We're Back from Very Long Break..........Roanoke Times Comics Quotes

We are indeed back from a very, very long break!

Greetings to those of you in Wales, Sweden, and Croatia...

Our celebrity of the day is..........we'll go with Marc Maron....!

Here are some comic strips quotes mostly from the Roanoke Times (July 17th, 2017 edition) with exceptions including "The Knight Life" from our good pal Keith Knight, which will start us off.....

1) You kids these days have it so good! (Knight Life)

2) Hi Jeremy. Are you hungry? (Zits)

3) Sara, can we get pizza delivered? (Blondie)

4) Nelson, what are you doing? (Pickles)

5) I'd like to return this bird (Wizard of Id)

6) That's all anyone needs to know (Judge Parker)

7) Good man! (Jump Start)

8) Don't be afraid! The lightning won't strike as long as mommy's out here (Family Circus)

9) Ooooo, what's that? (Get Fuzzy)

Sunday Washington Post Comic Strips Survey: Steve Jobs in Hell

Greetings to our blog readers in Cuba, Denmark, and Egypt.....

This week, Scott Hilburn took the brave task of having his comic strip "The Argyle Sweater" take on the complex and surreal topic of what the late Steve Jobs  (pict. top) would have to deal with if he ended up in hell. In the comic strip, which does not have set characters like "Peanuts" or "Garfield," two demons give Jobs an iPhone and play several practical jokes on him through the device which of course irritates the cellphone entrepreneur.

The comic strip "Lio" also took to fantasy escapism with a strip that has Lio, the title character, whistling at his father to look at a shark fin floating in make-shift outdoor pool. The image for this strip that we are using is of two shark fins at a pharmacy in Yokohama, Japan.

Jim Toomey's comic strip "Sherman's Lagoon" regularly features sharks as well. In this week's strip, Sherman, the title character and a shark, tries to talk to his Uncle Phil via Skype and there are technical problems as well as mutual difficulties in finding things to talk about.

Insects also figured prominently in several Sunday strips this week including Keith Knight's autobiographical "Knight Life" in which two mosquitoes (bottom image) try to bite his legs and converse with each other in the process!

Here is our top ten:

1. The Argyle Sweater 

2. Foxtrot

3. WuMo

4. Pearls Before Swine

5. Lio

6. Knight Life

7. Sherman's Lagoon

8. Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

9. Candorville

10. Dustin

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.comicskingdom.com

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.kchronicles.com

Sunday Washington Post Comics Survey: Tell Jeff Bezos We Love "Dustin"

Yes, we have had distractions this week, but we are back with our weekly survey of our favorite comic strips in Sunday newspapers. It should be pointed out that we also love several comic strips not published in either "The Washington Post" nor "The Roanoke Times," the two newspapers' comic pages we survey; these include "Bleeker," about a robotic dog, "Pros and Cons," about the legal profession, and "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee," about a slightly overeager science whiz kid.

Jeff Bezos who made his fortune in Amazon, we are referring to the e-purchase site not the river in Brazil, took over "The Washington Post" recently and on Sunday, there were noticeable changes to the paper as a whole, but thankfully, no changes, for the better or worse, were made to the comic strips pages. Nevertheless, we hope Bezos understands that we really enjoy "Dustin."

The comic strip about a single twenty-something bears a bit of a resemblance to Dustin Hoffman's title character in "The Graduate," as both are seeking out how to establish themselves in the world. One of the key differences is that there is no Mrs. Robinson in "Dustin" (the comic strip). In this week's strip, Dustin takes a selfie at the DMV, only to be told that is not allowed.

In "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy," a strange looking alien literally robs the title character of everything he owns. While in Keith Knight's "Knight Life," there is a funny tension between the title character, an African-American male modeled after Knight himself, and his German wife, over the subject of interracial marriage.

Here is the rest of our survey:

1) "Dustin" (see top image of Dustin Hoffman)

2) "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy" (see middle image of Gil Gerard and the cult '80s NBC sci-fi series "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," Gerard is still alive at age 71).

3) "Pearls Before Swine"

4) "Knight Life" (see bottom image of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner poster)

5) "Lio"

6) "Speed Bump"

7) "Reply All"

8) "Candorville"

9) "The Argyle Sweater"

10) "Foxtrot"

"Sherman's Lagoon" just barely missed out, but we're sure it will crack the top ten again soon! That was also the case with "WUMO."

