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Gil Thorp, 1/9/21

So what’s going in with Gil Thorp, literally several of you are wondering? Well, it turns out that Vic Doucette is killing it at P.A. announcing during the basketball games, thanks to his wordplay that dazzles the Mudlark players, whose prowess lies in the physical rather than the verbal realm. Also, it turns out that, like Vic, Doug Guthrie is a nerd, and in fact is the one kind of nerd that jocks truly respect: a car nerd, who may drive a sweet classic Pontiac but is fascinated by automobiles in all their forms, even utilitarian GM vans from the ’00s. It also came up that Vic has cerebral palsy, not that you can really tell from the art, and Chevy Astros are apparently commonly converted for wheelchair use, but Vic doesn’t use a wheelchair so this may or may not be relevant? Maybe Doug is a car monomaniac and literally has to ask about the make and model of every single vehicle he sees. He’s just another brightly colored piece of glass in the rich mosaic of Milford High.

Family Circus, 1/9/21

Jeffy is a simple child, and looks smug because he thinks he’s about to get a cookie. But Billy? Billy, for all his faults (and there are many), plays a longer game, and has realized that even the guy who graduates bottom of his class from the easiest medical school to get into has access to a prescription pad, which will open up a lot of opportunities for a guy with frankly not much of a moral compass.

Pluggers, 1/9/21

Hey, Pluggers, a more succinct and better caption here would’ve been “Plugger CSI,” you’re welcome

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/9/20

Say what you will about Snuffy Smith, but this is a strip that respects its own world-building. It has been long established that, while Hootin’ Holler’s denizens may engage in a certain amount of chicken-based barter with one another, and occasionally pay for potions from unlicensed apothecary Granny Creeps, Silas’s general store is the only place in town where money is exchanged for legitimate goods and services in the manner in which we flatlanders are accustomed. Does it seem weird to order pizzas from such an establishment? Maybe, but any Snuffy trufan knows it would be even weirder if we pretended that Hootin’ Holler had a local Domino’s or some such.

Family Circus, 12/9/20

The question of “If our religion is the only way to salvation, what happened to everyone who never heard about our religion because they died before it started or reached their part of the world?” is old and widespread enough that it has a fancy theological name, “The Fate of the Unlearned.” Still, part of the fun of the Family Circus is seeing kids say the darnedest things as they begin the encounter the problems of the adult world, and indeed I did actually chuckle to myself at seeing Billy look at that picture and think “Gee, it’s sad these cavemen never got a visit from Santa! Also, they’re probably in hell now.”

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Blondie, 11/20/20

I’m trying very hard to imagine what sort of elementary school curriculum might include the concept of a “horn of plenty”? An art history lesson on how a once commonplace object evolved into a standardized icon over the centuries, and has now become an almost entirely abstract symbol with no grounding in anybody’s day-to-day life, would be very interesting to me, though maybe a little heady for eight-year-olds. Meanwhile, what do you think is the most disturbing/hilarious part of Dagwood’s horn of plenty? A lotta people are going to pick the cooked lobster, which obviously isn’t going to keep very long unrefrigerated, but let’s not sleep on the hamburger that’s just kind of sitting on the table in front of everything else.

Slylock Fox, 11/20/20

You’re probably wondering: What relationship does this entirely mundane domestic scene have to the Slylock Fox world of sapient animal dominance? Well, my guess is that we’re seeing the early post-animalpocalypse period, when the remaining pockets of human survivors have been defeated and confined to restricted zones, only allowed out to forage for subsistence at strictly defined times. This lady’s family is too hungry to wait to get this month’s provisions in the house.

Family Circus, 11/20/20

Wow, looks like Ma and Pa Keane finally gave into BIG GOVERNMENT’S DESPOTIC FIRE CODES and put some smoke alarms in the house, probably because someone from CPS threatened to put their children into foster care if they didn’t, and the kids seemed a little too into the idea.