I like the weather and warrants permitting line), Dennis the Menace (not bad today, which exceeds expectations, so it earns a runner-up nod)

Comics of the Day

Worst: Dumb punch line, awkward set-up, mediocre art. We have a winner.

Runners-up: Speed Bump, Red and Rover (fart jokes are the last refuge of the unfunny), Hagar the Horrible, Blondie

Best:

Awesome on so many levels.

Runners-up: Baby Blues, Pearls Before Swine, Garfield (Elf slapping: the next Olympic sport?), Frazz

Comics of the Day, Sunday

Worst:


Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't find very poor parenting to be funny.

Runners-up: Blondie, Single and Looking, Family Circus

Best:

The expression on Satchel's face in the last panel is priceless.

Runners-up: Zits (I liked the blort! sound effect), Doonesbury (Zonker's line "many of them profitable" is great),Candorville, Garfield, Lio, Opus, Pearls Before Swine, Agnes, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy! (this is really a one joke strip (Brewster is stupid), but it's a joke that still amuses me for some reason)

Comics of the Day, Saturday

Worst: Not something I want to think about on my comics page.

Runners-up: Close to Home, Mother Goose and Grimm, Red and Rover

Best:

Again the best part is not the punch line. Bucky's line "You are but bubble wrap unto the block that is my head," made me laugh.

Runners-up: Lio, Agnes, Pooch Cafe, Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!, Sherman's Lagoon, For Better or For Worse (I love how Francoise calls Anthony and Liz out on their patheticness)

Comics of the Day, Friday

Worst: I worry about remaining objective about For Better or For Worse. Sometimes I think I have picked up an anti-Foob mindset from the gang at Comics Curmudgeon, and read the strip looking for things to dislike about it. But Anthony's logic strikes me as kind of manipulative. His argument boils down to if you decide to like Elizabeth, we can go see Santa, and Santa wants you to like Elizabeth. First he should have validated her feelings. A little kid with a single father could very understandably be jealous of the father's girlfriend. Then after listening and validating, he should have explained that he loves Francoise and his relationship with Liz will do nothing to change that. Problem solved without giving Francoise any neuroses about competing for daddy's attention and feeling guilty about it.

Runners-up: Non Sequiter, the Piranha Club, Brevity, Red and Rover

Best:

Pearls Before Swine wins in a photo finish ahead of Get Fuzzy. Things to like about this cartoon: great visuals, gadzooks is a funny word, the names of the superheros, Pig's mild acceptance of his totally lame character. I loved this strip.

Runners-up: Speed Bump, Lio, Get Fuzzy (As is common in Get Fuzzy, the punchline is not that great, but the dialogue in the set-up is awesome. Satchel's line in panel one (I don't feel butterflies...that would be creepy) made me laugh out loud. Darby Conley must put a lot of effort into his strip. He has consistently great, detailed art, and witty dialogue in almost every panel)

Comics of the Day, Thursday

Worst: The set-up for this joke is terrible. I can't imagine anyone ever speaking the dialogue Hagar speaks in the first panel. And no one would ever tell their wife that they were flirting with a cute girl, except in some sort of anxious confession. I guess it fits because Hagar is supposed to be rude, but really, this joke fails on a lot of levels.

Runners-up: Close to Home, Red and Rover, Prickly City (Republicans are pure and virtuous, and Democrats are evil, I get it already), Mother Goose and Grimm (another bad joke with an awkward set-up)

Best: First, I enjoy the thought of a bewildered flamingo conservancy, so the baseline of humor in this strip is high. I like that Agnes fraternizes with some random drunk guy. I like Agnes' complete lack of a clue. I like Trout's complete lack of surprise at Agnes' lack of a clue.

Runner-up: Baby Blues

Comics of the Day Catch-up Post

So between Christmas decorating and work, I'm a little behind on my comics of the day. I'm going to try to catch up today.

Worst:

As usual, a joke about technology falls flat. What does Tigger have to do with text messaging? What does TTFN stand for (I'm only 27, and I don't know)?

Runners-up: Frank and Ernest, Blondie (I still don't understand the joke), Baldo, Brevity, Red and Rover

Bonus Visual Runner-up:

Hagar the Horrible might be consistently the worst strip in the Post. It's become one of those strips that uses a one off joke each day. The characters have no personality to drive jokes with. The jokes are often incongruous with the setting. This strip really has no redeeming features to it right now, and it's probably time for it to be put out to stud.

Best:

Pastis does a good job explaining the human condition (although he probably just wanted to draw a rat with a napkin on her head). It's not a nice place inside any of us, and dealing with that is one of the major questions of human existence.

Runners-up: Watch Your Head (love the third panel), Candorville, Zits (I like that Connie comes out on top of this technological interaction for a change), Frazz, Big Nate (my little love huntress is a great, great pet name), Mutts

Bonus Visual Runner-up:

Today's Lio is a good example of what makes a strip work. The joke is driven by the character's personalities. The father has typical dreams of living vicariously through his son's athletic pursuits. Lio needs to deal with a monster. Another great thing about Lio is the question of fantasy or reality. Mark Tatulli, like Bill Watterson in Calvin and Hobbes, never resolves the question of what reality is. We are left to speculate whether the monster in the third panel is real, or solely in Lio's imagination.

Random Comic Note:

I work with kids, and this strip illustrates well one of the challenges of managing kids. Barry makes an inappropriate comment, but the father reacts to Curtis' reaction. Obviously, Curtis' reaction is inappropriate, but if the father had disciplined Barry for his comment, Curtis would likely be satisfied that justice had been served and could temper his reactions.