Best Makeup and Hairstyling goes to the comic strip Blondie for somehow doing [gestures vaguely at Dagwood] that
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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/12/23
Barney Google more or less vanished from his namesake strip in the 1930s as it pivoted to cruel jokes about hillbillies full time, but he started making regular appearances again in the early 2010s. I’ve always been a bit curious about why that decision was made — was it just to mix things up in a strip that had gone stale? Was it to ensure that the valuable Barney and Spark Plug IP didn’t fall into the public domain? But today we learn the awful truth: Barney has returned to Hootin’ Holler because this impoverished, isolated community is at risk of catastrophe due to its limited gene pool, and the women of the town are eager for Barney’s flatlander seed.
Blondie, 3/12/23
This is, frankly, a pretty weak showing in the cluttered genre of Blondie strips that latch onto whatever current event has popped up on the calendar; I’m particularly unimpressed that they didn’t even try to fit into actual Oscar categories, instead making up a bunch of vaguely Oscar-esque ones. Still, my biggest concern arises from the very first panel, in which we learn that Dagwood doesn’t know the difference between Facebook and LinkedIn.
Six Chix, 3/12/23
Ha ha, remember Pizza Rat, the beloved internet sensation from 2015? Well, rats typically live about two years, and even the best treated pet rats five or six, so Pizza Rat is definitely dead now. Don’t let Six Chix fool you into believing that he’s lived a long and happy life in the New York Subway somewhere, he’s 100% dead. RIP Pizza Rat, c. 2014-c. 2016, you will be missed.
135 replies to “Best Makeup and Hairstyling goes to the comic strip Blondie for somehow doing [gestures vaguely at Dagwood] that”
Spiderman-Join us tomorrow as they promise us new adventures with a new writer then come back here on Tuesday to read the repeats.
Slylock Fox-I don’t get this ‘Ghost World’ becomes ‘Goat World’ but ‘Beetle Bailey’ is still human.
MW-Steven prefers the more personal touch of strangling the animals to death.
JP-Join us tomorrow as we don’t find out who blammed.
FC-Moments later the blast wave from that nuclear explosion comes.
MW: Rationalize it all you want. Mercy killing Wilbur isn’t a legal defense in any US court.
SNUFFY: @Josh “the women of the town are eager for Barney’s flatlander seed” might be the single most objectionable thing I’ve ever read on this site. The women of Hootin’ Holler clearly prefer to get their seed from animals.
MW: Mary Worth will parlay her volunteer work experience at the hospital into scoring the “temporary fill-in” position at ANIMAL HOSPITAL. Distributing newspaper, providing snacks, and giving good death is right up her alley.
H&L: The only couples who dress like that to go to an Oscar party are people who are actually in contention to win an Oscar. If Hi really is employed in the entertainment industry, it would explain how his good for nothing drunken neighbor who works with him still has a job. He’s the coke connection for Foofram industries.
Josh, if it makes you feel better, my grandfather was a literal Hillbilly (born in Appalachia in a dirt floor cabin, sixth grade education, etc,) and he loved Snuffy Smith. Of course, that was a generation that didn’t mind laughing at themselves, rather than manufacturing reasons to be offended.
SS: Sorry Snuffy and Barney–and perhaps Sparky. The women are clearly into horse meat–whether due to hunger or their sick bestiality fantasies remains unclear.
Blondie: The fact that Dagwood wants to honor his bland, interchangeable carpool buddies instead of his children with his mental awards tells us all we need to know about how he regards his offspring. He doesn’t even know their names which is why there are stuck as Junior and Cookie.
“You know what? We’re stuck in this imbecilic storyline because we’re bit characters in a strip that’s supposedly about Mary Worth. The best thing we could do is euthanise her! Then we could move on to a better strip.”
“Like what, Rex Morgan MD?”
“… you’re right. Pass the syringe.”
____________________________________
Flylock Socks:
Crooked cartoonists copying cartoons. Truly this is the work of a master criminal, worthy of the talents of Dr Moriarty or Jack The Ripper.
____________________________________
Inner Beautystan:
Isn’t Tonic supposed to be an expert on cars? So why is she asking Bwad about it instead of checking it for herself, or have the Evansi memory holed that too?
@KMD: Cookie’s real name is Biscuit but it was decreed UnAmerican by McCarthy in the 1950s.
H&L: Hi’s suit looks more flamboyant than dashing and Lois’ outfit looks more like the caricature of an evening gown rather than something you’d wear to an actual formal affair. I take it the Flagstons are trying to get in as many drag shows as possible before they’re made illegal in their home state.
MW: Quick! Someone get a completely problem-free job for this guy! He just can’t WORK like this!
