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Crankshaft, 12/14/22

I love the idea of this TV station boss threatening to make his staff pick up dog shit if they annoy him. There are just lots of levels to it. First of all, there’s the fact that they have a regular event where a bunch of dogs shit all over the studio, and they haven’t really figured out how to deal with that yet. Also, if nobody makes this pun, I guess the dog turds are just going to stay all over the studio? To prove a point? “At least nobody made a stupid pun,” the boss says, as everyone gingerly walks around all the poop that’s smeared everywhere. Anyway, I certainly hope that the station janitor is within earshot, so that he knows that his job is a punishment, actually.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/14/22

I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the gag writers for Barney Google and Snuffy Smith understand what “feudin’” entails in a culture where clan loyalties are paramount and the government is unable to claim a monopoly on legitimate violence. It does not involve playing wacky pranks on one another, I assure you! It involves Barlow trying to murder Uriah, with a gun.

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Blondie, 12/1/22

I have to admit I find it interesting how Dagwood and Mr. Dithers silo off different types of interactions in their relationship. At the workplace, of course, it’s all falling asleep and emotional abuse. But a heartfelt, man-to-man discussion about their marriages and what makes them tick? That’s reserved for the formal dinners at white tablecloth restaurants that they have with alarming regularity for no reason anyone can fathom or explain.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/1/22

The general store is Hootin’ Holler’s only tenuous contact with the outside world and its money-based economic system, so you can forgive the locals for assuming that, if any new-fangled thing they hear rumors about ever arrives in the Holler, it will do so by manifesting on Silas’s shelves.

Six Chix, 12/1/22

Part of my job as a comics curmudgeon is to point out when a truly baffling Six Chix is truly baffling in a fun way. This is one of them! Sorry, I don’t make the rules, it just is. Ha ha, she bought a long blue wig and doesn’t know why!

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Mary Worth, 11/27/22

Ah, this is the point in the Mary Worth storyline where all the characters have been chirpily telling each other how great everything is for weeks until we, the readers, want to die, but then we hit a sudden shocking twist: what if things … aren’t great? Aren’t great at all? What if there’s a certain someone from Zak’s past that’s he’s ben missing all these years? That would be quite a development! Remember, Zak used to have an age-appropriate friend group, but I guess they abandoned him when his dumb girlfriend started hanging around him all the time, so maybe it’s one of them? On the other hand, maybe it’s Wilbur. Wilbur and Zak used to hang out! Zak thinks Wilbur is pretty cool, which is deeply troubling!

Panels from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/27/22

Wow, Loweezy looks genuinely distressed in the second throwaway panel here, doesn’t she? Please, Snuffy, you’ve got to get up and hunt! Your family has no money and is on the brink of starvation!