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Mary Worth, 6/18/19

Oh, hey kids, in case you were wondering, the Mary Worth Estelle Gets Grifted storyline is still happening this week, and presumably will be until the heat death of the universe. Today I want to point out that if you knew Wilbur, and if Mary called you up and said “I have some news about Wilbur…“, you’d definitely assume it was bad news, right? Like he had cried himself to death, or went on a tour of the mayonnaise factor and “accidentally” got locked into the mayonnaise factory overnight and just when he was going to enjoy a single spoonful of mayonnaise fresh from the vat he slipped (on mayonnaise) and suffered massive head trauma? I guess Dr. Jeff is in for a pleasant (?) surprise.

Judge Parker, 6/18/19

Over in Judge Parker, the traditional social hierarchy is all upside down: Judge Parker Senior is super duper going to jail, but Marie, who you might recall decided to quit her job as the Spencer-Driver maidservant and take her chances in the outside world despite the gangsters who want her dead, is living her best life, in case you were worried about her! This time she’s relaxing at a tropical resort with a hunk who won’t fake his death, probably.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/18/19

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, drunk with power now that it got other syndicated newspaper strips to acknowledge its existence for a single day, is returning to a task it attempted and failed at back in 2014: making Bizzy Buzz Buzz, the manic Smif niece who loves to clean, happen. Folks, I gotta tell ya: Bizzy Buzz Buzz is not gonna happen!

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/17/19

Oh hey, remember that Barney Google and Snuffy Smith crossover business from a couple weeks ago that I quickly lost interest in? Well, it was all a run-up to the strip’s 100th anniversary. Thanks for 100 bodacious years, the strip’s titular characters say, though given how the history of the strip has played out, really Snuffy should be saying “Thanks for 85 bodacious years,” and Barney should reply “Thanks for 35 bodacious years, and then decades of extremely rare bodacious cameos, and then more frequent bodacious appearances starting in 2012 for whatever reason.” I was going to make fun the today’s boast (threat?) that this strip will last another century or maybe even more, but it’s honestly pretty wild it’s lasted this long, so who’s to say what the future holds? Anyway, let’s see how the other strips in the King Features stable are kissing Barney Google and Snuffy Smith’s ass today!

Mark Trail, 6/17/19

Kudos to Mark Trail for dispensing with its contractual obligation with a bit of confusing dialogue rather than trying to integrate Snuffy into the wold of the strip, possibly as a grotesque, gnomish hermit living deep in the Sonoran Desert. Instead we’re just left with Mark looking at Doc thinking “Is this … a bit? Is he doing a bit? Couldn’t he just call from his cell phone? We all have cell phones, right?”

Shoe, 6/17/19

I’m also fond of today’s Shoe, in which the sapient bird-characters threaten to kill and eat (hopefully in that order) the beloved sapient (?) horse-character Spark Plug. Then they’ll eat Barney and Snuffy too! How dare these humans come to the treetop realm of the bird-men! They must be punished!

Six Chix, 6/17/19

Six Chix gives a shoutout to Barney’s … famous … self-driving car? Maybe this is a reference to Waymo, the autonomous vehicle company that spun off of Google, or maybe it’s just acknowledgement that Barney will need a new form of transportation now that the birds have eaten Spark Plug.

Family Circus, 6/17/19

Meanwhile, that other venerable institution of the funny pages, the Family Circus, absolutely cannot be bothered to say anything nice about the birthday boys. Oh, your weird urban-sharpie-turned-hillbilly-minstrel-show strip is a hundred years old? Who cares. It’s Father’s Day week, and that means Jeffy Keane is going do a strip where he pretends to be his brother insulting his sister while giving their dad a day off. Fuck Dolly and her shitty toaster-operation skills and fuck Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: that’s the official Family Circus position.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/7/19

I regret to inform you that Barney Google is not only interacting with Beetle Bailey but is in fact crossing over with the entire family of trusted King Features comic brands. His whimsical journey got real dark today, as he and Spark Plug encounter the secret holding room — a drab holding cell, without any art or decoration of any kind — where all of the syndicate’s babies are warehoused in between bouts of saying or thought-ballooning the darndest things. Yes, PJ, Trixie, Marvin, the (I think) baby from Baby Blues and, uh, some other baby are left alone for days at a time, presumably stewing in their own dirty diapers. Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t bring horses inside, for, uh, diaper-related reasons? Jesus, years of making fun of Marvin have really damaged my brain.

Marvin, 6/7/19

Speaking of which, here’s today’s Marvin, which is about pissing yourself! But, more importantly, it’s also about the fact that in the Marvinverse, the Army’s officer corps has become a sort of hereditary aristocracy, with ranks handed down from father to son and a military ethos pervading every aspect of members’ lives, right down to bathroom stuff.