RMMD: I’d like to mock, but I would totally take a picture with the Hillbilly Moose.
SF: Ted’s mom makes one more important paring and changes her phone number.
Sure, unemployment is up in Hootin’ Holler, but at least the pink slips look fabulous.
Blondie: Okay, what is Dwibble (or whatever his name is) doing in the penultimate panel? The other two are dragging Dagwood by his feet/ankles, but I think he’s either having a heart attack or crapping in his pants.
Luann: The real anxiety is anticipating all the dad jokes about “shit storms” Frank is about to make.
BG&SS: If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in Hootin’ Holler.
Blondie: This strip’s team is really huffing their own farts by daring to call their 6583rd Dagwood-makes-a-big-sandwich gag “imaginative,” but I’ll forgive them if they re-enact last year’s Oscar fiasco by having Dagwood bitch-slap Crankshaft after a bad pun about Blondie.
DT: So, uh… how much longer until Dick Tracy shows up and starts shooting ugly people? I’m very ready to wrap this aimless snorefest up already.
Luann: Because you don’t maintain it, under the sink, no, no, who cares, and you look like a strawberry with cellulite. Whew! Didn’t even break a sweat!
9CL: “As God as my witness” is a phrase intended to be followed by a statement of professed truth, not an instruction. Also, you’d think someone claiming to have dreamt about having an “out of bathing suit experience” wouldn’t be depicted wearing their bathing suit while they stroll amongst the Reese’s peanut butter cups. Brooke McEldowney is not good at things.
RMMD: “You sure just one pic of a moose statue will be enough excruciating boring crap to tide you over, Pops?”
“Good point, son, let me take a photo of you and Yvonne before you go.”
@Ukranazi Stepan: Soooo. . . Is the Flagston’s teenaged son really named “Crisp?”
BGSS: I always wondered why Barney even bothered coming up to Hootin Holler, and now I know: to fuck Hillbilly women between relationships. I don’t feel better knowing this.
Blondie: So Herb and Dag play ping pong Matrix-style, jumping off walls and defying the laws of physics to win a vast of five. Has this never come up before? Seems more interesting than that office bullshit.
@MKay: #11
“MW: Quick! Someone get a completely problem-free job for this guy! He just can’t WORK like this!”
I recall L’il Abner’s sometime job was “mattress tester.” That might work.
Snuffy: I choose to believe the women are just trying to coax the two guys out of the poorly designed horse costume. Their jobs suck, but they are definitely marriage material.
RMMD: I guess taking a pic of the Metal Man Riding a Pig/Dog (an actual thing in the same town) would be too much excitement for the old coot.
@Gladly, the cross-eyed bear: #y108
“Sally’s mother in law is actively unpleasant”
Correction: you’re thinking of Sally’s mother (Ted’s mother in law).
Also from a yesterthread: my memories of Zazu Pitts’ work consist of her being the sideick of Gale Storm on TV’s OH SUSANNA, plus a few late appearances on the LUM AND ABNER radio show (that last year or so when they ex[amded tje voice cast beyond their long-time usual two or three actors).
JP: Sam and Abbey race to the window to see the judge and Yelich hop-skipping across the parking lot trying to avoid the bullets exploding at their feet. They look at each other while wiping tears from their eyes and say at the same time; “I never expected to laugh again!”
@made of wince: #19
“Snuffy: I choose to believe the women are just trying to coax the two guys out of the poorly designed horse costume. Their jobs suck, but they are definitely marriage material.”
Can’t say you didn’t have fair warning — you knew I was a horse’s ass before you married me!
If Dagwood feels that his life is boring compared to movie stars, he can simply make a joke about Irma and see if Herb is going to slap him
MW – Yep. Ed’s gonna burn out and kill himself.
The writer of Blondie seems aware that real life escapes genre definition and it can be an adventure, a comedy or a drama depending on the situation. Unfortunately Blondie itself is a comedy strip, so we never see the dramatic part. For example, did you know that Alex is based on Young’s son, who died as a child? Young felt he could not do comedy with him but he also could not do drama, so he took a year sabbatical because it was too painful. But we never sees this drama in the art, only stale jokes about young people today. Genre is invincible
BGSS: “I have learned the hard way to make sure a gal likes me for me and not for my horse”. When meeting this kind of thing in the funnies page, one cannot find words, except to quote the master: UNSPEAKABLE FILTH !
REX MORGAN MD: In panel 4, I imagine Frazz sticking his head in and smirking that “paper maps are cool and retro!” (And actually, I can relate to that.)
SHOE and SALLY FORTH: Speaking of strips today I can relate to. . . .
