When we’re kids and we see our moms and dads and guardians reading the paper, we don’t think, “Oh boy! I want to find out about the crisis in the middle east!” or “What’s with the stock market these days?” We think, “Where are the comic strips? If I do not get them, be prepared for a tantrum!” Then we get them and we read them and we don’t get most of them, but we like them anyway. We giggle at Garfield and buy his books from book fairs. We read “Peanuts” and watch their specials. We read “The Amazing Spider-Man”, because he’s a super-hero and they’re wowee! However, most children ignore “Mary Worth”, because she is boring and scary.

Sadly, as time goes on, we find out that most of the comic strips in the paper are pretty boring. Some of us discard them for more grown-up things, like girls and sports. Some of us continue reading, as it’s become a part of our daily routine. Others read them because we actually like reading them, and each and every day we hope that at least one of the strips will bring a glimmer of hope and laughter to our day. Day in and day out, though, we’re frequently disappointed. Garfield becomes bland, Peanuts retains its charm but they’re from forty years ago so it’s like what the heck, and Mary Worth is even more scary and boring, while Spider-Man isn’t half the hero he is in comic books, cartoons, and movies.

I, too, was like this until one fateful day a man named Josh Fruhlinger read my web-comic and thought it was nifty, and so he put up a link to it on a now-defunct Blog. I saw that I was getting traffic from this site, and so I went to investigate, and then I went on to find out who the heck this Fruhlinger guy was. It was then that I stumbled onto the Comics Curmudgeon. There I found that joy could be taken out of these comic strips which were so dear to me, and yet so terrible. A joy which could only be achieved by mockery and snark, but a joy nonetheless. This is why I do what I do, people: I like the comic strips I comment upon, and still want them to bring people some joy and entertainment, and therefore I serve them up to you on a platter with an apple in their mouth. I hope I’m performing my task adequately, and hope that you enjoy the commentary, if not the strips themselves.

To read the commentary, click here.