joshreads.com (AKA The Comics Curmudgeon) is one of those sites I go to when I have an extra couple of minutes and need a laugh.
It used to be called “Josh Reads the Comics so You Don’t Have To”, hence the discrepancy between official name and URL. The gist is that Josh Fruhlinger takes comic strips, posts them in full on his page and makes funny comments. That easy, which is why it’s pretty cool how it’s taken off. And how often it makes me laugh. His jokes are diverse enough that you don’t always know what direction he’ll go.
Josh has some of what I see as hallmarks of success:
- A Wikipedia article
- Celebrity acknowledgment (professional comic writers have commented on his site and he was mentioned in Pearls Before Swine)
- Knockoffs/homages (in the form of “ERIN READS THE COMICS SO JOSH DOESN’T HAVE TO“, wherein pieces of different comic strips are put together to change the message)
All of this is due to the guy’s encyclopedic knowledge and dedication to complaining about/commenting on something that a lot of us look at briefly before going to the sudoku/crossword puzzle.