MARY WORTH: Nephew Steve is complainig about Blood, Sweat and Tears? I guess in the euthanaia room they pipe in their old hit about how “I’m not scared of dying….” to calm the animals?
BREAKING CAT NEWS: Apparently The Big Pink House doesn’t have any bathrooms?
PPOCH CAFE: Never mind, Grim Reaper of Mice, there’s a client for you today over in SIX CHIX.
JUDGE PARKER: “And we’re going to KEEP ON going BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! until we get it right! Places, everyone!”
REX MORGAN M.D.: Oh thank God he’s going to have Hank Sr’s meals scheduled because as we all know, if you’re not a diner owner, you are utterly incapable of cooking*!
*Or even calling in orders himself. Which makes sense because as a working artist, his old hands probably couldn’t manipulate a phone very well.
@Shrug: MARY WORTH: Nephew Steve is complainig about Blood, Sweat and Tears? I guess in the euthanaia room they pipe in their old hit about how “I’m not scared of dying….” to calm the animals?
No, I think they play Beethoven’s “Pastorale” and show the animals a video featuring birds, squirrels, mailmen, and fire hydrants.
Jungle Jim – “Ooh, look at the beautiful water of the canal,” breathes Kitty.
“It’s just a big ditch,” says Jim.
“And that sleek battle cruiser–”
“An old tub.”
Kitty raises a fist. “Keep it up and your heart’s not the only thing that’s going to swollen, buster.”
GA – “Is it time for me to go to heaven?”
“No.”
“SHIT! Then don’t prank me with that God outfit!” (Deep sigh) “Well… is it time to eat, at least?”
“Uh… sure. It’s 2:15 AM because we stayed up just to change the clocks, but what the hell. Want some grits?”
Blondie – “Best Lifetime Achievement Award”? We seem to have slipped from the Oscars to the Meta-Oscars. Can’t wait to see the “Worst Best Supporting Actor Award” category.
Slylock Fox – I would read Goat World.
You can almost hear the dramatic music sting at the end of the last panel. That cinches it; Dr. Ed’s got a substance-abuse problem. Now we know what Moy’s been tediously getting at for two weeks.
Very disappointing twist. Couldn’t she come up with something less banal than that? Like maybe he unwinds by dressing up in bra and panties? Looks like we’re in for another long and boring story.
MARY WORTH: Dr Nephew: “Phew, I need to take a break! I mean, I’ve been at this job for a whole week, now! Anyone would be worn out after such grueling dedication! I need some ‘me‘ time!”
Snuffy Smith-After you’ve exhausted your supply of family members the next step is to do horses.
CS: Next time she’ll just give him the finger. That’ll bring him right over.
RMMD: As soon as they leave, the dark shadowy figure in panel one is going to kill Hank Sr. and leave evidence implicating Hank Jr. and Yvonne. Thus will begin a multi-state search for who the media will call “The Bonnie and Clyde Killers.”
JP: Read him his rights? Oh, NOW you’re going all by-the-book honest cop! Nice touch.
@Merry Mirth: Dr Nephew: “I was wondering why the horse tranquilizer budget was so high….”
Spark Plug’s expression in the last panel removes all hope that what comes before is metaphor.
BGSS: I thought Spark Plug was supposed to be a rather sad specimen of the equine species and an embarrassingly bad race horse (if my vague memories of the song are correct). Maybe the Hooten Holler ladies are drawn to him by primitive curiosity, perplexed by the genetic anomaly that has given him clodhopper feet instead of hooves.
Blondie: Look, Dag, I’m not here to tell you how to buff up your social media profile, but maybe don’t try to claim executive leadership of a company that has the real leader’s name in its own? That would be like me trying to claim to be the CEO of Wal-Mart.
BG&SS – “I’ve learned the hard way to make sure a gal likes me for ME… and not for my horse cock.”
“Oh, no! My announcement that I’m single has caused several women to want to become my girlfriend! This is bad for some reason!”
JUDGE PARKER: Get on with it, Judge Parker! If I wanted to spend valuable comic time seeing someone not getting “blammed“, I’d be viewing the Mary Worth/Dr. Jeff relationship (Hiyo!)
@TheDiva: Markup fail, but hey, social media advice is important.
Dustin: Dustin and Inexplicably Omnipresent Neighbor Kid have given up playing “Horse” and are now playing “Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides.”
MW: What dark secrets are hiding behind Dr. Ed’s haunted stare? Illicit affairs with patients and/or their owners? Fast-tracking Dalmatian euthanasia to provide Cruella deVil with supplies? Drinking buddies with Wilbur?
