The Comic Strip Reader

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Kinks Komiks

For the second Sunday on a row The Kinks’ “Lola” lyrics are featured in The Funny Pages. Unlike last week when it was used as a sly quip about the subject of the song, this week it is a crack at the inebriated vocalist.

And as we move down the comic strip feed we get more and multiple song lyrics. Andy Capp has one number, The Duplex has words from two different choruses, and Reality Check gets in lines from three different songs.

Book ‘Em

The NCS Book Club gathers Schulz Studio Executive Director Lex Fajado, Abrams ComicArts Editor-in-Chief Charles Kochman, and comics historian and author Mark Evanier into an hour long discussion of how the three of them assembled Essential Peanuts, the volume celebrating the 75th anniversary of Charles M. Schulz‘s Peanuts.

Christopher Chiu-Tabet at The Beat brings news of a new reimagined Flash Gordon as a graphic novel.

Mad Cave has revealed Flash Gordon: Two Worlds, a two-part original graphic novel by award-winning cartoonist Scott Chantler (Three Thieves, Squire & Knight), featuring colors by K.J. Díaz. Inspired heavily by the look of original Alex Raymond comics, and the 1930s film serials, the book takes place in an alternate reality where Flash Gordon never became a hero, and Ming the Merciless conquered Earth.

The look is inspired more by Darwyn Cookeand Dan Schkade, both mentioned in the piece, than Alex Raymond.

Vol. 1 of Two Worlds will be released on November 10, 2026, in paperback and hardback.

Also coming, but months in the future, is another Flash Gordon graphic novel. This one from Papercutz promises to be more fun. Flash Gordon Adventures: Dopple-Day Disasters is scheduled for March 16, 2027.

Flash Gordon Adventures returns with a brand new story by Eisner Award-winning cartoonist Mike Kunkel (Herobear and the Kid) where Flash Gordon and friends have to deal with mischievous doppelgangers, or Dopplers—who are almost identical versions of Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkov.

Joining cartoonist Mike Kunkel on this fresh Flash Gordon story is writer AJ Kunkel. The two collaborated as a father-son storyteller team to bring this brand new adventure to life! Plus brand-new short stories from Mike Cavallaro (Nico Bravo), Maria Scrivan (Nat Enough), and Shane Campos!

Let’s You and Him Fight

There are questions that should never be answered too quickly. Tea or coffee? Cats or dogs? And, for anyone who grew up with European comics, the most dangerous of all: Tintin or Asterix?

…Tintin admirers speak of mystery, adventure, exotic locations, and Herge’s immaculate drawings. Asterix fans counter with puns, satire, Obelix, and the almost therapeutic pleasure of watching Roman soldiers being thrown through the air.

Atanu Biswas for Business Standard compares the two Franco-Belgian comic series.

A Tintin story begins with a puzzle; one clue leads to another until a small mystery becomes a full-scale adventure. In Tintin in Tibet, the adventure becomes something more: A moving story of friendship, loyalty, and determination. In Destination Moon, Herge turns scientific ambition and space exploration into a thrilling adventure, anticipating the fascination that the Moon would inspire in the real world. We turn the page because we want to know what happens next…

Asterix begins somewhere else entirely. “The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely…” One tiny village refuses to surrender. It has Getafix’s magic potion and an almost supernatural ability to make imperial power look ridiculous. Then there is Obelix, who fell into the potion as a child and, therefore, doesn’t need any more. This may be the most unfair rule in comic-book history: Obelix can throw a Roman regiment around before breakfast. But the Romans are only the beginning of the joke. Goscinny and Uderzo use ancient Gaul to parody the modern world — bureaucracy, consumerism, politics, and the vanity of authority…

Recapitulating The Gospel According to Peanuts (Sunday Sermon)

Pilgrim for The Latin Right at Patheos atones for mistakes and looks at religious implications in Peanuts.

Preface

A reader, capcrisis, objected when I altered a Peanuts strip to illustrate one of my arguments. He called it “a defacing of the original strip” and recommended Robert L. Short’s The Gospel According to Peanuts. He was entirely right about the first, and the second turned out to be the sort of gift only a correction can give.

The irony was sharper than the rebuke. I had spent two essays arguing that God works through real freedom, yet I had forced a comic strip to say what I wanted it to say.

This essay is an attempt to do the opposite: to let the strip speak for itself.

MUTTS Community News

Ali for Team MUTTS has a new communication format for the MUTTS community.

Hello, friends!

Welcome to our first-ever MUTTS Community News Roundup, where you’ll find more reflections from the MUTTS team and family.

Among the items is noted is a new Patrick McDonnell artwork now available as a print.

We received a question in our inbox about our recent social media post honoring Jackie, the beloved bald eagle of Big Bear Valley who sadly passed away last week.

We received this question on social media too, so by popular request, it is now available as a print at MUTTS.com.