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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/29/23

You might think that the inhabitants of Hootin’ Holler would object to the fact their only clergyman is a grifter and fraud. But in truth, for these rural folk, the niceties of organized religion are of little interest, as their spiritual world is dominated by essentially pagan beliefs in signs given by nature and the practice of folk magic.

Dennis the Menace, 5/29/23

That’s not to give followers of monotheistic creeds too much credit, of course; many, like Dennis, will menace generations of sophisticated theologians by simply treating God as a source of apotropaic power, a shortcut to get out of a bind rather than a mystery to contemplate.

Blondie, 5/29/23

Speaking of mysteries, do you think Dagwood has lied to these kids and told him that he’s a combat veteran, so they’re leaving him alone to give him time to contemplate his fallen comrades? Or is their attitude just something like “Well, I guess he respects the troops, so we won’t fuck with him and make his life miserable … today, anyway.”

Shoe, 5/29/23

CONFIRMED: traitors to birdkind in the Shoe universe are punished by ritual execution and cannibalism.

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Mary Worth, 5/23/23

We don’t know a ton about Saul’s past, but we do know that he was forced by his family to abandon his true love and enter into some kind of arranged marriage, presumably in order to consolidate their feudal landholdings and take advantage of agricultural efficiencies of scale. It was a loveless relationship and Saul bought a bigger tombstone for his dog than his wife, so I’m not sure how blessed any children would’ve felt being raised in that environment.

Pluggers, 5/23/23

I had a professor in college who once told me that “Ptolemaic Egypt was a theme park, and the theme was death,” a sentence I think about all the time. Anyway, pluggers are, like many of the Egyptian deities, half-man/half-beast creatures, although they lack pretty much any degree of those Gods’ dignity; still, it may be appropriate that they live their lives defined by an ever-growing army of the deceased.

Dennis the Menace, 5/23/23

I respect Mr. Wilson’s quest for perfect, unbroken silence, but I have serious questions about what exactly are in those things under the “Audiobooks” sign. Are they … CDs? Cassette tapes? Nobody actually listens to audiobooks off of physical media anymore, do they? Perhaps the Wilsons are shopping at The Big Warehouse For Old People Who Haven’t Figured Out What “Streaming” Is And Don’t Plan To In The Future, fighting against menacing changes in the media landscape the only way they know how (by keeping their VCRs working through dutiful maintenance).

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/21/23

We all know that newspaper comics in general and newspaper soap opera comics in particular are being kept alive by a readership that skews old enough that it is imperative that everyone involved in producing said soap opera comics do everything they can to keep said readership alive, for their own sakes. The tactic Rex Morgan, M.D., has taken to meet this goal is to make everything as low stakes as possible, because even the smallest degree of surprise could cause unpleasant cardiac complications, which is why everyone is treating the fact that an attempted murderer has managed to escape custody and is now at large like a funny little “Oopsie! Ha ha, that’s our Rene!” This cruise ship is still at sea, which means that the killer and his intended victim are stuck together in a limited space, a premise that has powered any number of successful suspense films — but don’t worry, there’s no suspense here! It’s Rex Morgan, M.D. Everything is fine.

Beetle Bailey and Dennis the Menace, 5/21/23

I get and honestly respect that one of the biggest advantages of writing a syndicated newspaper comic is that you can run into one of life’s little modern annoyances and say to yourself, “Hey, you know who else probably finds this annoying? All the old people who read my comic strip.” Of these two examples of the genre, I have to say that Beetle Beetle is by far the more successful, in that it’s integrated the inciting annoyance into a character-driven joke, whereas Dennis the Menace just has Mr. Wilson yelling the things that we all, admittedly, want to yell.

Gasoline Alley, 5/21/23

Not to be a know-it-all, but the average price of a gallon of milk in the U.S. has been higher than the average price of a gallon of gasoline for 19 of the past 23 years! I’m also hung up on why Clovia says that gas AND postage is high and that’s why it’s cheaper to mail something than drive it. Still, I get that inflation can be a confusing economic phenomenon that doesn’t affect all regions or products equally, so I want to reserve my harshest criticism for Slim, who in the final panel reveals that he thinks an oil barrel is some kind of animal or maybe plant that, when properly fed and cared for, produces more oil.