Family Circus: With no other suburban tract houses in sight, I can only presume Thel drove out to the country to “let the melonheads run free.” They haven’t yet twigged that they’ve been abandoned to die, alone, unloved, to the sound of Dolly’s execrable malaprops.
MW: Dr Nephew should go to a large animal practice. He might find it easier working with pregnant or infertile cows and irritable bulls.
@Shrug: They should put Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” in rotation. But you know, in some ways, Bob Seger’s “Fire Lake” paints a more soothing picture of the afterlife.
After reading today’s Barney Google… I decided on asking the question.
Is there furry art of Sparkplug?
So I did the unthinkable and looked up on a furry art site… dreading what I would find.
Literally the only drawing I found of him… was nothing lewd, not even anthropomorphized, but rather the drawing was the artist asking “Is this supposed to be a horse?!?” due to Sparkplug’s bizarre design.
The things I do for… science?
@2+2=7: As a working artist he’ll get into the zone, forget to eat, and die of starvation. When they get home it will take them three weeks to realize that the dessicated husk at the drawing board isn’t moving and maybe they should do something.
@Professor Well Actually: I think there might be a need for that in Hootin’ Holler.
BG&SS: I really hate when the throwaway panels don’t make sense with the chronology. Why did Barney complain about women wanting him for his horse, then go away, get dumped, and come back? Really just hammers home the severe bestiality problem in Hootin’ Holler.
Blondie: And the Award for “Best Confusion of the Oscars and the Emmys” goes to…
Also, I thought Dagwood was saying that he had single-handedly turned Facebook around, and you know what? That would be a much better film than the real Social Network. “A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what is cool? Do you? Please tell me, I haven’t kept up with popular culture since the 1920s.”
SlyF – Look, maybe when you’re a blue-jay the open office window is a suitable egress/ingress for your office, but when Slylock steps out onto the ledge, he sees everyone from Cassandra Cat to Count Weirdly gathered below yelling “Jump! Jump! Jump!” Then he sees Rachel Rabbit running down the hill, thinks “Komm Susser Tod” and leaps. Max tells Jay to just run the bolt on the door, since he doesn’t use it anyway.
@11 MKay: on Rex Morgan: Next time you’re at Wally World…
@jroggs: 9CL – “As God as my witness” is a phrase intended to be followed by a statement of professed truth, not an instruction. Also, you’d think someone claiming to have dreamt about having an “out of bathing suit experience” wouldn’t be depicted wearing their bathing suit while they stroll amongst the Reese’s peanut butter cups.”
“As God is my Witness, I thought Turkeys could fly” would be the top example of the phrase.
All that work drawing his pinup girl in a bikini, but he can’t be arsed to give her a butt or boobs to go with it
BG&SS: After years of violence, the Smith-Barlow feud had taken the lives of most of the youth, leaving only old married men and an exhausted Jughaid.
@Merry Mirth: #36
“Looks like we’re in for another long and boring story.”
Is there any other kind in this strip?
BG&SS: Josh: “Barney Google more or less vanished from his namesake strip in the 1930s as it pivoted to cruel jokes about hillbillies full time, but he started making regular appearances again in the early 2010s. I’ve always been a bit curious about why that decision was made…”
John Rose succumbed to an insistent public demand from a particular and peculiar corner of the Internet.
// That’s the theory I’m going with.
@TheDiva: The CEO of Wal-Mart is named Doug McMillon.
Barney Google & Snuffy Smith: Man, those ladies in the throwaway panel are going to be disappointed when they discover the hideous snail-like creature using the Spark Plug blanket for a shell is only interested in depositing its gypsobelum in their mucosal layer. Doesn’t even follow up with an exchange of sperm, what a tease!
@60 Nehemiah Scudder: Don’t be so modest; we all know it’s your peculiar corner of the internet.
@Nehemiah Scudder: Never underestimate the power of Rule 34.
“Strive not to be a success, but to be as useless as the Sunday extra panels in Rex Morgan, M.D.” — Albert Einstein
Luann: Of all the “questions that give men anxiety,” I wouldn’t expect asking Brad, “Why is the car making that weird noise?” to be one of them. Brad is a car guy. He loves working on cars.
I would think he would see this question more as an opportunity to go under the hood and figure out the problem, and less as a signal that they are going to have to pay for an expensive car repair.
Mary Worth: We know where this is going. The whole Neff Nephewson interlude was to show how dramatically overworked the good Dr. Ed is and how he has no time to date Estelle (or is it ‘Stell’ now?).
So she will naturally go back to Wilbur because no woman in Mary Worth can not be in a hetero-normative relationship, no matter how problematic or icky it is. Wilbur is a “nice guy” and therefore Estelle is his reward for existing.
