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Shoe, 6/21/23

Here’s a little free hint for comic strip writers everywhere: if you come up with a line of dialogue and you think, “Well, I can’t top that one,” that means you’ve found your punchline! You should probably think of a setup panel that leads into it, instead of just having one of your other characters say “Well, I can’t top that one” and calling it day.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/21/23

For some reason I think I assumed that Snuffy was a lone wolf chicken thief? But here’s Lukey, cheerfully engaging in poultry larceny with him. And in broad daylight! Please, Lukey, reconsider this life of crime, you have a family! At least I think you do? Clearly I don’t know you as well as I thought.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/29/23

You might think that the inhabitants of Hootin’ Holler would object to the fact their only clergyman is a grifter and fraud. But in truth, for these rural folk, the niceties of organized religion are of little interest, as their spiritual world is dominated by essentially pagan beliefs in signs given by nature and the practice of folk magic.

Dennis the Menace, 5/29/23

That’s not to give followers of monotheistic creeds too much credit, of course; many, like Dennis, will menace generations of sophisticated theologians by simply treating God as a source of apotropaic power, a shortcut to get out of a bind rather than a mystery to contemplate.

Blondie, 5/29/23

Speaking of mysteries, do you think Dagwood has lied to these kids and told him that he’s a combat veteran, so they’re leaving him alone to give him time to contemplate his fallen comrades? Or is their attitude just something like “Well, I guess he respects the troops, so we won’t fuck with him and make his life miserable … today, anyway.”

Shoe, 5/29/23

CONFIRMED: traitors to birdkind in the Shoe universe are punished by ritual execution and cannibalism.

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Mary Worth, 5/16/23

Look, I’m a guy who likes to eat out, and LA has an great food scene with amazing high- and low-end restaurants, but definitely at the places I go to regularly, I have one or maybe two go-to dishes, because … I dunno, they’re good! I already know they’re good! Why would I get the thing that may not be good, when there’s something I already like? Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that you either die a hero or live long enough to find Mary Worth relatable. Also, are they stretching out the “Mary and Jeff go on a date” transition between storylines into a second week? Whatever, who cares, this is representation for me, as established.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/16/23

Do I want to keep making jokes about the obvious desperate poverty that the residents of Hootin’ Holler suffer in? I’m ambivalent about it, but when they keep doing strips about things like people stealing badly needed useful tools from their own children just for a few dollars, it’s pretty hard not to.

Daddy Daze, 5/16/23

OK, we’ve all just sort of accepted that the bit of Daddy Daze is that the Daddy Daze daddy pretends that the Daddy Daze baby can talk, but I think we should draw the line at the Daddy Daze daddy pretending that the Daddy Daze baby can write.