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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/16/21

Sorry for spending so much time on the Li’l Sparky subplot in Barney Google and Snuffy Smith this week! In my defense, it’s the most interesting thing to happen in this strip in years, even if that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s interesting in some absolute, objective sense. Anyway, one effect of this whole thing is that we’re learning that the animals in this strip, including the chickens, are sapient, which really adds a layer of horror to all the jokes about Snuffy stealing chickens, to murder and eat. Today we see that the chickens are attempting to teach themselves the STEM skills necessary to rise up against their human oppressors, only for Li’l Sparky, who probably doesn’t worry too much about being eaten and is thus happy to cape for the H. sapiens regime, to bust up their revolutionary education project.

Blondie, 1/16/21

Man, when the police start investigating who in the neighborhood knew Elmo planned to run off and join the “hobo lifestyle,” there are going to be some awkward questions for Dagwood, huh?

Beetle Bailey, 1/16/21

WELP IT’S NOW OFFICIAL BEETLE BAILEY CANON THAT GENERAL HALFTRACK PISSES AND/OR SHITS HIMSELF ON THE REGULAR, I DON’T LIKE THE BURDEN OF THIS KNOWLEDGE ANY MORE THAN YOU DO BUT WE ALL HAVE IT NOW AND WILL HAVE TO LEARN TO LIVE WITH IT

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Beetle Bailey, 1/11/21

I refuse to believe that Beetle and Sarge are watching PBS or that Camp Swampy shells out for premium cable, so I’m left to assume that nobody at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC knows that you can pause streaming video.

Blondie, 1/11/21

“Did I think you looked goofy? Well, the two of us are, what, 40? 45? Not much older than that, surely, which means that when I saw you wearing bell-bottomed jeans it was the mid ’90s at the absolute earliest. So yes, I absolutely thought you looked goofy. Or wait, are you referring to JNCOs? Because those were exceptionally goofy.”

Pluggers, 1/11/21

Speaking of the shift of cultural signifiers over time, I feel like either Pluggers or I have absolutely lost the thread. Wearing shorts when there’s snow on the ground, usually on a day where it’s unseasonably pleasant but still “cold” by any objective standard, is something I associate strongly with my college days and therefore Gen X generally, which means that [checks Wikipedia for generally accepted dates for beginning of Generation X, subtracts from 2020] oh my GOD no, no, please, absolutely not

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Blondie, 1/7/21

Blondie and Dagwood have matching “best friends” in their next-door neighbors Herb and Tootsie; while Dag is occasionally seen interacting socially with others — his carpool, his coworkers, the guy at the bird store for some reason even though he never buys a bird — he doesn’t really seem to have any other deep friendships, the troubling case of Elmo really being in its own category. Blondie’s social circle is even more limited, as just about the only person we ever see her with outside her family is Tootsie, who is not only Blondie’s friend and neighbor but also her business partner, which seems like a lot of emotional labor to put on one person, frankly! Anyway, today we get a little glimpse into why Blondie and Tootsie only hang out with each other and not anybody else: they’re terrible people who love to cruelly exclude people for minor transgression but love vicious gossip even more.

Mary Worth, 1/7/21

“Jeez,” you’ve probably been thinking, “I know Mary Worth can be slow at times, but how are they going to wring drama out of a couple of old people going on a date to the mall?” Well, you owe me, King Features Syndicate, its parent corporation Hearst Communications, and really the entire Mary Worth-industrial complex an apology, as today the sight of a headless mannequin has triggered Eve’s deep post-hypnotic conditioning and prompted the traumatic emergence of her true identity: a ruthlessly efficient assassin for a shadowy international terrorist organization. (Her signature move was beheading people.)