They’re a cultured people, eh wot

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!

Andy Capp, 6/2/26

Look, I don’t pretend to know everything about what life is like in working-class, industrial neighborhoods in Northern English cities. Do people go door-to-door selling prints of the 19th century Romantic artist who revolutionized landscape painting and inspired the Barbizon school? I mean, maybe they do. Who’s to say the yobs and louts who populate this strip don’t appreciate a lovely, bucolic landscape? I’m sitting my ass down and learning.

Crankshaft, 6/2/26

There was some kind of long-ago love triangle involving Lillian and this guy and her now-dead sister that was introduced at some point when I wasn’t reading the strip and frankly I’ve never really caught up on it, but I know a lot of my readers have very strong and negative feelings about the whole thing, so if you fall into that category, I just wanted to bring you the latest update on this gentleman: they’re putting him in a home, or possibly in prison.

Pickles, 6/2/26

“Also, they don’t really enjoy spending time with me!”