6Cx: Of course that’s not THE Pizza Rat starring here – but in the interest of authenticiy, we tracked down some of his thousands of descendants to find today’s talent to portray him. Man, that guy was busy, iykwim, when he wasn’t draggin’ pizza around….
[flashback music] Yeah, that was quite a run he had – we woulda loved to have gotten him as a client. But he was a genius at self-promo, never had to get an agent. Folks would literally throw pizza at him to get a video of him doin’ his thing! He was king of the subway, thumbing his nose at the Health Department, always keeping one scurry ahead of them…
But then one day – he was gone. His brief blazing star fizzled out…What happened to him, folks always wondered. Did he finally get trapped by the authorities? Did rival Vermin do him in? Food poisoning? It’s been my opinion that it was all that extra-cheese pizza. He suffered from hardening of the arteries. And bein’ a free-lancer, he had no health care benefits….. it coulda been different had he signed on with us…
@pastordan: Just like old times, eh, Pastordan?
Barney Google mysteriously showing up in the Holler, and a bogus Einstein quote in Mary Worth.
// These are days of miracle and wonder.
@Joshua K.: I thought Toni was a car person too. In fact I thought that was part of her appeal to Brad.
@pastordan: “Never underestimate the power of Rule 34.”
O gosh, gimme a second. I know this one! Um, Mark Twain, right? No, no, I meant, Albert Camus!
@Peanut Gallery: “A shiftless renegade Indian named Pedro,” eh? Probably living high on those Panamanian food stamps and welfare checks, hanging around the pool hall and the back-alley craps game every day, acting all uppity around the white folks.
Non comic related comment
RIP: Bud
I’m happy that as a boy I was able to get your autograph and shake your hand. You were a man among men.
@jroggs: re: DT: This story is NOT MEANT TO BE ENTERTAINING. It is meant to give hard-ons to Nero Wolfe geezers. “Ooooooooooo, Arnold Zeck! Wolfe’s Moriarty! Appeared in three novels between 1948 and 1950! Had his hoods Tommy-gun the plant rooms in The Second Confession (1949)! The whites of his eyes completely encircle his irises, like a shark!”
(Did not have to look any of that up, even though I last read the Zeck novels when I was 15 — Uke, Nero Wolfe Geezer)
(Since Wolfe hates work more than Maynard G. Krebs, this would be more a a vacation to him than anything else, especially if he’s well-supplied with reading matter and the grub is good. And of course Zeck, an old-fashioned “gentlemen villain,” would make sure his prisoner was served the finest vittles available in Neo-Chicago)
Blondie: Dagwood will always remember the time his friends kidnapped him, threw him in the trunk of their car, locked him in a basement, and held him hostage until Blondie paid the ransom. He likes to think of it as a drama series. You’d think he’d be nominated for best actor, but critics were kind of put off by all the weeping and binge eating.
Blondie: Technically, “this company used to be a success, and now look at it” is still turning it around.
MW: “Other than improving and saving animal lives, facilitating ‘good’ deaths is sometimes the most meaningful thing we do here. I mean, I’d definitely rate it as more meaningful than checking the vaccine stocks, wiping down the big table, or even obsessively reading negative Yelp reviews. But I have to say, on balance, the times when a pet owner comes in with a sick animal and we don’t kill it definitely have the edge. Anyway, I hope that’s helped.”
@Ukulele Ike: I feel like “shiftless renegade” kind of gives with one hand and takes away with the other. I mean, he’s a renegade, but he’s shiftless, so how dangerous could he be?
Anyway, he’s watching this scene with great interest. I guess they don’t get Netflix or Hulu round those parts, so they have to make do.
@Ukulele Ike: I disliked the Zeck stories. Also disliked the Deaf Man stories in the 87th Precinct series. Didn’t even like Moriarty that much. Guess I am just not an evil genius nemesis kind of guy.
@Peanut Gallery: “I would read Goat World.”
Me too. But stay away from Wolverhino — he’s a Wolverh In Name Only. You’d think “Jay Wardly” would be more interested in flying squirrels and the larger ungulates.
@Horace Broon: #76
” But I have to say, on balance, the times when a pet owner comes in with a sick animal and we don’t kill it definitely have the edge. Anyway, I hope that’s helped.””
Wait a minute, you’re implying that we should kill the animals and not the owners? Oops! I’ve been doing it wrong!
@Peanut Gallery: #77
“I feel like “shiftless renegade” kind of gives with one hand and takes away with the other. I mean, he’s a renegade, but he’s shiftless, so how dangerous could he be?”
