Would genuinely love to see Snuffy go down the Sovereign Citizen route
Post Content
Crock, 3/4/23
Hmm, looks like Maggot has bailed on his marital counseling session and now it’s just Grossie pouring her heart out to some dude in a cave. Anyway, do you think when you’re writing a strip like today’s, you pause a moment and think “Wow, I really named a guy ‘Maggot,’ which is also a thing that in some cultures people actually eat, sometimes dipped in chocolate?” Or are you just very, very invested at this point in the idea that “Maggot” is literally a name that a person could have?
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/4/23
Speaking of which, to what extent do the writers of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith think of themselves as writing an ongoing satire of poor people living in Appalachia and/or the Ozarks? Or have they mostly forgotten it and are just working with long-memorized character designs and orthographic conventions? Because in the former case today’s strip has the vibe of “Ha ha, I’m really sticking it to these hillbilly moochers” whereas in the latter case it seems like the much gentler and frankly accurate “Ha ha, people want government services but don’t want to pay the taxes that fund them, amiright people????”
Six Chix, 3/4/23
“I also carry them around with me, which forced me to eventually stop reading altogether. Books are very heavy!”
150 replies to “Would genuinely love to see Snuffy go down the Sovereign Citizen route”
Six Chix-So true about books being heavy. I have a backpack full of books I’m returning to the library and will be dreading every minute until that backpack is empty.
MW-“I don’t know how you do it, Uncle Ed.” Animal tranqualizers.
FC-Man Hooters has gone downhill.
“I also have individual breasts instead of that damn ‘W’ thing! Don’t @ me!”
Bold move, using your love of books to make a stand against the concept of writing things down.
Snuffy Smith: Snuffy and Loweezy refuse to recognize the U.S. government unless doing so profits them personally. (Which, of course, is extremely on-brand for them… I only wish they understood how checks work.)
Six Chix: “What’s another name for ‘Goodreads’ that can’t possibly violate a trademark for a similar site?” “How about ‘SpiffingReads’?” “Great! That’s just terrible enough to be original.” (Later: They get a cease-and-desist letter from Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg for infringing on their own literary site, “SpliffingReads.”)
Mary Worth: So we’re really supposed to care about Estelle’s vet boyfriend and his angry-vet nephew now? (Well, that’s overstating it a little bit… If we were really supposed to care about them, we’d see them from the front.)
Judge Parker: Seeing a punch that’s obviously fake on an action TV show is annoying. In a comics-page illustration, it’s simply mystifying.
Dennis the Menace: Grampa was “tired and worn out” in his youth because of all the drugs, ladies, and roller-discoing.
Family Circus: The waitress doesn’t care about your cute little sayings, kid. She’s well aware that serving your family means a huge mess and a 12-percent tip.
Pluggers: Calling fake on this one. I don’t care if it’s from the Truman administration — if you throw out a can because it’s “past its expiration date,” you’re not really a plugger.
Crock : and think : “Wow, I really named a guy ‘Maggot,’ which is also a thing that in some cultures people actually eat, sometimes dipped in chocolate?”
I wouldn’t think that, because I’m not Bill Rechnin and thus didn’t name the character, and if I WERE Rechnin, I couldn’t be able to think, period, even back when the whole “deceased” thing hadn’t happened yet.
Though, yeah, my mind immediately went to the Sage giving Grossie a single worm-shaped chocolate candy*********
Dustin : what’s up with the coloring? Is DustinDad just sitting in his living room, moping, with the lights off after evening dusk has fallen? What’s up with THAT?
*********
Luann : Oh no! How will Luann complete this impossible task?
a) She will remember she HAS a sad conflict with her family; they’re disappointed in her and regret ever having her.
https://www.gocomics.com/luann/2021/06/20
b) She’ll realise that just because the prompt said “Sad”, it doesn’t mean the story has to be tragic, and writes another “humorous” short story (that’s just a recap of a “storyline” from the Potato-Sack-Head days) about Bwad stealing the last pudding and making her cry or something.
c) She’ll realise Mrs Horner didn’t specify it has to be about HER family, and that she can write about Piro’s or Tara’s or Bernice’s or Gunther’s or Tiffany’s
or make fun of Mrs Horner for never having had a family of her own and get her usual F-, etc.d) She’ll realise Mrs Horner explicitly told them the stories they write in her class don’t have to be true https://www.gocomics.com/luann/2023/01/26
e) She won’t, because Luann DeGroot is bland and useless and a constant failure, she’s a kinda bad protagonist for this kind of soap-operatic storylines
f) She won’t, but will pass the class with flying colors, because INNER BEAUTY
…This is WAAAAAY too much text/work for commentary on freakin’ Luann***********
Six Chix : Oh Josh, brunette lady doesn’t carry those books WITH her, she carries them INSIDE her, because she obviously pulled them out of her
cabooseMIND.MW: How has Dawn Weston not hooked up with this bundle of fun?
BG&SS: Shouldn’t that be, “Butter an’ AIGS?”
(Appropriately named) Crock – My recollection is maggots cover shit – not the other way around. I have no idea where the chocolate comes from….
BG&SS – Welfare checks = Good Gubmint – Meth law enforcement = Harassment of salt of the earth….
