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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/5/20

We all know that comics characters almost inevitably wear the same clothes day after day, and the practical real-world reason is to make them iconic and immediately recognizable by readers. Despite the occasional in-jokey nod to such fashion consistency being a reality for the characters themselves, there’s generally no in-universe explanation for it. But sometimes there are surprises: today, for instance, we learn that Jughaid doesn’t just wear a coonskin hat to denote that he’s a happy-go-lucky rustic, but also to hide his disturbingly small and misshapen head. His uncle’s skull is similarly malformed, and so we must assume this abnormality is endemic within the Smif bloodline, but to me it’s even more unsettling to see on a child, and it’s right and proper that he hide that noggin with a raccoon pelt. I’m usually strongly against body shaming, but Jughaid should be ashamed of his weird, gross body.

Marvin, 11/5/20

Hmm, do you think that if Jeff had gone to college, he would’ve been educated enough to not become a parent to Marvin, the worst baby in the world? I’m not sure that’s really how any of that works, but it’s fun that Marvin holds his father in as much contempt as I do, or, for that matter, in as much contempt as his father holds him.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/1/20

I honestly find Mary Beth’s facial expression in the final panel heartbreaking. Aw, shucks, that’s her man! He’s extremely stupid but she sure does love him!

Blondie, 11/1/20

Dagwood’s facial expression in the final panel of this strip is equally harrowing, but it’s at least somewhat explanatory. Why does Dagwood, a grown adult with two kids of his own, spend an inordinate amount of time with Elmo, a neighbor child to whom he is not related and whose parents he never interacts with? We still don’t know the answer, but it’s clear from his facial expression that he has no other choice.

Shoe, 11/1/20

There are plenty of hints in Shoe that the Treetops Tribune is struggling, and of course there are plenty of problems that the entire publishing industry is up against, but it can’t help their cause that they used the same headline weight for an enormously consequential presidential election, a devastating pandemic, widespread nationwise protests and civil unrest, and the scheduled end of daylight savings time.

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Dennis the Menace and Hi and Lois, 10/29/20

Truly, there’s nothing more menacing than a child who becomes extremely aware of their own ability to perform a sort of exaggerated pantomime of childhood antics. Look at Dennis’s sickeningly smug facial expression in panel two — it’s like he didn’t ruin the wall for the joy of it, but rather just so he could unleash this sub-Family Circusism on his poor mother. Dot, too, is really overdoing it; a child rejoicing in the suffering of a sibling is demonstrating a distasteful but natural human emotion, but she’s making such a big deal of her cruel mirth that it’s clearly meant for an audience, one that for the moment is withholding the attention she so obviously and pathetically craves.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/29/20

Snuffy’s facial expression similarly seems wildly overdone, but I think we’re supposed to read it as genuine. See, he’s really depressed because he’s so poor and so deep in debt that he can’t afford to buy anything to eat, which is … the punchline to this strip, I guess?