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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/1/19

Parson Tuttle is, of course, a fraud who’s completely unsuited for providing spiritual guidance, but in this case he’s given Loweezy some solid advice that she seems to have missed. As a materialist, Tuttle knows that one’s happiness is tied directly to one’s material conditions, as he clearly states in the throwaway panels. Snuffy’s innards are full of nothing but rotten potatoes, cheap corn likker, and whatever chickens he can steal; there’s no way he can change his attitude just by force of will alone.

Between Friends, 12/1/19

I can’t decide if creating a spoof version of the Serenity Prayer — which is widely used within and identified with Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step recovery programs — in which the narrator deals with their problems by getting blotto on a bottle of wine is wildly inappropriate or actually very, very on point.

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Hi and Lois, 11/25/19

The fact that Lois’s dark shadow looms menacingly in panel two here really makes this comic. Some girls liked the beard, some didn’t. Some told Hi in no uncertain terms that the beard was forbidden, that even a hint of it had to be shorn off the moment it appeared, and that they would be watching, always watching, to make sure he would do as he was told. Now, some boys might not like that sort of arrangement, but as the bedroom eyes Hi is flashing at his wife’s silhouette clearly indicate, Hi is not one of those boys.

Shoe, 11/25/19

The Treetops Tattler, like many local papers, has a small staff that does double and triple duty, and it’s not unheard of to see them dedicating some column inches to arts coverage. Usually it’s the Perfesser who writes the reviews, though clearly that’s a conflict of interest here; it’s a little strange to see the editor in chief take on the role, but I guess he couldn’t pass up the chance to slam on his only full-time employee in a public forum.

Mary Worth, 11/25/19

Man, I barely have time for Mary still somehow being on Team Wilbur or for the delicious shade dished out by our narration box, because I think I now can’t avoid the conclusion that many of you commenters reached months ago: Iris is tired all the time not but because she and Zak are fucking all the time, but because she’s pregnant (which, to be clear, is still a result of the fucking, but it’s a second-order effect). The important question this raises: how will Wilbur react? Will this finally end his fixation on Iris, or will it send him even further into the deep end?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/25/19

I always had Snuffy pegged as a cynic, but it seems he still has a shred of idealism left — the belief that anyone, no matter how humble their circumstances, is entitled to the full protection of America’s laws and can seek redress in the courts if their rights are violated. But Sheriff Tait, the only representative of that distant government, quickly disabuses him of that notion: Snuffy is stuck here in Hootin’ Holler, in more ways than one.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/16/19

Parson Tuttle is of course a grifter and mostly biblically illiterate, but even he knows that a Christian clergyman is supposed to espouse a pacifistic attitude. Sadly, Tuttle is out of his theological depth once you get past these rote, borrowed pieties, and is unable to help his congregants figure out how to live a Christ-like life in an unforgiving society dominated by vicious blood feuds over long-forgotten offenses against family honor.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 11/16/19

Aww, Ralph and Grimm had a friend named Rocko, but he died, of heart disease! That’s … that’s the joke?