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Mary Worth, 11/18/21

This is, even within the context of a Wilbur storyline in Mary Worth, extremely sad. Remember earlier in this storyline when he was putting himself out there, full of confidence? Now he’s fallen back to his natural level, and it’s using “my own dog doesn’t even love me” as an attempt to get some pity-sex.

Crankshaft, 11/18/21

“Oh, wow, sorry my trying to help you has been such a burden! Sure, why don’t you drive from Ohio to Seattle and then sit in a poorly ventilated room with dozens of other people for eight hours. You’re 85 years old or whatever, you’ll probably be fine!”

Dennis the Menace, 11/18/21

Hmm, Dennis, your brand of menacing is supposed to be big and aggressive and flying in the face of society’s rules. Letting Joey know that you’ve already resigned yourself to your place as just another faceless cog in the machine and that he needs to as well is, ironically, one of the most menacing things you’ve ever done.

Family Circus, 11/18/21

“Did you know that you could be a parent and still dress vaguely fashionably, mommy? That you don’t have to dress like a dowdy old lady? You’re, like, 35 tops, right?”

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The Lockhorns, 11/15/21

I’m really loving Leroy’s little bar cart here. You never know what room in the house you might be in when you abruptly need to theatrically pour yourself and a friend some hard liquor as you start griping about how much you hate your wife, so it’s good to be able to easily wheel your cocktail supplies from place to place.

Dennis the Menace, 11/15/21

“Get it, old man? What Christ was to you in your long-ago day, cable television is to me in this brave new world! TV is my lord and savior! Pretty menacing, eh? I could be obsessed with YouTube videos on my parents’ phones like a normal five-year-old, but instead I worship television that you pay $150 a month for and it comes on at a specific time of day, like I’m 55 and have never been ‘good with computers.’ That’s pretty menacing too, in its own way.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and Gasoline Alley, 11/15/21

I’m not sure if there’s some kind of upcoming anniversary involving one or both of these absurdly long-running strips that has prompted them to simultaneously acknowledge one another, and I don’t care to do the research to find out. I choose to believe that this is just the equivalent of two people who are by far the oldest at a party clocking each other and giving one another a silent nod of acknowledgment. Anyway, it’s too bad Jughaid is unaware of Archie Comics’ Jughead Jones, himself a character who’s been around almost as long as the Hootin’ Holler cast of Snuffy Smith, because I’m sure a lot more people are familiar with him than they are with Sheezix, at least until Gasoline Alley finally gets a CW sitcom of its very own. On the other hand, Jughaid is lucky that he and his fellow Holler residents exist forever in an ageless comic-book time, unlike folks in Gasoline Alley, who are trapped in a hell where they age in real time but their strip will never be cancelled and they will never be allowed to die.

Hi and Lois and Hagar the Horrible, 11/15/21

Bowls of barf? Vikings tossing a severed pig’s head around, for fun? Looks like this is the week when Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC realized that nobody really cares what you put in the newspaper anymore, and they’re gonna run with it.

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Crock, 11/14/21

Crock has a long-running bit about how there’s a talking chicken who’s always on the verge of being cooked and eaten by the strip’s Legionnaires, but I don’t think they’ve ever implied before that this chicken has magic powers, beyond the ability to speak English (or, depending on how you think the Crock world-building works, French that’s getting translated into English for the American reading audience). Anyway, for some reason it’s really amusing me to think that the POOF between the last two panels is not meant to represent a genie’s summoning spell, but instead elides a sequence where the chicken manages to procure booze, a fast car, and a willing woman for the fort’s cook through non-magical means, like persuasion or calling in a bunch of favors or something. Would the fact that he’s a talking chicken make these tasks easier or more difficult for him to accomplish? Discuss.

Dennis the Menace, 11/14/21

Based on the title of today’s strip, I first assumed that Mr. Wilson was planning to launch a hip-hop career, and then I saw the WANTED poster and figured maybe we were about to learn that he was a criminal and he’s been on the run from the law this whole time. But no, it just turns out that all of his wife’s friends know he’s an asshole.

Hi and Lois, 11/14/21

Ha ha! It’s funny because nobody in Hi’s family wants to spend time with him, not even his baby!