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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/26/21

I’m a big believer that most comic-strip level gags should include exactly the amount of information they need to make the joke work and no more, which is why it drives me up the wall that this strip includes the name of Loweezy’s sister. It would be bad enough that she just named her sister (whom we’ve never see in the strip) for no reason, since it creates the nagging suspicion that this sister, as opposed to some other sister, is important to make the punchline work for some reason. But then they go and name her “Zoney!” “Loweezy” is the post-apocalyptic Hootin’ Holler newspeak for “Louisa,” but what the hell is “Zoney” derived from? Arizona? Does the vague memory of distant Arizona live on in Holler-adjacent onomastics? Gah, the fact that they added this name to her word balloon means that we ended up with two exclamation points alone on their own line! GAH!!!

Blondie, 8/26/21

One has to wonder who the “I” in Dagwood’s proposed social media clickbait headline is intended to be. It’s clearly not Dagwood, who is the star of the video. In fact, one wonders who’s filming this obviously staged scene in the first place, and what sad benefits Dagwood promised them for helping launch him to TikTok stardom.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/26/21

Oh, wow, sorry I said yesterday that this Funky Winkerbean development was going to be about sex, when in fact it’s about the most obvious plot twist anyone could imagine. Don’t worry, thought: Les still had an orgasm.

Mary Worth, 8/26/21

WILBUR’S IN A PISS FIGHT WITH A CAT, EVERYONE

A PISS FIGHT

IT’S CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST

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Family Circus, 8/14/21

So what’s changed in the 17 years since this panel last graced my blog? Well, for one thing, Ma Keane’s attitude on theological questions from her offspring has shifted: Back in the simpler times of the ’00s, she didn’t even bother gracing Billy’s impertinent question with an acknowledging glance, preferring to look out over God’s majestic work and let her silence be an answer; today, as kids can get more and more access to secular humanist propaganda via cable TV and TikTok, she needs to show him her steely gaze to let him know exactly what she thinks of this liberal jibber-jabber. Also, white shorts have gone out of style and blue ones come in — or, I guess since this is the Keane family we’re talking about, maybe the other way around.

Marvin, 8/14/21

Marvin is of course perfectly happy to stew in his own shit — but other people’s shit? That’s a different story.

Dennis the Menace, 8/14/21

This is the sad result of the over-emphasis on STEM subjects in primary education today.

Blondie, 8/14/21

Blondie, your favorite shoe store is going out of business, and you think that’s “great news”? Yes, you’ll get some big savings today, but try to think in the long term!

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Blondie, 8/7/21

Elmo’s friend — and look, probably, somewhere deep within Blondie HQ, there’s a whole character chart with a name and a backstory for this kid, but he’ll always be just plain “Elmo’s friend” to me, like if you try to tell me what his actual canon name is, I will simply refuse to listen — is visibly upset in the second panel, and honestly, who can blame him. Elmo’s relationship with Dagwood is weird and off-putting! “Who is this strange adult man?” he seems to be thinking. “Why did we interrupt his nap? Why is he standing here while we’re about to get into the pool? Should I tell my parents about this?”

Pluggers, 8/7/21

At first I, drawing on my own incipient experience of pluggerdom, assumed this was a joke about creaky backs and hips, and then considered that it was probably a much less charitable fat joke. But I would love it to be just a kind of general plugger musing on mortality. “Not sure I want to sit down,” the bear-man thinks, eyeing the chair warily. “Never know when the old ticker’s gonna give out. Do I want it to be in that chair? Not sure it’s dignified enough.”