For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 02, 2023

It’s like reality tv; is it real? Nope. Is it entertaining? Absolutely.

The tabloids know the pulse of audience, alright.

My late mother was a firm believer of anything in the National Enquirer. She would inject “stuff” into conversations as fact.

Some of those tabloids have fun puzzles in them from which you can win money—if you’re lucky enough to have your name chosen and you solve the puzzle correctly.

their best: the photo of bill and hillary walking down the whitehouse steps with the aliens. gold.

Elly: Hey, John, can I have my National Enquirer back now?

Weird Al Yankovic wrote a song about this in 1984. Midnight Star.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VhSssXgJT8

I thought I saw a copy of one sitting on MTG’s desk.

I used to read my aunt’s tabloids, and I still remember the stories from 1967!

People are easily amused, thus today’s entertainment complex.

My favorite headline from one of those rags (and yes, I know it’s quite politically incorrect, so don’t write in): “Midget trains for NASA in clothes dryer.” Saw that as a kid and I’ve never gotten over it.

……and…….who’s reading in the last panel?

I love the tabloid headlines:“Madonna Proves Virginity!”“Man Eats Minivan In Record Three Days!”“Octagenarian Gives Birth To Fruit Bats!”“Country Star Trampled By Hogs!”

Most of the tabloid news is about dead people anyway. How their lives were and the dark secrets we didn’t know about. Diana is back and her scandalous life after her divorce. I just shake my head at it all.

Madonna! Whadda hoot! Great headlines!!

Love the TV Guide, everyone couldn’t wait to get the new one. I would love to read the surgeon that did own sex change! Always figured Oprah to be an Alien! Wonder if the Country singer trampled by hogs was Natalie Maines.. Which Jackson cosmetic secrets.. Michael or Janet or Rev. Jesse?

Whatever happened to the National Enquirer. Did the truth finally destroy them?

They are entertaining; however, they are very pricey now.

First, LOL for John. Second, first panel, “dirt, dirt, and more dirt” says it all.

Go with stories about aliens. So many people want to believe

Do those even exist anymore? I haven’t seen a National Enquirer or the like in forever! I guess we have the internet for all of that now.

My sociology professor said tabloids were modern day mythology. I never bothered with them myself but we had an elderly great aunt visit us when I was a teen and she firmly believed every teen should read them – she brought home 3 issues of various publishers for us from the super market. They were kind of a bizarre sci-fi read but nothing with a really good plot.

But they’re cool stories, John.

And yet Elly would find it hard to believe if John read Playboy for the articles.

Well, she couldn’t stand there reading it is in the store…

But The National Enquirer is elite resource material…for Men in Black.

LOL….Tabloid sucks in ANOTHER reader.

The one I wish now I had bought had the headline “I married my two-headed alien baby!”

Sometimes I think I’d like to read one, but I’m always afraid somebody I know will see me.

I miss the Weekly World News. Now that was comedic gold! And very entertaining…

now instead we have Tik Tok

“Your Honor, we present ‘Exhibit A’.”

How did Madonna prove it?

I hate when people take the book I’m reading. Worse when they tell you how it ended

Hello Mr.Crazy……….

John never said HE wasn’t crazy.

Shades of the Weekly World News. I miss BatBoy.

I used to read the World Weekly News from supermarket I worked at as a bagboy during my lunch and breaks. Man I miss those days! Batboy updates where the BEST!

I came to the comments looking for amusing takes on the rag’s headlines. I’m so disappointed!

I miss the Weekly World New.

The stuff Jon mentions is what used to be seen in those tabloids back in the 1960s. Real macabre things. Then in the ‘70s they’d always be talking about Elvis and other celebrities. In the ‘80s they became gossip rags, and since then they gossip about English royalty and rumors about public figures. But for real off-the-wall, outer-limits stuff, you can’t beat the Weekly World News. (I’ve seen mothers steer their kids away from looking at The Weekly’s headlines.)

My favorite, Madonna Proves Virginity. That should be subtitled Mission Impossible.

That’s me, MIL brought them by. I thought what trash , wife always caught me reading…lolol

Now these rags tend to peddle right wing conspiracy theories. Still absurd and aimed exclusively at the gullible and credulous, but no longer amusingly ridiculous on the face of it. Now there’s a sting in the tail.

I’d pay to read about Cher’s leg-waxing troubles.

People who read it are strange, the ones that believe it is crazy.

John: “I mean, the people who read this stuff are CRAZY!”

Me: To say nothing of the people who write and publish that stuff!

I was in a checkout line once when I saw one those types of magazines in a rack.

On the front page was a picture of a huge explosion, with a smoke cloud rising far up into the sky.

In the middle of the smoke cloud, someone had obviously drawn a picture of a horrible, evil looking face.

Underneath the picture the caption said, “Satan’s face appears in explosion cloud.”

I turned to the person standing behind me and said, “How do they know what Satan looks like? Have they seen Satan? Have they spoken with him? Have they made a deal with him?”

We all had a good laugh.

Absolutely captures the guilty pleasure of buying a tabloid like the Enquirer or Star….what is brilliant is that Lynn Johnson captures how irresistible reading about two headed space aliens or similar phenomenon is.. … great comic! Has been for years.. covers current social and moral issues with a gracious aplomb lost to the main steam media…Thanks

OK GC friends, who other than me sat there and read every cover that was readable? Some of them are way out there. LOL

Of possible trivial interest, folk-singer Bob Lind, who had the 60s hit “Elusive Butterfly of Love” was a staff writer for Weekly World News for eight years. He co-created the long-running series of “Bat Boy” headline articles.