6-C – And that’s a hell of a stack of Barbara Cartland. It trumps digital Plato, Spinoza and Descartes….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
I guess some people are anal about their reading, in that they keep a running tally if the number of books they read, and some people are anal about their reading, in that they carry around a stack of books in their rectum, apparently.
MW – What Neff Nephewson needs is a heaping helping of Dawn Weston love. I hear she’s still single since being dumped by Mopey Jared.
Six Chix: “And these are all the books I’ve read because those are all there are. It’s not like they make any more, right?”
Couldn’t SickChix come up with a better blandname for Goodreads than Spiffingreads? How about Moodreads? Foodreads (for those who prefer cookbooks)? Or Broodreads, for people like Ma Keane desperate for an escape from their spawn?
Also, that lady has bodybuilder-level wrist strength.
Wary Morth:
“My girlfriend’s ex has a daughter who has an…attitude…to deal with this problem.”
“Is she a vet too?”
“No, she’s a brainless nincompoop who curls up on the sofa muttering ‘Life is brutal.’ ”
“Oh, wow, sounds like my soul mate! Do you have her number?”
SC – The w-breasts lady who literally pulls books out of her ass also has a skinny right leg and a jacked-up left leg, like she only does one leg- always the same one – on “leg day.”
Must be nice to make a living as a cartoonist when one cannot actually, you know, draw.
Judge Parkfest- Alright everyone step right up and play Slug A Judge! Ladies first.
Meh, Airplane movie did it better with the hysterical passenger.
@astroboy:
Also, where did she get the books from, a parallel universe? They literally materialised out of the void between panels.
CS: “GET . . . THAT . . . FUCKING . . . THING . . . OUTTAMYSTORE!!!”
JP: Man, just when you think things can’t get any worse, right Judge?
GT: Okay, who’s going to be the first to give the other one noogies?
RMMD: Stay tuned for tomorrow’s exciting Sunday episode when Yvonne asks for more napkins!
BG&SS: “It’s not a check, it’s a social worker here to check on-” “Put. It. In. Thar.”
CS: It’s pretty funny that these characters are treating this comic rack installation like it’s an additional favor rather than a drastically-imbalanced compensation for this dumb bio-blurb. That said, clogging up Lillian’s limited floor space with unsellable vanity-press comics does seem like a reasonable punishment for wasting everyone’s time.
MW: Dogs are good! But dog owners are terrible!
JP: Our righteous and sympathetic heroes, beating defenseless injured prisoners without even knowing who they are.
“I didn’t go through vet school to get yelled at by demanding pet owners! This one asshole tore into me because I told him his goldfish were overweight.”
JP: One of the many problems with this strip is there is not one damn character that is even close to likable.
6C: Folded dishtowels with inspirational messages don’t count as books.
Six Chix – “Who said anything about counting? I LOG them. I turn them into fireplace logs and burn them. And you’re certainly not supposed to READ them, heretic!”
Crock – Desert sage? So, Crock takes place in The Colorado Desert? That explains… nothing.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Either him or me, one of us must be dreaming!”
6 chix: that feeling when you are having trouble deciding which of these two stuck-up women you hate more.
Wouldn’t the Desert sage get more business if his sign was in *front* of his cave?
Phantom: What? Wrack and Ruin? What kind of name is that for a Horse? Oh, wait…. she’s not *addressing* me as that – it’s just part of her exposition/Mozz tirade. I guess there are things worse than my character not having a name…
So are we going to gallop into the fray or not? She’s dismounted so I guess we’re on hold until she finishes her soliloquy. Honestly, that old fart Mozz gets waaaayyyy too much attention around here. I think it’s time to pack him off to the Old Comics Home.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: When you come from a line of illiterates, blank sheets of loose leaf paper seem like something to frame and venerate.
@pugfuggly: they carry around a stack of books in their rectum,
***
Rectum? Shoot, it killed ’em.
@Peanut Gallery:
“Kill those who can read! All the Leibowitz devotees!”
Today’s Six Chix is entry #456,785 in the on-going series, “You’re Enjoying Media Wrong.”
Sick Chicks: I have nothing against people who log the books or movies they read. I even started with books this year because in December I spent enough at Barnes & Noble that they gave me a book journal. But I did a knowing nod to the comments from W Jugs because it made me think of all the people who take pictures/videos of things rather than enjoy the moment. I get that with photographers who see the world through a lens, and I get that when you’re at the Grand Canyon that you can get some photos of it while still admiring the views and soaking them in without a camera.
At sporting events, though, so many people remove themselves from seeing something significant because they’re too focused on getting a picture of it. There was a photo in our dead tree of a golfer sinking a putt to win a tournament, and it showed the gallery behind the golfer. Almost everyone was holding a cell phone up to get a picture. There was one person who stood out because he was watching and absorbing the moment – a memory he’ll probably always have – without trying to get a picture.
In 1999 I was with two other guys at Penn State when the Gophers beat the #2 ranked Nittany Lions on a game-ending field goal. I remember the moment well. My two buddies didn’t have as good a look at it since they were both peering through the lenses of point-and-shoot cameras.
So I understand the sentiment of W Jugs in this one. (And yes, I would motorboat her. If I were to take a picture, it would be like how those guys in Hall Pass took a mental picture for their spank bank.)
MW – Steven McNephewson makes me think of the wisecrack, “He was engaged in animal husbandry . . . until he got caught.”
