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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/6/12

Everyone’s face in the second panel is pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a scene in which three desperately poor people are about to eat a canned bean dinner in a dilapidated shack in an isolated rural hamlet. Where do you suppose Snuffy is? Jail, again? Do you think they’re sadder that one of their family members can’t be there, or happier because he’s a useless criminal and his absence means more beans for them?

Archie, 10/6/12

Notice that by the time Archie blows that whistle in the first panel, Moose is just standing around looking sheepish. Despite Archie’s ostensible attempts to impose some sanity on this “friendly” game of touch football, he knows better than to interrupt Moose when he’s in the midst of whatever violent whole-body fugue state resulted in the terrible injuries revealed in panel three.

Pluggers, 10/6/12

Speaking of looking sheepish, normally I find the faces of the various man-animal abominations who inhabit Pluggers to be fairly inexpressive, but both father and cub here are wearing pretty piercing looks of shame — poo-based shame.

Herb and Jamaal, 10/6/12

Are rising energy prices starting to degrade vital government services? Or is Jamaal just letting some guy’s house burn down, for fun?

Gil Thorp, 10/6/12

If you’ve ever wondered what it would like to perch on the belt of a guy who is really, really psyched about the terrible micksploitation slogan he’s come up with for a high school football team, and is also wearing a waistcoat for some reason, then today’s Gil Thorp is for you, my friend.

Beetle Bailey, 10/6/12

How is it that whoever wrote this cartoon doesn’t cry themselves to sleep every night, just like Mrs. Halftrack? This is probably the saddest thing I’ve seen in the comics in months, and I read Funky Winkerbean daily.

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Archie, 9/28/12

Rarely have I ever wanted to know more about the backstory to a two-panel Archie newspaper comic rerun from the mid-to-late ’90s than I do today. Based on this snooty waiter’s fancy outfit, I’m assuming our Riverdale teens have decided to skip Pop’s today and instead test their culinary palette at some upscale dining establishment. (They’re clearly so used to eating at the diner counter that they’ve gathered awkwardly on one side of the table.) But why? And now that they’re here, do they feel underdressed or otherwise class-anxious, or are they oblivious to the socioeconomic factors at play? And then of course there’s the question of whether Chez Elitist has a fancy-food buffet at fancy-food prices, or if the waiter is just attempting to get Archie and the gang to finally feel shame by shoving their proletarian desires to gorge themselves in their faces, hoping they’ll slink out without further embarrassing the swells.

Apartment 3-G, 9/28/12

I’m really sorry I didn’t discuss yesterday’s Apartment 3-G, in which Lu Ann spent a languorous bubble bath thinking about her date with Greg, because if I had I’d have more context for talking about how very rapidly this strip is turning into a porno — specifically, if Evan’s stiff, awkward posture is any indication, a porno acted out entirely by Barbie and Ken dolls wearing the least interesting outfits that Mattel sells.

Family Circus, 9/28/12

“I glad God hasn’t disappeared in a puff of my own doubts yet, leaving me bereft of moral purpose and unable to come up with any course of action beyond one that indulges my most immediate and basest desires!”

Luann, 9/28/12

Guys, what do you suppose it’s like, spending time and effort to draw a sexy teenage girl, lavishing loving detail on her revealing clothes and her cleavage and crotch, then creating a storyline for her that aims to prove that she deserves ill treatment because of the sexy way you drew her? Probably pretty exhausting, right?

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Mary Worth, 9/27/12

Haha, Dawn isn’t even making a pretense anymore that her hospital volunteering stint is about leading a more fulfilling or spiritually rewarding life or whatever. You’d think she’d give Mary some kind of boilerplate lead-in about how “helping others is the highest reward blah blah blah” before launching into “LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT JIM THE SEXY AMPUTEE.”

Her new obsessions and her tendency to become monomaniacal about boys may explain the shocking scene here, in which Dawn is grabbing a steaming, fresh-from-the-oven pie plate with her bare hands, with a flimsy paper towel not even covering the entire hot surface. “At last,” she cries, as the odor of bubbling, searing hand-flesh fills Mary’s kitchen, “I won’t remind Jim of what he lost every time I reach to pick up a fork or salt shaker! We’ll be able to meet as equals!” (As you can see in panel two, Mary’s own hands are protected by long gloves made out of human skin.)

Archie, 9/27/12

So … the joke is that, while a teenager might accidentally use a homophone in casual writing, an adult would not? Because, as an occasionally professional editor-type person, let me assure you that there is a flaw in the assumptions here.

Ziggy, 9/27/12

Ziggy’s cat and Ziggy’s fish are sad, because they’re in love and their dreams of someday having a litter-school of cat-fish hybrid horror-children of their own has just been crushed.