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Spider-Man, 8/20/17

One of the great running gags of superhero comics is that it should be much, much easier for in-universe characters to figure out a superhero’s secret identity than it ever turns out to be. There are a host of reasons why the “secret” is always obvious — they’re never in the same place at the same time, their voices are identical, people look more or less the same whether they’re wearing glasses or not, etc. — but in our current case, it’s because Spider-Man and Peter Parker are pretty much the exact same kind of dick. Like, if my wizened aunt was about to finally wed her longtime beau and a giant tentacle erupted form the earth to attack the wedding party, I might be more inclined to shout “run!” or “oh no!” rather than “whoa, déjà vu much???” But that’s just how Peter Parker and Spider-Man play it.

Meanwhile, speaking of dicks, I had assumed last week that Tyrannus was shushing his army of fetish-gimps as they prepared to board some form of burrowing transport and head for the earth’s surface for wedding-ruining and subsequent conquest. But nope, it turns out this is all being down remotely, and he just wanted an audience as he gloated and pulled the big lever marked “TENTACLE.”

Panels from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/20/17

This throwaway-panel scene from Hootin’ Holler reminds all of us flatlanders that we should appreciate our infrastructure privilege.

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Shoe, 8/15/17

Today’s Shoe takes us on a fairly baffling rollercoaster of the Perfesser’s emotions as he quickly cycles from grinning mania to dead-eyed ennui. Are we meant to believe that our love-starved protagonist is getting excited at the prospect of a companion that he can enjoy late-night strolls with, only to abruptly realize that the construct of an outgoing, active romantic partner he’s building for his dating profile is a web of hopeful lies? Or did he have this gag all plotted out, hoping to tickle this poor dating service employee’s funny bone if only briefly, but then realized halfway through it — too late to pull out — that it wasn’t funny and wasn’t going to make anybody laugh? If it’s the latter, then both depressed-looking characters truly represent all of us in that final panel.

Mary Worth, 8/15/17

Please clip ‘n’ save this second panel, as it I feel fairly certain this is going to be exactly as happy as Dawn will ever be in this medical love triangle scenario. Let’s just refer back to her gazing enraptured up into Dr. Ned’s calm, handsome face in six to twelve weeks after the dumping, or the murders, or the dumping-murders, or whatever we have in store for us.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/15/17

Ha ha, it’s funny because Hootin’ Holler is so impoverished that its citizens have to resort to robbing one another just to survive!

Hagar the Horrible, 8/15/17

Ha ha, it’s funny because this man’s job is to kill people one by one to enforce the brutal will of the state, and he is haunted by each and every one of their faces!

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/13/17

Oh my God, somehow I just now remembered that June and Rex’s pal/former household employee Heather is agonizing over the fact that her agèd, Alzheimer’s-afflicted millionaire husband is in no shape to father the baby she’s always wanted! When last we heard from her, more than a year and a half ago, June was broadly hinting that Heather knows how sex works so Heather should probably just do sex with someone and get pregnant that way. I largely forgot about this because it was a plotline from the substantially wackier Woody Wilson era of the strip, and most of those got dropped when Terry Beatty took over writing duties on the strip. But now! An adorable little baby has just fallen right into June’s lap, and surely she won’t neglect to reward Heather for her years of faithful service. The only question is: will June actually tell her desperate childhood friend that she’ll be fobbing her orphaned son off onto a gold-digging white-collar criminal who lives with her agitated and demented husband in a drafty castle in England somewhere? Or will she just wait for her friend to drop dead and then put little Johnny in the mail?

Family Circus, 8/13/17

You know, the Keane house is really a character in today’s strip! Specifically, it’s like some huge, sedentary beast, its maw open and ready to feed, and Big Daddy Keane is responsible for its excretory processes.

Panels from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/13/17

“Tearin’ off chunks of my flesh to devour, and I’m still capable of feelin’ everythin’! It’s a nightmare from which there’d be no escape!”

Spider-Man, 8/13/17

So, just to emphasize here: an immortal supervillain is leading an army of awful subterranean monsters to the Earth’s surface … to ruin a wedding, and the monsters have to be quiet, because otherwise they’ll wake up his wife, who loves weddings. I take back every mean thing I ever said about Newspaper Spider-Man. This is literally the greatest comic ever made.