Maw dropping a check from the government into a mason jar, and not actually cashing it is actually pretty on-point. If Hootin’ Holler had a bank, surely we’d see Snuffy robbing it and not a bag of chickens from his neighbor.
Crock: In the movie “The Dirty Dozen,” Telly Savales plays a character named “Archer Maggott.”
@Pozzo: This is, for Crock, a bit of a Zen koan. Right up there with “if Crock is ever remotely funny, what would the laughter sound like?”.
As Maggot is the guy who digs cesspits, you’d think Grossie would be turned off by the image of her husband caked in brown goo. Truly there is a lid for every (chamber) pot.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: #32
“MW – Steven McNephewson makes me think of the wisecrack, “He was engaged in animal husbandry . . . until he got caught.””
I most memorably heard it in a Tom Lehrer pre-song patter: “He majored in animal husbandry, until they caught him at.”
Six Chix: I can’t help but feel, that this jab doesn’t just refer towards books, but also videogame achievements and the whole “Once I beat a game, I never have to play it again…” as opposed to just replaying for fun.
And I end up rethinking a lot of things about myself…
6C: Nancy coincidentally just mocked the Goodreads attitude.
HtH: Viking bars must have been tough places, if they seated oblivious patrons directly beneath the dartboard during the championship match.
jp- Wasnt there suppose to be a lesbian wedding before they started this story that seems like it will never end rex md- After this diner story ends they will show buck getting food delivery for a month straight
HtH; Huh. Mr Horrible is back at after his death yesterday.
MW: “And why do you call me Stephen? When do I get to be Dr. Stephen Harding to everyone?”
“We’ve discussed this. When you hit euthanasia 500.”
GT, Milford ER: “We need a surgeon stat! Two massive hernia cases coming in.”
FC: No, kid. Child’s plate means you get an eentsy portion just so your cheapskate mom can save a couple of bucks and your fat ass will be hungry again before you leave the parking lot.
JP: Wouldn’t Yelich allowing random people to physically assault a helpless prisoner be a good reason for all of the charges against him to be thrown out?
Crock: This Desert Sage is about ten seconds from closing up shop and moving to a better business location just to get away from these dumbasses. Maybe there’s an opening for Sages in the nearest rainforest. Their mother had always said being a Jungle Sage was where the real money was at, but they didn’t believe her when going to Sage college and now look where it’s gotten them.
Snuffy Smith: The feudal American Empire — warlord remnants of former local government bureaucracies to the north, now a kingdom in the post-apocalyptic world— receive word that their summons and attempts to negotiate a union between their kingdom and the petty fiefdom of Hootin’ Holler have once again been rejected. Now they muster their horses to annex the territory by force. They ride at dawn.
Six Chix: “Where were you storing those books?” “Hey, on second thought, how about we stop talking for a bit.”
6C: When you’ve only read eight books in your life (and seven of them are the Harry Potter series) it’s pretty easy to keep track of them.
BGSS: Residents of rural communities being the biggest recipients of the federal government assistance they constantly decry is a trenchant observation I normally would not expect from the “hillbillies talk funny” comic.
Crock: The Desert Fathers and Mothers of Christianity did in fact take up lives as hermits in deserts, though mostly in Egypt, rather than [squints] Algeria? Let’s go with Algeria. And they were in fact called upon to give advice by the local population. They lived at least twelve hundred years before the introduction of chocolate, however, and roughly two hundred before Islam swept the Maghreb, and their advice would have run to prayer and self-flagellation. They did know from human maggots though, that part is accurate.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: It’s established canon that Hootin’ Holler has a mostly barter-based economy, and I don’t recall ever seeing a bank there. Besides, Snuffy and Loweezy are illiterate, what the hell are they going to do with a check? Scrawl an X on the bank and hope like hell Silas doesn’t cheat them out of the full amount?
Six Chix: Look at Stripy Chick’s stack of books. Look at how they magically hover a couple of inches above her hands. There’s only reason for that to happen: she’s a hallucination scared up by Blond Chick, for the express purpose of book-shaming herself. Dennis could take lessons on self-menacing here!
FC – The waitress thinks, “If I took that job at that diner in Rex Morgan, I wouldn’t have to put up with these morons.”
JP – Step aside, Mark Trail. It’s the Fists of Violent Tempered Assholery.
MW – I thought the nephew was an aide, but he’s a veterinarian, too? He went through veterinary school and I guess an internship, and this never came up before?
This is a new one for Mary to meddle. The “dogs are good” page is bookmarked in the Big Book O’ Platitudes, but she’s going to have to pull something more out of her ass.
Frazz – Quebec? Travel is really broadening – he’ll get to be smugly superior in French.
Dustin: I can’t decide which is more probable: a) both Dustdad and Dustin have been running down the tank, assuming the other would fill it up or b) Dustdad had a full tank this morning and Dustin has expended it in a desperate attempt to find some escape from his miserable home life.
JP: Nice attempt at Lichtenstein, but needs more zipatone.
Luann: Even if Luann’s family did have anything worth writing about, she’d be too self-absorbed to notice it.
MT: It’ll be easy, Mark, they’re probably leaving charcuterie boards out on the porch or something.
