Harsh judgements

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! The Lockhorns, 4/20/26 A fun subtle running bit in The Lockhorns is that Leroy’s coworkers hold him in as much contempt as his wife does, but with a subtle difference in tone: Loretta is furious that she’s shackled to this loser forever, while his coworkers seem to enjoy him as the office clown, the lovable loser whose antics they presumably talk about at length when he’s out of earshot or maybe even when he’s just within it. Look at the big smile on the receptionist’s face as she delivers this zinger! Anyway, this kind of interaction is probably marginally less corrosive to Leroy’s soul than the ones he has with Loretta, so you can see why he puts up with the low pay, and also why they don’t pay him very much. Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/20/26 “Oh man,” you probably…