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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?

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Dennis the Menace and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/11/19

An online pal of mine pointed out to me the other day that many of the characters from the comics are not who we think of them as, generationally speaking. Mark Trail and Rex Morgan, who began their existence as adults in the 1940s, remain in the prime of their manhood today, and are thus almost certainly Gen Xers or maybe even older Millennials. That’s right! Whenever you hear about how Millennials are ruining everything today with their safe spaces and their avocado toast, remember that people are talking about Rex Morgan when the say that!

Normally this doesn’t really matter, but nothing creates an uncomfortable intersection between real time and comic book time like a fixed historical event, so we probably need to think about what wars various honored comic strip veterans are veterans of as of 2019. Mr. Wilson was an old man when Dennis the Menace debuted in 1951 and was probably supposed to have been a veteran of the trenches of the Western Front; today I suppose he’s a Vietnam Vet, incongruous as that seems. Snuffy Smith offers an even more difficult case, because I don’t think anyone has a real clear sense of how many years old Snuffy Smith is supposed to be, forgetting for the moment of what year he was supposed to be born in. Like, he and Loweezy are weird wizened potato-people who kind of look like they’re super old? But they also have an infant son? Presumably Snuffy is like 35 years old and a veteran of the Iraq War; Lukey, despite his Rip Van Winkle-esque long white beard, is maybe 50 and served in the Gulf War in ’91. Sadly, life in grindingly poor Hootin’ Holler has aged them much faster than their combat stints did.

Gasoline Alley, 11/11/19

Meanwhile, Gasoline Alley keeps aging its characters in real time, which means that Walt is now the the last living veteran of World War I. He reminds us that they used to call it “Armistice Day,” because at the end of four years of unfathomable carnage everyone thought the horrors they had endured meant that we wouldn’t fight any more wars. Sorry, guys! Sorry we fucked it up!

Mary Worth, 11/11/19

Speaking of people who fucked things up, look at Wilbur’s face in panel one here. He doesn’t think he fucked anything up at all! He thinks that date went great. He got to make fun of Zak and eat some yummy noodles, and now a lady who’s pretty like his mommy is tucking him into sleep. What’s not to like? This good feeling will probably last forever, and will certainly still be suffusing his body when he wakes up in the morning, that’s for sure!

Dustin, 11/11/19

Dustin the comic strip launched in 2010, which means it’s basically an infant in the world of newspaper syndication, but it’s already accrued a character typical to legacy strips: a little kid who’s not related to the any of the other main characters but hangs around with them all the time and you never seem to see their parents or other family members! Where do these children come from? Do they just kind of show up up one day in comic strip character homes if you leave food uncovered, like mice? Anyway, shoutout to Dustin’s mom for figuring out how to get rid of this particular pest, by convincing him that the toilet paper they use has other people’s poop on it still.