MW: Honey, if you didn’t want to be yelled at by difficult people you should have picked a career in software engineering, or painstakingly copying manuscripts by hand for a monastery.
Pluggers will eat it anyway.
@pugfuggly: @Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I’ve been keeping a log of the books I’ve read since 1992. However, even though I remember details about books I read in grade school and high school, I often can’t remember anything about books I’ve read only a few months ago. This year I started another notebook in which I write a brief synopsis of the books. I should have one of those journals – I spent enough at Barnes and Noble before Christmas that they should have given me one.
Scratchy, you are so right about people missing out on real experiences because they’re taking photos. There’s something worse: ignoring what’s around them because they’re absorbed in looking at their phones. When we were at Yellowstone we were walking around the thermal pools, which were like nothing I’ve ever seen. There were kids who were so absorbed in looking at their phones that they didn’t bother to look around them.
MW: “I don’t know how you do it, Uncle Ed.” “I try to relax with a little Hitler cosplay. You should try it. It’s wunderbar!”
Phantom: Melody, don’t be angry because it wasn’t an action scene. All of that dramatic tension and restrained emotion really allowed you to display your full acting range. You don’t want to be typecast as purely an action star. Besides, you also got to share the scene with Diana as she revealed a major plot point so you’ll never have to worry about it ending up on the cutting room floor.
RMMD: No patrons will be seated during the pulse-pounding will Hank put ketchup or mustard on his burger scene.
GT – “Joey, do you like movies about weight-lifting competitions?”
Pluggers: Pluggers have a high rate of food poisoning, but hey, waste not want not.
Pluggers – If that’s a can of tomatoes, it would have exploded long ago. I learned this the hard way when a can of tomatoes was pushed to the back of my pantry and wasn’t used.
Seriously, I don’t remember expiration dates on food during the 1980s. Isn’t that more recent?
Crankshaft – *Eyeroll* *Facepalm* *Head desk*
As if there aren’t enough reasons to despise that loathsome hag, now she’s going to become a comic book fanatic. Comic books comic books comic books. Batiuk has no shame.
9CL: Is todays entry just an admission that all the powers that be in the 9CL universe – including the Catholic Church – have yielded to the fact that Edda Van Hoesen (née Burber) is the more special, most quirky, most “not like the girls,” most intelligent, most matchlessly beautiful lounce to every have lounced in the history of louncing? Edda cannot be bound by the rules of God or man, a true “ubermensch” in the Nietzchean sense. I guess we should be lucky that she only uses her powers to be bitchy to other women and bully her husband, rather than world domination. Or is “Edda crushes the world through her will to power” going to be next week’s incoherent arc?
Six Chix: SpiffyReads wants you to log your books so it can suggest other books you might want to buy. Jeff Bozos bought SpiffyReads to drive traffic to Amazin.com, not so badly drawn people can brag about their book count.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Looks like Hank is ripping right into that burger with no condiments whatsoever. Time’s a-wastin’!
If you examine closely, there’s a stripe of red above the stripe of brown and a stripe of green below, funny papers code for “he ordered it with lettuce and tomato.”
@I speak Jive: It’s not that you don’t remember the expiration dates it’s that you didn’t notice them. They have been around since the 1930s.
@Ukulele Ike: #59: Oh shit! Hanks’s eating the Burger King logo!
@I speak Jive: re Pluggers: Yes, those look like canned tomatoes, and no, they wouldn’t have lasted since1988. I think they problem is that Pluggers don’t remember how long it’s been since Reagan was president. To them it seems like only yesterday.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: When American Pharaoh won the first horse racing Triple Crown in three decades, the cover photo in Sports Illustrated barely showed the horse.
The SI photographer standing near the finish line was blocked by all of the people holding up their smartphones to record the historic event.
And much like the people who brought their snapshot cameras to concerts back in the pre-cellphone days, all they probably got was an image of the head of the person in front of them.
Crank: Yes, because if someone writes a bio for someone else’s blog, the logical thing to do is then print it out (or write it longhand?) put it in a binder (how long is it? Because even a whole page seems like too long for the format) and hand deliver it. Lillian can now have all the fun of transcribing it onto the blog herself!
GT: Then Coach Martinez gets some white paint and adds extra zeros to Gil’s weights, which therefore increase in mass by a factor of ten.
JP: Look on the one hand, yes, Gloria is punching an unarmed, tied-up man in the face. But remember, her husband has just been killed! And a drunken, incompetent cop says it was probably arranged by the person this probably is!
MW: “I didn’t sign up to put down animals! I didn’t go through vet school to be yelled at by pet owners! At no point during my training and recruitment as a small animal vet did anyone explain to me what being a small animal vet entailed!”
Phantom: “The Mozz prophecy serves no-one but Sarvana” seems like a weird way of putting it. Like, even with the suddenly-introduced-recently implication that something is pushing events towards what happens in the prophecy, it still hasn’t been suggested that it’s the prophecy’s fault these things are going to happen. Indeed, both Mozz and Stripey seem to agree that the purpose of the prophecy is to prevent these things from happening, although they disagree on how to go about this.
SH: “We don’t waste space here,” Samantha says, referring to a setup that requires everyone involved to understand that this row of eight cages represents successive homes for the same two creatures.
Snuffy Smif A lot of social service departments issue ATM-like benefit cards instead of checks. Not sure what Snuffy and Maw would do with theirs, maybe use them for toothpicks?