"Brewster Rockit: Space Guy" is also available in the Sunday print edition of the "News and Record" (Greensboro, NC).

http://dustincomics.com/

http://www.gocomics.com/brewsterrockit/

http://www.gocomics.com/knightlife

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.news-record.com

Sunday Washington Post Comic Strips Survey: We Really, Really Like the Argyle Sweater

This Sunday's "Washington Post" comic strips offered a satire of "Sesame Street" ("The Argyle Sweater") which may NOT go over well with Big Bird fans (or Cookie Monster fans), an awkward mother and son moment ("Knight Life"by Keith Knight), "Big Nate" struggling with loads on homework and "Lio" working on some finger-painting, much to his father's shock and horror.

We are also featuring comics from "The Roanoke Times" (Roanoke, Va.) and "The News & Record" (Greensboro, NC) this week. We will denote strips in the Roanoke newspaper with a (^) and those appearing in the Greensboro newspaper with an (*).

Here are the top ten comics of the week:

1) The Argyle Sweater (Oscar the Grouch, featured in the strip, pictured top)

2) Knight Life

 3) Speed Bump ^

4) Big Nate (image two)

5) Sherman's Lagoon

6) Lio (image three)

7) Pearls Before Swine ^*

8) WUMO *

9) Dustin

10) Brewster Rockit:Space Guy ^

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/comics/

http://www.gocomics.com/

http://kingfeatures.com/comics/comics-a-z/

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com (for our survey of Sunday comics from "The Roanoke Times")

Our Favorite Comic Strips from the Sunday Washington Post: It's Shark Week

What does a shark, a goat and a deer have in common? Well, all three were featured in our 10 favorite comic strips from the Sunday, Oct. 27th edition of "The Washington Post."

Some of our favorite strips like "The Argyle Sweater" and "Reply All" missed the cut, while some that we don't normally enjoy as much, including the education-oriented strip "Mark Trail" made our top ten.

Here we go:

1, Sherman's Lagoon (Image One, the strip revolves around a shark named Sherman)

2. Foxtrot

3. Lio

4. Doonesbury

5. Dustin

6. Pearls Before Swine (Image Two, a goat is one of the main characters)

7. Knight Life

8. Brewster Rockit

9. Judge Parker

10. Mark Trail (Image 3, the strip from Oct. 27 revolved around how to avoid hit bambis)

Silly Image to Fill Space- Apathy

Hmmmmmmm..............

Yeah............

I thought about going back to our quotes from Sunday comic strips, especially since we love "Knight Life" by Keith Knight, which is awesome today as it always is, and, it is funnier than "Hagar the Horrible," but............

I'm just not in the mood.

By the way, Keith Knight is not related to my friend Chris Knight, who has a birthday today.

One is an African-American living in Los Angeles, the other is a white guy living in Reidsville, NC.

If you wanna know who is who or whom is who, well.............

Just Google it (or, maybe Bing it)........................

Special Quote of the Day- Keith Knight

Normally, we post the Quote of the Week segment on Mondays (or if I'm busy as hell, on Tuesdays). But my Facebook friend Keith Knight, 43, an extraordinary talent who is the cartoonist behind the new, hip comic strip "The Knight Life," and the cutting edge political cartoon series "The K-Chronicles" as well as a musician in a hip-hop band called The Marginal Prophets, volunteered this quip for Black History Month which I simply loved too much. So hence I am posting it now today!:

"Talk to any black person 60 or older for 10 minutes and you'll learn more about Black History than you ever learned in school."

SIDEBAR: I recently decided to follow the comic strip character Zippy the Pinhead, created by Bill Griffith, on Twitter. He sent me a message which said: "I see we are both mutual friends of Paris Hilton." While I don't know the rich media starlet personally, I also follow her on Twitter as well! I'm not sure Zippy (who I really think is Griffith) is aware of this!

SIDEBAR TWO: The Brady Network, one of the leading gun control lobbies in the country, has raised an issue with the Starbucks coffee chain, a favorite hangout for Ms. Hilton, over the fact that they apparently allow folks who want a lattee to walk into their establishments with loaded guns! Perhaps, some of these people are police officers, which I could understand, but I certainly see the Brady Network's concerns though I have not read a newspaper story detailing both sides of the issue. The Brady Networks contends that this has an intimidating effect on customers, and I can imagine that would certainly be true in rural Georgia (persuming they have Starbucks stores in rural Georgia).
My favorite Starbucks happens to be in Front Royal, Va., with the Starbucks in High Point, NC, (well there are more than one of them) being a close second. I'm not exactly sure why though........?!