Since almost everyone drives automatic transmission these days, a “renegade” would be one who prefers a stick shift, and thus by definition *not* “shiftless.” (Or are we talking about his underwear?)
@Peanut Gallery: “Jodhpurs! That’s my kink! …..this is gonna be so great!”
Phantom: Speaking of jodhpurs, it looks like Lion Lady is giving her guests a detailed tour and history of this fascinating underground domain, but panel two offers up Kit being his usual rude asshole self by ignoring it.
RMMD: No need for paper maps, and no need to drive miles out of your way for a picture of Hillbilly Moose. Thank you, internet.
Mary worth – wash rinse repeat moys motto taken from a shampoo bottle
@Professor Well Actually: #70: Brad and Toni are are both supposed to be gearheads. And what about that yellow 60s car they bought as a restoration project? Has that been memory holed?
@Ukulele Ike: #82:
“Kit being his usual rude asshole self by ignoring it”
Just like Dick Tracy when he toured the Antarctic Lunarian city.
@Rube: I barely remember the Zeck books, except for shooting up the plant rooms (Stout rarely indulged in action scenes), and when Wolfe, in the third novel, slimmed down to 180 pounds, grew a beard, and evaded a tail by making out with Lily Rowan (Archie’s steady squeeze) in the back of a cab. That was delightfully outlandish.
I was fond of the Deaf Man. My history as editor of the 87th Precinct novels is limited to Romance (1995) and Nocturne (1997), neither of which employed a evil genius, unfortunately.
JJ: Jim and Kitty are dressed to do a crossover in Sunday Phantom.
JJ: I can imagine Pedro applying for a job with the Axis saboteur ring.
OK, Pedro. What do you see as your major job strengths? What can you contribute the most to our company?
Well, I’m shiftless.
Good enough, you’re hired. Your first assignment is to keep tabs on those clowns dressed like cartoon jungle explorers.
After Pedro leaves:
Boss, why did you hire that idiot? By his own admission he’s shiftless.
Yes, but he checks off two diversity hire boxes, indigenous person and Hispanic. Plus, according to Panamanian law shiftless is a government recognized and protected disability.
MT: Jules, where’s your AR-15 rifle and 500 rounds of ammo in your disaster preparation kit?
@Nehemiah Scudder: Insane theocratic dictators everywhere insist on Google! “Bing” just doesn’t sound sinister enough.
@El Scudero: That’s a typo. He’s actually Wolverinho, Brazil’s first post-animalpocalypse superhero.
Pluggers – I would love to know Pam Brown’s story. Did she have an embarrassing experience with a Hula-Hoop and choose Pluggers as the means for processing her pain, or did she write to Pluggers with the intent of fat-shaming a large percentage of its readers?
Dagwood is over 90 years old. Of course he’s bad at social media.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Yes folks, when you are going on a luxurious cruise to faraway exotic locales, pics of dumb moose statues from Bumfuck, Virginia is what to you want to see the most! Like, if you went to France and the landmark you wanted to see the most was Paris McDonald’s? ( “A Royale with cheese?! It’s like being transported to another world!”)
Fudge Packer: Abbey asks, “Who’s there?”
The response: “Sam Blam. Thank you, ma’am.”
BGSS: First glance at that final panel, I thought those women were holding hands and performing an enthusiastic contradance. Which would honestly be great. “A bachelor? Let’s hold a barn dance! You can meet all our eligible ladies!”
BGSS: This is an outrage! For years they’ve protected that old pervert (“wanna take a peek under my blanket?”) Sparkplug, and now they’re actually promoting his lasciviousness! With the two-legger cast now, too.. not just the livestock!
I sized him up pretty quickly when I was a young Filly just getting into the business – he was already notorious for his “casting stall” at the Comics Stables. Yeah, I got “flashed” like every other newby, but I may be the only one who kicked him in the ‘nads. I guess it could have gotten me fired, but some of the higher-ups liked my “spunk.” I like to think I may have had a role in getting him banished for all those years…
Anyway, there wasn’t much to see under there – I’ve seen more swag on a Shetland Pony.
@82 Ukulele Ike: In the penultimate panel, are the kids laughing and pointing at Kit’s stripey tights? I know I would if it were my first time seeing such a sight.
@96 Melody Mare, incensed: TMI. Waaaaay TMI.
Blondie: I think Dag’s car pool dragging Dagwood kicking and screaming to the car is done from time to time, but why? Doesn’t he want to go to work? Does he want to finish his coffee first? Why don’t the other member of the car pool just leave the whiny nitwit behind?