Six Chix Panel 3: “Bitch.”
MW: I continue to avoid this dreadful comic but I do read the comments. I’m sure aspiring veterinarians learn in school that euthanizing animals is part of the job. In a small animal clinic they will be euthanizing beloved pets that are old, or sick or in pain, ideally gently and with a measure of compassion. This is idiotic. I shall continue my boycott.
MW: next Steve applies for a job in a hospice.
CS: so this is now Funky Winkerbean.
RMMD – There’s something to be said for retirement. But if you were retired from writing Rex Morgan, how would you know?
@Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women: Those are souvenir photos from that one time they stayed in a fancy flatlander hotel that had venetian blinds on the windows. Never saw the like in all their borned days!
Six Chix: Oh my God. Don’t you have a “Live Laugh Love” sign you need to hang right about now?
@Professor Well Actually: ….by firing squad.
MW: I think Karen Moy is feeling a bit threatened by RMMD, which has become less and less medical drama and more and more relationship drama about boring, middle-aged and old people having tepid romances and bland conversations. In other words, RMMD is encroaching more and more on MW’s territory.
What can she do about that? Why not take back the territory abandoned by the rival comic, and write medical drama? But, to avoid charges of plagiarism, make it medical drama about vets!
Dustin: In an unexpexcted development, Ed has suddenly become psychic! Also, their TV has gone on the fritz and bathes their living room in a ghostly, blue light, but Both Edand Dustin are too lazy to have it repaired.
Having had assembled bookshelves before, I never knew just carrying the books everywhere so I could prove myself the superior person should the opportunity arise was even an option.
@Professor Well Actually: #66: re-CS: Yep. And we all know that Les Moore and the corpse of the Blessed Dead St. Lisa won’t be too far behind.
I interrupt this boring Mary Worth storyline digression with 3, count them 3, panels of Wilbur Weston’s face making contact with various fist and feet.
Crock: So she wants sweaty, hairy Maggot, naked, coated in chocolate, which she will then eat. Sage, you can hang it up, because this woman must seriously love Maggot. She loves Maggot more than Maggot loves Maggot. You may be rolling your eyes, but it’s true love. Even though it’s disgusting. Respect that.
6ix Chix: I’m glad to learn that Frazz doesn’t have a monopoly on smugness over how other people live their lives.
SFx: I mus tsay that I didn’t really expect Slylock Fox, of all comics, to turn into Lovecraftian horror. But now that we know that space in the Slylockverse is infested with evil, tentacled monsters intent on devouring mankind (and, I assume, its animal successors), we know what to expect. Next week, Slylock and Max will investigate a weird cult, descend into their underground temple, and emerge as changed animals: Max will be a gibbering lunatic who will have to be put down for the good of society, while Slylock on the surface will be the same suave vulpine as usual, but underneath that mask will lurk the ancient evil curse of his family, likely to erupt into homicidal mania any moment.
Meanwhile Count Weirdly will continue his research into re-creating eldritch abominations from the oldest dreams of his ancestors, until Rachel Rabbit by mistakes summons ancient Hastur, who stomps on the entire forest and puts an end to everybody’s misery.
Crankshaft: Nothing says thank you to a small bookstore in a town that already has a comic book store like a spinner rack instead of, I dunno, a handful of trades? I mean it’d be more convenient for lillian and a small company like pete’s to stock those instead of showing up to an old woman’s house once a week to add new comics. I mean i’d get Bautik not knowing this but he’s clearly friends with several comics legends who, even at their age, would know what a trade is, and is currently indpednetnly selling the complete works of funky winkerbean. He has no excuse for this. It’s just something that annoys me as both a comics fan and someone who worked in an independent bookstore and then frequented the place often after.
Gil Thorpe: Continues to be the best as we get several panels of sweaty over competivness. We haven’t seen sexual tension this raw on the comic pages in their long history and i’m here for it.
Dustin: Dustin’s dad apparently has my son is fucking up spider-sense… huh we MAY have an explination for why he’s such a miserable husk of a human being.
RMMD: This dude handles a burger like Mary Worth handles a cellphone.
@Your Secret Admirer: Taking up the challenge, Jef will henceforth depict Frazz carrying armloads of books everywhere he goes.
Six Chix is a perpetual hallucinogenic hell, but you can never figure out who are the damned and who are the torturers. This also applies to most newspaper comics.
I have a theory that Six Chix represents the tortures of the damned in hell, but there’s no way to identify who are the damned and who are the demons. I have this theory about every other newspaper comic.
The Libermancer, with her sole power of summoning books, is rarely respected in the wizarding world; the insufferably smug Libermancer, even less so.
My local paper has replaced Scott Adams’ Dilbert with Tom Batuik’s Crankshaft. At least the racism will be a bit quieter and slightly more subtle.
MW: How did Poor Young Nephew Steven make it all the way through vet school and whatever practicum(s) he had? Weird.
LUANN: I suppose Widdew Shannon’s family situation is sad, but she’s awful and I don’t care.
CRANKSHAFT: Some of us remember what Lillian did to her sister, but it doesn’t fit with her new lovable author shtick, so I suspect it will never be mentioned in C’Shaft again.
