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Shoe, 11/11/16

Happy November 11th, everyone! Do you remember that this is the anniversary of the day the guns of the Great War went silent, and there was a brief, idealistic window of hope that the slaughter had been so terrible that humanity would never fight a war again? And November 11th was supposed to be remembered forever as Armistice Day, the day the killing stopped? Ringing a bell? For anyone? The dashed optimism? No?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/11/16

After it became clear that we were going to keep fighting wars and making more veterans, November 11th got rebranded as Veterans Day, and so it’s often an opportunity for comic strips to make you uncomfortable by reminding you that their protagonists fought in World War II, which ended more than 70 years ago. Please enjoy this depiction of Snuffy Smith bursting out of his threadbare uniform, and when you’re done with that, please enjoy Snuffy Smith in Hillbilly Blitzkrieg, now available in its entirety on YouTube. The movie is so unwatchably bad I was wasn’t able to get through more than a few minutes of it, but I checked the Wikipedia summary and I need to steel you for disappointment: despite the promise of the title, Snuffy does not actually fight for Nazi Germany in the film.

Crankshaft, 11/11/16

Ed Crankshaft is also a World War II vet, but on this day he’s chosen not to dwell on the past. Instead, he’s thinking about the future, the future where cold, soulless machines will displace human warmth, and it fills him with despair.

Mark Trail, 11/11/16

Well, we all knew the chopperslosions couldn’t go on forever, so I’m glad Mark Trail is allowing us to taper off by at least showing us some hot (literally) smoldering wreckage action. It’s extremely funny to me how quickly Cal’s mind turns from “rescuing Mark and Abbey” to “fleeing in this boat, Mark and Abbey will be fine, probably.”