Friday, February 20, 2015

Nothing's funnier that existential angst!


Remember the funny pages in the Sunday newspaper? Many of you might not even remember newspapers so probably not. Hell, I sure don't. But believe me anyway when I tell you that there used to be a whole section of the paper once a week that consisted of nothing but comic strips. Newspapers are dying but the comic strips survive. How? By evolving (in most cases, without the author's direct participation or even permission) to reflect the ever-devolving, twisted Hellscape that has come to define our daily existence by altering either the captions or the artwork of established, mainstream comic strips to depict something hilariously darker than what was originally intended.

The roots of this whole movement probably started with the audience-participatory and now-defunct "The Dysfunctional Family Circus"
Why do you have scalpels in the silverware drawer?


"The Family Circus", with it's saccharine take on suburban family life as it existed in the early 60s (if ever, at all) remains ripe for parody, as evidenced by the existence of "The Nietzche Family Circus"
A little poison now and then: that makes for agreeable dreams.

...and also "Time Is A Flat Circus"


Everybody loves the Monday-hating, lasagna-loving, over-merchandised, blight-on-Bill-Murray's-resume Garfield! Except those who don't. "Garfield Minus Garfield" is perfect for them.



A new entry is the insufferable single gal Cathy, now infused with sardonic musings of Louis CK in "Cathy CK"


Of course, if you like seeing all kinds of comic strips in their natural state being ripped to shreds by genial misanthropes, I highly recommend "The Comics Curmudgeon", the blog that inspired me to start this one!
'Wow, Mark really cares about whelk purity. “Hey Mark, look what I found on the beach!” “That’s not a true whelk, Rusty!” [slaps it out of his hand and into the sea]'


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