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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/20/16

I guess the point of this comic is that … cruel bullying doesn’t stop in high school, but will continue well into your adult life? And women are more likely to use mockery and social exclusion than out-and-out violence in their bullying? Of course, this is lawless, feud-ridden Hootin’ Holler; as Mabel’s clenched fists in the final panel demonstrate, this confrontation is going to to get violent soon enough.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/20/16

You know, I joke about all the old people drama in Rex Morgan, M.D., but to be fair, this strip is one of the only bits of pop culture that actually treats the lives of the elderly as interesting and worthy of dramatization, which I definitely approve of! Still, today’s strip is here to remind us that, while old people may in many ways be vibrant, intriguing human beings, in other ways they’re crumbling, feeble, and on the verge of death.

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Spider-Man, 3/19/16

I genuinely neither know nor want to know what is going on below Spider-Man’s waist in panel two here. The relative ability to rotate your femur bones all the way around of … a spider? Anyway, this is nicely distracting us from the fact that, when running to find his wife only in the company of a guy who already knows his secret identity, Peter Parker feels obliged to abruptly put on his spider-suit. It makes him feel safe, and powerful!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/19/16

Parson Tuttle may be a grifter, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t experience pangs of conscience now and then. That’s why his wife is always there, to keep him on the plan! Those fancy hats aren’t gonna pay for themselves!

Dennis the Menace, 3/19/16

In the end, this is the most effective way the old can menace the young: by letting them know that the long life they have ahead of them will be filled with disappointments.

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Crankshaft, 2/22/16

The phrase “bet the farm” comes from an earlier era, when agriculture was the primary economic activity and a significant portion of the population lived on small family farms. To many people of that era, a farm was a home and a job and a family legacy and a retirement fund, all wrapped up in one; to “bet the farm” meant, in essence, to gamble everything you had. Thus, Crankshaft’s malapropism is for once appropriate. Crankshaft definitely needs access to a pharmacy to live! He’s very old and not particularly healthy.

Mark Trail, 2/22/16

“…I’m only teasing! Definitely do not try to get out more often. Stay here, safe in this cave, for the rest of time! You’ll see how boring my life is as the three of us gradually slip into isolation-induced delirium, here in this kingdom of eternal darkness!”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/22/16

Ya can always count on yore fambly … t’just straight up beat the shit out of you! Punch you right in the God-damned face! I know it’s Monday and everything, but this strip is particularly grim.