JP: is this finally over and done with? Probably not but I wish. I think the odd pew pew should be mixed in with the blam blams. If it ever does end my guess is that Sam and Abby’s separation will be forgotten.
JP: Tomorrow – drone shot overhead showing green trees and peaceful scene. Narration box: Springtime comes to Cavelton!
For the first time in weeks, Oglaf opts for funny instead of graphic sex body-horror! Thank you!
JP: it’s April Bowers doing the blam, blamming.
Prince Valiant/ Rex Morgan: I read these two in sequence this morning. Did anyone else see a parallel between aging, no-nonsense King Arthur and aging, no-nonsense Hank Sr. as they both work on their “drawings”?
SlylickFox and Comix For Kinx: How to draw the oil slick character who killed Tasha Yar on STTNG.
@Garrison Skunk: SF- “Slylock Fox and Comix For Kinx: How to draw the oil slick character who killed Tasha Yar on STTNG”
You mean Oil Slick Smitty? Please. There are at least six differences in the way he is drawn from what was portrayed in STTNG!
SFx: So Jay Wardly is literally a jay? I thought all the
peopleanimalsanimal-people in the Slylockverse used their species as their last name – Slylock Fox, Max Mouse, Reeky Rat, Cassandra Cat… Well, with the exception of Sir Hound, who uses his species as his first name, but he’s an aristocrat and (as I speculated before) the aristocracy may have different naming conventions.So does this mean that Jay Wardly is also an aristocrat? Or – horror of horrors – has this comic been infected with the Funky Winkerbean virus of treating cartoonists as superior people? Sorry, animals.
SFx: It seems Jay has been doing some plagiarism himself, drawing Beetle Bailey cartoons. Or did he take over the comic when Mort Walker enterprises was eradicated during the Animalcopalypse? Frankly, I’m surprised that a comic about humans and their antics even survived.
Oh, I see. It has Otto. It must have survived because its clothes-wearing, bipedal dog presaged the coming rise of the animals. I wouldn’t be surprised if it the comic was renamed to Otto and Sarge reduced to the part of plucky sidekick.
SFx: “Wolverhino”. I like that. It answers the question how you transplant a comic about a human with an animal alias to a world run by animals – not by making him a real wolverine, of course, but another animal masquerading as one.
FC: Surely that’s blasphemy, presuming that mortals have the power to give an award to their creator for His work. HTT Grandma will have a field day when she hears about that. “How many times have I told you, William, that that harlot wife of yours is completely unfit to put the proper fear of God into your children? We will have to ask the pastor to intervene – what a shame!”
And the award for Best Funbags goes to . . . Blondie Boop-a-Doop.
@Pozzo:
I think he’s trying to choke Herb but forgot both hands go around the neck..(you can see one of his hands on Herb’s chin. )
Blonde- Dithers kicks Dag in the ass, BOOM! Was that an explosive fart?
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith – The show Northern Exposure (CBS, 1990-95) was about how a New York raise Jewish doctor got sent to Alaska for a number of years to serve as a town doctor in exchange for the state paying his med school costs. With the Supreme Court likely to overturn Biden’s student loan forgiveness, perhaps a deal can be struck with rural Republicans to send eligible young people into declining rural areas to rebuild the population and genetic pool. In fact, the comics can be a great vehicle to promote this program, as they can send Dustin to Hootin’ Holler and maybe, outside of the toxic influence of his family, he can grow as a person. At the very least, he can provide DNA for the first child in generations not to be born without the cauliflower ear.
Blondie – I don’t think the choice of Facebook is a mistake on the part of the creative team. The average age of Blondie readers is “retirement”, so they have very little use for LinkedIn.
Six Chix – The Internet has been like Saturday Night Live, in that every generation has complained about how the best years of their experience were ruined by changes brought on by new people. From 1993’s Eternal September, or Facebook opening up beyond college students, everyone remembers a Golden Era that was lost.
The early 2010s certainly laid the groundwork for how social media would ruin democracy, fuel genocides, and lead to an attempted coup, but for most users having fun at memes like Pizza Rat, The Dress, The Ice Bucket Challenge, or pretending retweeting would help The Arab Spring were what the Internet was about. It even spawned an Emmy winning late-night comedy game show. It was like the Weimar’s Republic’s Golden Twenties, before everything went to shit and Nazis took over.
Songwriter Jerry Samuels, who wrote and performed the 1966 novelty hit “They’re Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Haa!” passed away at age 84. He was also a successful recording company executive and booking agent.
For them as care, the cheap Hearst cartoons in the early 60s had the title card “SNUFFY SMITH and BARNEY GOOGLE”. Barney got decidedly lesser billing in smaller plain letters, but his name was there. In the actual cartoons Barney and/or Spark Plug were often hanging out with the Smiths.
