I read the comics to protect you from terrible truths

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!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/8/25

Way back in the mists of time when I first started this blog, it was called I Read The Comics So You Don’t Have To, and I still thinking of myself as fulfilling that mission, especially when it comes to letting you know when something exciting or important has happened in the soap opera strips. However, this goal runs into a philosophical conundrum with Rex Morgan, M.D., the strip where nothing exciting or important ever happens: sometimes it seems like something’s going to happen, but if I tell you about it, that’s leading you astray, because in fact nothing’s going to happen, so instead I usually wait to update you until it becomes clear that nothing is going to happen. Take this past week, for instance: after Augie did the responsible thing and reported the dead stalker to the police, the beat cop who showed up decided that Augie was actually the most likely murder suspect and started asking a bunch of probing questions. Was something exciting, like Augie’s arrest on false (or possibly true) accusations, going to happen? I sure didn’t tell you about it, because I didn’t want to toy with your emotions unnecessarily. But now it’s safe to discuss because a homicide detective has arrived and decided that the stalker simply drank three bottles of hooch then smoked crack and shot heroin simultaneously before eventually succumbing to his many vices. Problem solved! Nothing’s going to happen! Enjoy today’s strip and then go about your business.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/8/25

I actually spent a lot of time getting furious at this strip because everyone knows that in the comics, poodles are sexy French ladies, not old people, so what is this even about??? After some thought I think he’s riffing on “dumb blonde” stereotypes rather than old people stereotypes, but it doesn’t really work because (a) lots of people say “senior moment” but nobody says “blonde moment” and (b) poodles (in cartoons, anyway) are white while Grimm himself is blonde, or at least yellow.

Hi and Lois, 4/8/25

“Hey Josh,” you’re probably asking, “I know that in this current run of Hi and Lois, the Flagstons are beset by depression and anxiety, but is that true for everyone else too?” Yeah man, it is. They’re all burdened by awful knowledge they can do nothing about!