@Arabella: I looked up expiration dates, and the information was that acidic canned foods such as tomatoes and pineapple last around a year and a half, whereas nonacidic foods last much longer. I’ve seen some cans start to bulge at the ends, and I get rid of them right away. I hope that Plugger likes botulism.
@Baja Gaijin: I enthusiastically approve of all three.
@Your Secret Admirer: Imagine how smug that Chick could be if she was a runner.
MT: I took one more peek and the Bro infestation is so bad that I am indeed taking a break for awhile. Sympathies to the bears.
GA: No, Grampa Walt is not a “guy.” Nor are the “girls” actually girls. All of you in GA are something else, not sure what.
JP: This is the eww that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends, some people started reading it not knowing what it was…
@oldgold: There was a temporary pet squirrel that I liked, and Melody Mare was a major highlight when she was around. My brain refuses to go any further.
@Jacob Mattingly: Re Crankshaft – The bookstore is in Centerville, and the comic book store is in Westview, so they’re not in competition with each other. However, since everyone in the state of Ohio WORSHIPS comic books, I’m sure that both towns could support multiple comic book stores.
@Poteet: Re Crankshaft – Forgetting the ruining her sister’s life story just makes a lot more time for comic book stories.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: @I speak Jive: Glad to see I’m not the only rabid reader on this site. If I have free time and am bored I just hop into my car and hit a book store or stores. Still, to me, the cheapest (by hour) entertainment option out there. That plus my spotify account. :)
Juliet Jones – These people are allegedly adults, but both Eve and Earl are behaving like spoiled junior high kids. This is supposedly romantic, but it’s now in hate read territory for me.
Vintage JP – Lynn visited her husband in the hospital, and he wouldn’t talk to her. Meanwhile, her ex-husband is on his way, planning to murder the current husband in order to get his money. Incredible as this sounds, no one is screaming “What’s happening!?” or frowning or punching anyone out. There are no dead bodies or crooked cops or meth gangs. This is an interesting story with believable, likable characters. It’s terrible that this good strip turned into the train wreck it is now.
Vintage A3G – Thanks to the rerun strips with the insufferable Newton Figg story, I think I missed something with this new story. What is wrong with the little girl that requires her to have a nurse while her father is away? Why not a nanny or babysitter?
I feel really out of it with this story.
Crock: Hey, have you been wondering what kinky stuff characters in Crock get up to in the boudoir to keep their relationships fresh? Too bad, here it is anyway.
6C: When you try to promote reading by conjuring a stack of books from thin air and get burned for witchcraft instead.
@Danielakiiki: I donate a good percentage of my books to the library after I’m finished with them – our library has a big book sale twice a year. I don’t have room to keep them.
There are others on this site who have read a LOT more than I have.
C-Shaft: The former Westview residents who migrated to Centerville because of *checks notes* a moderate midwestern snowstorm really have passive aggressiveness down to a fine art. Check the way Skunkhead John sent out two dopey confederates to Lydia’s with the “gift” of a comic book carousel, something she’ll struggle to find any use for but which promotes his brand to the potentially dozens of customers who might stumble through in the course of a month.
GT: One of the players says “Can we lift?” instead of “Get a room, guys,” which would have gotten him benched until graduation.
HtH: I don’t think a mini-bow would work with darts, so the rulebook is beside the point.
JP: Always a nice bonus when you can get a secondary bonus stream by marketing merch related to your strip. Keep an eye out for Ces’s Judge Duncan piñatas on Etsy.
MT: Agreed. As far as problems go the bears rank way behind you having such a wimpy collection of enemies. Bring back Evil Bazooka Joe.
S4th: You can tell how stressed Ted is by the fact that he didn’t say anything about calling themselves the Chadwells.
@Horace Broon re: Phantom: If I remember correctly, in Mozz’s vision, Junior’s estrangement from the family somehow triggers Heloise’s bestie (Nomad’s daughter) to commit suicide, which causes Diana and Heloise to leave Ghost-Who-Talked-Too-Much-In-His-Delirium. Otherwise, things don’t go that badly for her and the rest of the family: She makes a new life for herself in the U.S., Heloise hooks up with a normie and has her 2.2 kids, Junior carries on for many years as a rebel leader, and Phantom carries on for a while before his fateful trip to look for Junior. Not exactly “wrack and ruin.” Oh, she read the part about Ghost-Who-Rebounds hooking up with Savarna along the way and producing two more kids? Yeah, she’ll be damned before she lets that homewrecker get a foot in the door. Never mind.
SHERMAN’S LAGOON: I started following this strip a few months ago, at the recommendation of a Mudge, as I recall. I am intrigued by the story-hopping. Most of the time, it seems the stories end while there is still more that could be done with them. While I sometimes find that a little frustrating, I admire the apparent confidence that there will always be new ideas ahead. And the material is usually funny or close to it. Thank you to whomever made the recommendation. Or is it “whoever”? Oh well.
MW: As much as I gripe about how Mary Worth is always so myopically focused on the romantic concerns of one main-cast character, I have to say I really could not be less interested in Mary’s neighbor’s boyfriend’s extremely sheltered nephew and his emotional breakdown over a moderately unpleasant pet owner when this plot thread is introduced after HOLY SHIT WILBUR HAS BECOME A REMORSELESS SEXUAL PREDATOR.
