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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/31/13

And so this week has been bookended by strips demonstrating the confusing effect that Hootin’ Holler’s poverty and isolation have on the very language its inhabitants speak. Cliches and turns of phrase filter in from the outside world, but are based on things that most of us take for granted and yet are complete mysteries to Snuffy and his kin. And so, just as the old saying “hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk” is a confusing word-jumble to people who travel by foot on dirt paths through the woods and fields and have never seen a sidewalk, so too is the phrase “fresh as a mountain stream” meaningless to people who have no experience with indoor plumbing and who get all their water from mountain streams as a matter of course. (The stream also doubles as the town sewer, so you can see why Snuffy seems particularly puzzled by the use of “fresh” in this context.)

Momma, 8/31/13

I’m preeeeety sure Momma has been a 43-year-long exercise in establishing that our mothers are responsible for all our emotional problems, actually.

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/26/13

Oh goodie, it’s been far too long since the main characters in Funky Winkerbean have faced an existential threat that will provide them with an opportunity to wax self-righteously! Since many of Westview’s teachers depend on these subjects’ funding for their livelihood, we should be treated to a delightful melange of “Our children won’t receive the cultural education they need” and “We will be forced to beg for change and live in a cardboard box under the elevated highway on the outskirts of town.”

Much as I support full funding for arts education, I do feel it necessary to point out that lunch is somewhat more important in the hierarchy of needs than the other subjects facing the axe. Don’t worry, teachers, they’ll be enough cash to restore your classes, once the weaker students have been strategically starved to death!

Gil Thorp, 8/26/13

Sorry I sort of dropped the ball on the end of the Gil Thorp summer wrestling storyline, everybody! Gil and Herk had their wrestling match and everyone had a good time and then as he headed out of town Herk called Gil by his real name, implying that his tragic dementia was actually just a wrestling angle and thus bringing the blurred line between artifice and reality out of the squared circle and in to everyday life. But now summer’s just about over, and two local gals are on a mission … a mission for man tip. Haha, just kidding, I’m deliberately misconstruing the dialogue in the third panel so it sounds like they’re talking about a penis, but really if you give your kid a name that is or can be shortened to “Tip” you need to be prepared for this sort of outcome.

Slylock Fox, 8/26/13

Slylock Fox has never been a more shameful and transparent shill for the universal surveillance state than it is today. Remember, everyone, evil-doers might be holding adorable penguins captive in horrifying basement freezer-prisons! That’s why the staff of utility companies need to monitor everyone’s energy usage and pass any anomalies on to meddling fox-cops and/or heavily armed SWAT teams, for freedom.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/26/13

Ha ha, it’s funny because Hootin’ Holler is so impoverished and isolated from mainstream American life that its residents are wholly ignorant of basic civic infrastructure that most of us take for granted!

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Mark Trail, 8/19/13

Oh my goodness you guys, Rusty dreams of dinosaurs! (I sneer at your pedantic “pterosaurs aren’t technically dinosaurs” gripe, Rusty and Mark were talking about dinosaurs all week and you know we’re going to get some.) While this will provide lots of opportunities for awesome dinosaur drawings, it also provides Mark with an opportunity to abandon his hideous ward in the woods, as you’ll note that Rusty has just dozed off on the ground without Mark being anywhere nearby. Looks like that fishing trip was just a last hurrah, or, more likely, an excuse to take Rusty so far away from home that he’ll never find his way back!

Funky Winkerbean, 8/19/13

This is a pretty textbook example of how things go down in a Funky Winkerbean 3.0 strip. The dialogue could be construed as a little light-hearted joking, but the grim facial expressions show that in fact everything is meant to be taken in deadly earnest. “No, really, the football team is terrible, and there’s literally no chance of it getting any better. Certainly not with me in charge of it. I’m the worst!”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/19/13

Dang, Snuffy’s reputation precedes him … his reputation as a man who steals chickens so he can dismember and eat them. Ha ha, it’s funny that the chickens are afraid of Snuffy, because they don’t want to die!

Pluggers, 8/19/13

Pluggers just have to poop all the time.