At roughly the same time there was a Sing Along With Mitch album featuring the song “Barney Google (And His Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes)”.
Speaking of protecting IP, did anybody see that weird TCM thing with Warren Beatty in character as Dick Tracy?
@100 Ukulele Ike: You know, Estelle “Stell” McDoormatsen should get a few of those teabags.
Blondie: I do have to congratulate Herb for his Gordon-Levittesque wall walking.
SSmith: As we all know, nothing drives the ladeez wild like a Shetland pony with elephantiasis.
9CL: We’re just a few days from St. Patricks’ Day. Winter is breathing its last. Everyone who actually does the Polar Bear thing laughs at you, marking a rare occasion when someone laughs as 9 Chickweed Lane.
Dustin: Very few of us would shoot hoops with a knee-high child and let him watch us suck at it. Say what you want about him, Dustin is not easily shamed.
GA: Wow, Walt is such a throwback that he expects his housekeeper to be entombed with him. Congratulations, Gertie!
JP: Who got shot? Apparently the side of Ces that’s not preoccupied with exploring Sally Forth’s mommy issues.
Luann: Most of these questions…aren’t really anxious? Although with the wall I guess you could give Frank the benefit of the doubt and speculate he chained some guy behind it in his younger days.
Phantom: Kit is all “we’ve seen enough” and Diana is all “speak for yourself this is fascinating” and that’s the problem when sightseers go on trips with business travelers.
SFx: Admittedly, a guy who’s got almost the same name as Rocky and Bullwinkle’s creator and whose work covers pastiches of Marvel mutant books and Daniel Clowes would make a pretty tempting target for a thief/plagiarist.
@Melody Mare, incensed: As one of your many devoted fans, I am not surprised to learn that you were already standing up for yourself before doing that became safer and more widely admired. Congratulations on your strong spirit, which started so young!
I see that today’s PV has nice views of the Horses. And the Horses have friendly expressions that are easier on the eyes than the expressions on the faces of Val and Arn in that panel. We devoted fans will keep watching to see if you are invited to appear in PV, which would be so nice. And of course we will hope that if that happens, you will have wonderful weather, excellent working conditions, and big panels with great views of you.
@Professor Well Actually: Nothing can truly salvage this tale, but Pew Pew Pew would make me happier, at least.
Peanuts-Snoopy is waiting for it to start raining men.
Luann Third Panel-He buried someone behind that wall.
BARNEY GOOGLE AND SNUFFY SMITH: Well the ladies did hear that a “stud” was comin’ around…..
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars: Thanks for all the inside info, Sid! Very interesting!
I hope whatever happened to Pizza Rat was mercifully quick. And it’s always nice to be reminded that you run a professional operation and really look after your Animal clients.
SFx: Daniel Clowes peaked with the Lloyd Llewellyn books. Fight me.
The Familliar Mucus: “Alright! Who set off the atom bomb?” “Ida Know!”
@El Scudero:
Me too. But stay away from Wolverhino — he’s a Wolverh In Name Only. You’d think “Jay Wardly” would be more interested in flying squirrels and the larger ungulates.
_______________________________________
Did you ever notice that Wolverhino’s mask is two Batmans kissing?
Rex Morgan – If you’ve ever watched Squidbillies on Adult Swim, you will be delighted to know that the Adult Swim folks have erected a large statue of Early Cuyler (a large green hillbilly squid wearing a trucker hat) in Ellijay, Georgia.
I had no idea it existed until I drove past it, turned around immediately, and basked in its glorious glow.
Slylock: I defy anyone to lean a cupful of marbles against a door without the cup rolling off the door.
ME: “Steven, it distressed me that you set up a toll both in front of my office. I don’t care how many sick pommeranians you hold hostage, I’M NOT PAYING THE 45 CENTS!, and my eyes are down here!”
@Garrison Skunk:
That’s MW, not ME, Spellcheck! Get it right already!
@Melody Mare, incensed:
Glad you got him in the Little Sparkies,Mel!
@John Plugger Mellencamp: Sounds like the Boomer generation to me. That’s the most easily offended generation at all. Ironically also the most racist and hateful generation to other people.
You don’t have to worry, Barney. These days the girls of Hootin Holler prefer fentanyl, and no longer care for your horse.
JP: Seriously?
LUANN: Seriously?
RMMD: Shaved heads would be better than the endless Fang Bangs.
GA: Seriously?
@Garrison Skunk:
Not Me
TFS: Ignoring the “sexy” giraffe in the room does not make it any less disturbing.