What about my inner adult, why isn’t anyone concerned about him

Comics Curmudgeon readers! Do you love this blog and yearn for a novel written by its creator? Well, good news: Josh Fruhlinger's The Enthusiast is that novel! It's even about newspaper comic strips, partly. Check it out!

Gasoline Alley, 11/18/24

Is that really true, Arty? Have today’s children seen a lot about Mars on TV? Is there actually a lot of Mars content out there, on television, a medium that today’s grade-school children are definitely watching? Are America’s 8-year-olds into the Apple TV+ show For All Mankind, the only actual current show with Mars content that I can think of? Seriously, are they watching that? Are 8-year-olds watching it and not me, even though, as an alt-history sci-fi show created by Ron Moore of Star Trek/Battlestar Galactica fame, it was basically created to specifically cater to my personal tastes? Are the 8-year-olds really this far ahead of me on this? I gotta watch that show, is what I’m saying. Feel like I should finish The Expanse first (I KNOW), but I’m gonna get to it soon enough.

Hi and Lois, 11/18/24

I realize it can be hard to tell with me when I’m talking through multiple layers of irony, so I need to be very clear: Hi and Lois now does strips that are mostly “funny without having punchlines in a traditional sense” and I really love it. It’s great! This strip is great! “I don’t think Lois likes me.” “What makes you say that?” “Oh, well, I was kind of taking liberties by looking for something to eat in your fridge and she really bit my head off. Didn’t hold back at all, and was actually pretty mean about it. Look at her face, you can tell she’s still pissed!”

Alice, 11/18/24

I honestly find the cold, hooded expression with which Alice is regarding her inner child pretty distressing. “Wounded, eh? Well, who do you think wounded you? The same one who’s now going to kill you off once and for all!” [produces huge knife that’s somehow able to stab metaphors]

Crock, 11/18/24

I guess the first panel here is a relic of the days when newspapers would sometimes have some column inches to fill so they’d do an interview with a local weirdo and/or the PR person for an obscure trade group and produce features like “Camels for dinner? Not so far-fetched, experts say”. But I honestly prefer the idea that our Legionnaire is reading a French-language newspaper sold to the local occupation troops, and the banner headline is “FLN SIEGE OF ORAN POCKET HOLDS; STARVATION IMMINENT”.