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Mary Worth, 4/26/23

OK, look, I was willing to accept it when we only got a day of Wilbur singing karaoke while sobbing openly, but now we find out that a cat tried to blind Dr. Ed and now he’s wearing an eye patch and we didn’t get to see that at all? Unacceptable! Still, I see two potentially funny ways forward: either Ed’s briefly rekindled love affair with the veterinary profession has now been snuffed out for good, and he’s brooding one-eyedly and thinking about burning the building down for the insurance and starting over again in a new town as a simple bricklayer, or the whole incident was relayed to Estelle over the phone as he explained that he needed to “take some time off” from their relationship to sit in a dark room and heal (i.e., spend more time with his wife and children so they don’t get suspicious).

Judge Parker, 4/26/23

This is part of a larger storyline about April finally getting released from her illegal CIA prison for implausible reasons, but right now let’s just acknowledge that it’s very funny to cruelly mutter “Yeah, let’s end this” as you get yet another spam call.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/26/23

I’m not afraid to admit that I was genuinely surprised by the punchline in today’s Snuffy Smith: I assumed that Snowball was the seeker, and that he thought he’d have an easy time finding Li’l Sparky because horses are quite large in general, larger than most available hiding spaces, and that Li’l Sparky in particular is wearing a bright yellow blanket to boot. But, no, it turns out that Li’l Sparky is the seeker, and playing Hide and Seek with him is easy because he’s not very smart.

Pluggers, 4/26/23

Sorry, I was going to try to figure out what this joke is supposed to mean, exactly, but then I got stuck on the idea that there’s a carton of milk just off panel to our left and it’s hurling at this plugger at high speed and about to hit him right in the nose, and while I’m reasonably sure that’s not what this joke is supposed to mean, I’m enjoying that image too much to part with it.

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Folks, we need to start off on a sad note: Dennis Lien, who for many years posted in the comments here as Shrug, passed away last week under hospice care. He was a great force for good vibes on this site and he will really be missed!

Blondie, 4/17/23

Dagwood can tell Alexander is “getting serious” romantically because he’s wearing “clothes that fit,” like a monocolored t-shirt that he carefully tucks into his belted khakis. The extent to which this comic doesn’t understand teenagers manages to go even beyond the extent to which it doesn’t understand adults, which is really saying something.

Gil Thorp, 4/17/23

MILFORD GEOGRAPHY ALERT: today we establish definitively that Milford is in the “pop” zone, and while this encompasses a broad swath of the United States, from the Great Lakes to the Great Plains to Rockies to the Pacific Northwest, it seems to definitively cut out other commonly cited location possibilities, like Connecticut. Sadly, Hoo Dad’s Root Beer does not appear to be a real regional product that we could use to narrow things down further, but I will provide more data on this as it comes in.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/17/23

If you’re curious about what educational and intellectual life in Hootin’ Holler is like, I’d like to point out that Jughaid is thumbing through what appears to be an unbound six-page leaflet about volcanos, which I assume has been written by hand.

Crock, 4/17/23

Oh look, today’s Crock rerun is a joke about, uh, children getting married to adults? Here’s hopin that this is what it finally takes to get Crock cancelled (I will accept either the modern “cancel culture” sense of the word or the more traditional “they stop running it newspapers” sense, whatever it takes).

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/15/23

Aw, shucks, it looks like Dr. Mirakle really is Rene Belluso after all, cleverly disguised via fake eyebrows, though the question of whether Mud Mountain is a coconspirator or a mark is still up for grabs. Sadly, Rene used to know Hank Sr., so the “kid” Hank Jr. (who is clearly 15 years older than Rene at minimum) might recognize him at some point in the future, despite having had a not particularly brief conversation with him at close range earlier and seeming to not notice anything amiss. The point is that we’re gonna get a boat murder, or at least a boat attempted murder, and I think that’s neat.

Dick Tracy, 4/15/23

Speaking of crimes, Neo-Chicago’s Major Crimes Unit has called in an classic games expert for The Case Of The Guy Who Loves Classic Games Too Much, and check out how Sam is just absolutely embarrassing himself here. “Somebody’s playing cops and robbers and won’t share the dice.” C’mon Sam. Cops and robbers is an open-ended game of make-believe that children play, it isn’t like some structured thing with dice and board pieces and whatever. And what would “sharing” dice even mean in this metaphor? That’s not how dice work! Steve thinks you’re a big idiot! Why can’t you just be normal?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/15/23

Hmm, and how did Loweezy find out about this information, exactly? Sure, everyone knows Snuffy is a notorious layabout and criminal, but usually criminals can be relied upon to keep their mouths shut to protect their associates. But it seems not all the gossip in Hootin’ Holler is exchanged at the gossip fence.