It’s the Saul-and-Eve problem all over again, only worse. At least Eve was largely present in her story even though the goodness of dogs took far more precedence than any exploration of her traumatic abusive marriage. Wilbur’s barely been able to get a word in edgewise or even physically appear on-page after being outed as a committed stalker, despite being arguably the second most important character in the strip.
I know, I know, most of us are tired of Wilbur, but he’s a core viewpoint character and we really need to be in his head if we’re doing this. What is Wilbur’s mindstate right now? What does he think about his behavior and Estelle’s response to it? Does he believe he’s doing anything wrong? Why is he doing this? What will he do now that he’s been called out for it? These are questions we should be getting answers to, not the melodramatic whining of Dr. Boring’s wussy relatives.
Six Chicks: That’s nothing, I have them both beat. In the 80s , I read books, enjoyed em, remembered them, logged em (on paper, ’cause no home internet back then)… and then got a free personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut (back when it tasted better) for reading a certain number of books.
Snuffy Smith-Jughead has been drafted and will be sent off to Vietnam.
@I speak Jive: I’m always reading 2 books at one time (one at work while on break, one at home) so I’d have to estimate I read 30……40 per year? Does that seem possible? I keep plenty of them (my two bookcases are almost full, gonna have to buy a third, not sure where I’ll put it). The others I either sell back to a local bookstore or in the community area of the association where I live (and in 2 days they are all gone)! I get strange looks from my coworkers when I start reading. Strange looks over the top of the phones they are absorbed with lol!
@Poteet: Ooh! Ooh! That was me!
@Poteet: I unironically enjoy Sherman’s Lagoon. And Zits and Arlo and Janis..
@jroggs: No, we don’t need more Wilbur, for Amy reason
@Professor Well Actually: Same here.
Also Frank & Ernest and Prince Valiant.
@98 jroggs: Clam down! Take a look at Wilbur getting punched in the face. Multiple times!
WARNING TO POTEET: One of the Wilbur-punchers wears a costume you don’t like.
SIX CHIX: “Also, I don’t count them because I’m innumerate. My brain capacity got filled up with learning how to read, so I don’t have space left with learning how to count. Or with practical matters like how it might be easier to haul these around if I had a book bag or something.”
Luann: Luann is showing an unusual level of self-awareness here. For once, the Evansii nail it.
@Edda’s Piano Bench Has Seen Things: #57
” Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Snark Room here at Comics Curmudgeon. (applause) My name is Shrug and I’m your compere for tonight. You know, once in a while it is my pleasure, and my privilege, to welcome here at the Snark Room, some of the truly great international artists of our time. (applause) And tonight we have one such artist. (grovelling) Ladies and gentlemen, someone whom I’ve always personally admired, perhaps more deeply, more strongly, more abjectly than ever before. (applause) A woman, well more than a woman, a godess (applause), a great godess, whose personality is so totally and utterly wonderful my feeble words of welcome sound wretchedly and pathetically inadequate. (by now on his knees) Someone whose boots I would gladly lick clean until holes wore through my tongue, a woman who is so totally and utterly wonderful, that I would rather be sealed in a pit of my own filth, than dare tread on the same stage with him. Ladies and gentlemen, the incomparably superior human being, Edda Burber!”
@Ukulele Ike: #59
“If you examine closely, there’s a stripe of red above the stripe of brown and a stripe of green below, funny papers code for “he ordered it with lettuce and tomato.””
Or, of course, with squashed frog and Louisiana hot sauce.
@Horace Broon: #64
“At no point during my training and recruitment as a small animal vet did anyone explain to me what being a small animal vet entailed!””
I thought it would just mean I’d have to keep my weight down and slouch a lot!
@Poteet: #86
“MW: How did Poor Young Nephew Steven make it all the way through vet school and whatever practicum(s) he had? Weird.”
The vet school instructors saw what a snowflake he was, so they went easy on him. Other students had to put to sleep sick dogs and cats; Steven was allowed to get away with gently killing houseflies.
@67 Peanut Gallery: You’d know you’re retired from writing Rex Morgan because you can play golf at any time without the five minute intrusion of “work.”
Six Chix-She pulled those books from the same place ‘Six Chix’ pulls it’s jokes. Her ass.
@Edda’s Piano Bench Has Seen Things: 9CL – And yet, for all her powers, she still can’t dress The Twins in clothes that fit. The ones they have on today are so oversized that The Twins are walking on the hems of their pants. All this time travel must make it difficult to get the right sizes during the right time streams.
The dialogue today implies that Edda had a difficult childhood and barely managed to “succeed” in life by finding a milquetoast husband and raising two sex-obsessed toddlers. It’s difficult to keep the story coherent through all the endless time travel and continuity rewrites, but she seems to be a pretty ordinary girl, with a pretty ordinary childhood, when the unicorn isn’t there to tell her otherwise?
@Shrug: “No extra charge for squashed frog at Nick’s Diner! Come on down!”
@Shrug: Bwahahaha!
During a few months of my life, my work was anesthetizing caterpillars and doing delicate surgery on their heads. (It would be fun to claim I was working for County Weirdly, but no.) Perhaps that kind of very-small-animal care would suit Steven better. The survival and successful-pupation rate of the caterpillars was very high, I’m happy to report. But the few tragic outcomes did not result in any yelling or lawsuits.
