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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/19/12

You know how I pedantically insist on calling this strip “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith,” even though original main character Barney Google hasn’t appeared in it in years, having long ago helped it transition from “Roaring Twenties City Lowlife Humor” to “Depression-Era Hillbilly Humor”? Well, hold onto your hats because Barney’s back, baby. He isn’t named here but you can tell by his goo-goo-googly eyes (and a quick Google Image search).

I was thinking that Barney’s visit to Hootin’ Holler would be a happy occasion full of mischief and hijinks, but then it occurred to me: how bad must things be in the flatlands to get a fancy fellow like Barney to flee up to this impoverished rathole? He’s probably just a few hours ahead of the roving cannibal gangs. And the rest of Sunday’s comics weren’t that much cheerier!

Panel from Slylock Fox, 2/19/12

Like, things are getting pretty grim down at the trailer park! With the nearby forest having been stripped bare (you can see one of the sad few remaining trees in the background), the local mobile home denizens have resorted to burning their own furniture for heat. Or, in Reeky’s case, other people’s furniture.

Six Chix, 2/19/12

Over in Six Chix, a child’s penchant for thoughtless violence has angered a species of advanced aliens with the capability of interstellar flight. Best-case scenario: Our conquest and enslavement. Worst-case scenario: Earth vaporized by a powerful space-based death-ray.

Curtis, 2/19/12

And in Curtis, we learn that Gunther’s spacey bonhomie masks a deep and unshakeable longing for death.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/16/12

Vegan advocacy groups should probably just plaster an enormous version of this cartoon on all available surfaces. The look on Ol’ Bessie’s face as she realizes that, with the well empty, she’ll be required to produce enough fluid to slake the Smifs’ thirst is truly harrowing. It probably shouldn’t come as surprise that our rustics don’t have a firm enough grasp on biology to understand where the liquid in the cow-juice comes from, but it’s pretty clear that once they drain the poor thing dry, they’ll presumably move on to their neighbors’ livestock, and then to their neighbors.

Mary Worth, 2/16/12

Here’s a fun game to play! The next time an acquaintance boasts to you that he or she has bedded a new ladyfriend for the first time, show an interest by asking “How did it go? Was it unpleasant? Did she boast about her successes?” This will guarantee that you won’t have to hear about anybody’s sex life ever again.

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Mark Trail, 2/13/12

It’s well known that in the moral universe of Mark Trail, kindness to animals is the highest value. So, let’s ask ourselves: who are the real villains in this story? Mark and Tommy, who left poor Butch the blind dog alone in a field with only a jacket for company, and who have gone back to Tommy’s comfortable home to plot how to exploit Butch for big-time TV money? Or Jeff and Jamie, who, despite being on the run from the law and hiding out in some rustic cabin, are prepared to take pity on a poor hungry dog they’ve never even met before? I certainly hope that, instead of punching, this storyline ends with Mark taking a long, hard look at what he’s become.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/13/12

Starting with a punchline (even a good one, which this is not) and working your way back to create the set-up is always a terrible, terrible idea in comics. I mean, can you figure out any context in which it would make sense for Snuffy, Parson Tuttle, and a quartet of nameless Hootin’ Holler elder ladies to be gathered around one of the community’s few working TV sets to try to pick up the Grammys on its bunny ears? I guess it’s possible that inveterate lawbreaker Snuffy and notorious grifter/fraud Tuttle lured the town’s grandmothers to this viewing as a cruel prank, knowing that they’d be embarrassed and horrified by the flatlanders’ outlandish music and whorish outfits. So, yeah, actually, this totally makes sense in the strip’s milieu, forget I said anything.