Post Content

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/5/25

Lord knows I’ve spent enough time contemplating the economy and politics of Hootin’ Holler, so I might as well take this opportunity to unpack its cosmology a bit. You are all, I trust, familiar with Granny Creeps, a chthonic sorceress or perhaps demigoddess who creates potions and spells from native roots and lichens and lives in a local cave — indeed, in a strip from a few days ago, we learned that she recently blocked up the cave mouth with rocks so she can “hibernate.” Today, we are reminded that there’s another town resident who tinkers with powers beyond our ordinary plane of existence: Zeldy, who works brighter, more ethereal magic, a being of wind and spirit who looks into the future rather than drawing power from the past. Now, Zeldy hasn’t been seen in this strip since 2013, but I have a terrible suspicion about why this pastel-hued, pale-skinned medium is being brought back to a strip that already has an ominous green figure: it’s called Wicked Fever and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith has, regrettably, caught it.

Hi and Lois, 1/5/25

God, I love the fact that Lois and Irma have gotten into this Hawaiian bit just so they can spend 90 seconds making sure their husbands are getting drunk before they peace out. Sure, they might get weird looks at the mall, but they can be secure in the knowledge that their blotto husbands neither know nor care when they’re coming back.

Post Content

No comment of this truncated week, folks — we’ll let pugfuggly have the place of pride till next Friday!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/3/25

OK, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, you have to decide: is Hootin’ Holler an impoverished and isolated community in one of America’s neglected rural byways, or is it, you know, in the past? “Hillbilly times,” or whatever? You could be forgiven for saying “Josh, it’s obviously in the past, what are you talking about” but if that’s the case, then how come the strip’s hillbillies know about bitcoin and pickleball, huh, smart guy? Anyway, my point is that Jughaid absolutely does not know what a pocket watch is, nor does he understand the modern industrial economy, because if he did he’d know that Santa isn’t about to retool his entire production line just because one kid wants a pocket watch, c’mon.

Tina’s Groove, 1/3/25

“Say,” you’re probably wondering, “does Tina, the title character of Tina’s Groove, a comic strip currently in reruns that Josh talks about extremely intermittently on his blog, have much a love life?” Answer: she does, and it’s just as depressing as everything else she has going on. I do like that this guy has a picture of her on his desk, where to me she looks as shockingly depressed as she always does. It’s like he looked right into her gloomy soul and decided “Sure, whatever,” and I think that’s sweet.

Post Content

Pardon My Planet, 12/22/24

One of my least favorite genres of “Images You Can Buy On A Poster Or T-Shirt” is “Two Dead Celebrities Dressed In Vaguely Rockabilly Outfits And One Is Giving The Other One A Tattoo And The Whole Thing Feels Vaguely And Unpleasantly Sexual.” I’ve seen this with Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn (on a giant poster hanging in the men’s room of a restaurant that seemed otherwise respectable) and Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein (on a t-shirt hanging on rack outside a store in Italy). This comic isn’t quite the same thing but I think we can agree it’s in the same general ballpark, and that ballpark is distasteful.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/22/24

No, I don’t buy this at all. A Christmas Carol is famously one of Dickens’s shortest books and Snuffy is a notoriously stunted and gnome-like man and was presumably even smaller as a child. I’m beginning to suspect he can’t tell different books apart, possibly because he’s illiterate.

Marvin, 12/22/24

Can you imagine feeling like you have to continue to live with Marvin, for you own safety and survival, and the thought of being separated from him sends you into a state of panic? Bleak stuff.