@Peanut Gallery: I hope to see that one again next Friday!
@118 Poteet: STOP PEEKING!
JP – Wait, is that a tooth flying out of Judge Meth’s mouth? Sophie musta been slacking for him to have any of those left! So when is Abbey going to have a whack at him for whatever he did to her Azaleas?
MW: I’m seeing now why “veterinary hospital drama” isn’t a very popular genre.
@Shrug: welcome to the Snark Room here at Comics Curmudgeon
There exists also some, uh, different room here?
(The MP nod is acknowledged.)
@Shrug: Someone whose boots I would gladly lick clean until holes wore through my tongue
‘Tisn’t her boots I would lick clean.
@123 Maude R. Fawker: Boobs? Booty? What?
When I was in grad school, the local pizza joint was called Joe’s, and their cook was called Fat Maggot. You could get “Fat Maggot at Joe’s” t-shirts, I am not kidding. So I dunno, Josh, seems like the number of actual people named “Maggot” is non-zero. In case that matters.
@Calvin’s Cardboard Box: In the original continuity, Edda’s father abandoned her and she later was injured in a school shooting. Both of these scenarios are pretty traumatic, but it’s unclear if either of those events are considered canon anymore. Now it seems to be more, “Edda was always intelligent, beautiful, and perfect, and her only problem was beefwits who didn’t appreciate her genius.”
@richardf8: The judge will miss those teeth, but at least he can enjoy the literal contact fumes from those narcotic punch sound effects.
“This guy right here?!?” *CRACK!* “He’s the one who killed my husband?!?” *SMACK!* “You have him in your living room?!? *FENT!* “Have I firmly established that I’m a violent idiot yet?!?” *PHENCYCLIDINE!*
@I speak Jive: We went to Yellowstone back in 1967 when I was a kid. My parents were all “Look at the mud pots! Look at the geysers!” but I was in the back seat reading my book and didn’t look up.
Some things never change, and one of them is preteens on family roads trips.
@Her father, John Darling: Who the hell is Amy?
S4th: I hope the next doorbell ring will be Ted’s brothers, now moving in because they’re unable to feed and care for themselves after their Mom (and Ronan) kicked them out.
@Edda’s Piano Bench Has Seen Things: It’s weird to think that at some point in the past Brooke was actually expending some effort in characterization. Jokes as well. Wonder what happened.
@Noel:I’m seeing now why “veterinary hospital drama” isn’t a very popular genre.
There was one, though, Noah’s Ark.
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
He stopped.
@Ukulele Ike: Taking up the challenge, Jef will henceforth depict Frazz carrying armloads of books everywhere he goes.
Won’t that unacceptably limit the flailing arm motions?
@I speak Jive: Imagine how smug that Chick could be if she was a runner.
I would think Wellesley has a good running team. That is a W on her blouse, isn’t it?
@Baja Gaijin: Edda has a booty? I thought the backs of her sexy sexy legs just somehow merged into the small of her back.
@agony: I remember looking at the mud pots and geysers, then buying a copy of Death in Yellowstone and spending the rest of the week with my nose in it.
@Edda’s Piano Bench Has Seen Things: “9CL – In the original continuity, … but it’s unclear if either of those events are considered canon anymore.”
He who controls the present, now controls the past. He who controls the past, now controls the future.
Six Chicks: “Because if I count the books I read, it means I cannot enjoy them, nor remember them. That’s how books work, right? You can either count them, or you can remember and enjoy them. A few days ago, I counted a few Shakespeare plays I read, and now that I know there were three of them I’ve got zero memory of what Othello is about.”
Six Chex and a Cat Named George Costanza: “You know, the second time you read Moby Dick, Ahab and the whale become best friends.”- Jerry Seinfeld.
@Mikey:
now that I know there were three of them I’ve got zero memory of what Othello is about
_________________________________
It was the sequel to “Abbott and Othello Meet Desdemona”
@Baja Gaijin: 124 “@123 Maude R. Fawker: Boobs? Booty? What?”
I think he meant to write “taint’ instead of “‘Tisn’t”
@Peanut Gallery:
Don Abundio, translated:
“Either him or me, one of us must be dreaming!”
_______________________________________________
In late breaking comic news, the late “Momma” Hobbs has been retroactivity reincarnated as a parrot. Tune in at 11 for a comment from her ungrateful children.
@Avoiding the Madding Crowd: I think he meant to write “taint’ instead of “‘Tisn’t”
Twat’s that you say? I cunt quite hear you.
@Noel:
@Noel:I’m seeing now why “veterinary hospital drama” isn’t a very popular genre
__________________
Hard to beat Dr Rowlf and Nurse Piggy on “The Muppets”.
@Garrison Skunk: HAR!!
@Noel: Under “Popularly Considered Heartwarming Division,” there’s ALL THINGS GREAT AND SMALL and the others in that series. Under “Kvetching And Really Hates To Euthanize Division,” there’s, um. this.
@Maude R. Fawker: 144
Perhaps you have an infucktion in your ear?
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith – Like most crops or profitable economic pursuits, the post-revolution Newnited States progressive regime’s neo-New Deal plan of shared abundance and shared sacrifice fails to find fertile ground in Hootin’ Holler
Mary Worth: The Mayo Generation.