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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/15/20

You know, in the literal century this strip has been in newspapers, it’s been easy to sometimes lose track of what it’s really about, the true meaning of Snuffy Smith, if you will. Sure, most people probably think of it as a vehicle for increasingly baroque FDR-era hillbilly jokes, playing on stereotypes and a visual vocabulary that literally nobody alive today has any first-hand experience with. But today, on Tax Day (observed), Snuffy reminds you of what he’s really all about: he does not pay taxes, and if you know anything about him, that’s what you should know. It’s not like he has some elaborate political theory about being a sovereign citizen or the U.S. government being illegitimate or anything that; he just don’t truck with the revenooers. Screw you, Commissioner of Internal Revenue Charles P. Rettig! Snuffy isn’t paying you shit!

Crankshaft, 4/15/20

Hey. Hey there, comics fans. I know what you’ve been thinking about but are too shy to ask: “How have Ed Crankshaft’s poops been lately?” Well, the answer is regular, real smooth and regular. Also, he doesn’t have any clue about anything that’s been going on in the world, and honestly, I think that’s a perfectly valid trade-off.

Family Circus, 4/15/20

Speaking of poops and things going on in the world, I have no idea if this one was pulled from the Big Family Circus Vault because of its resonance with our modern TP-hoarding crisis or what, but this is definitely the sort of thing that could get a unloved red-headed middle child “volunteered” to a lab as a human guinea pig for testing coronavirus vaccines, just saying.

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Mary Worth, 4/1/20

Oh man, I am living for Mary’s dead-eyed facial expression in panel one here. “Gosh,” she seems to be saying, “Dawn has found herself in a romantic predicament of her own making. Who could’ve possibly predicted this.” She seems unable to even work up much enthusiasm for the coming meddle: “You’re gonna have to make a choice, and be honest, blah blah blah. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go water some more flowers, over, uh, over there, on the other side of the yard, gotta go.”

Family Circus, 4/1/20

Big Daddy Keane is smiling because Billy doesn’t quite understand what’s happening here. As a sovereign citizen, he will very much not be telling the so-called “federal government” where he lives and how many dependents he has, but rather is writing a long note on the form about how he refuses to exchange his allodial property rights for the supposed “civil rights” guarantees of the 14th amendment, and is putting some home-brewed biotoxins in the envelope to boot.

Judge Parker, 4/1/20

If you’re a fabulously rich guy running to be a small-town mayor and the biggest knock against you, other than the whole thing where you’re a criminal, is that you’re an out-of-touch old-money elitist, definitely a way to change people’s minds on that point is to be the only person at your campaign fundraiser wearing a tuxedo.

Blondie, 4/1/20

Hey, everyone, what’s your least favorite part of this utterly nightmarish drawing of Dagwood waking up screaming from his nap? Let’s take a closer look!

It’s his weird, tiny, lizard-like tongue, right? Gotta be the tongue! It’s the same color as his skin!

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Funky Winkerbean, 3/16/20

“Ha ha, get it? His name is Les Moore, which is sort of a play on words? Anyway, long story short, your father maybe forgot you were coming home from college or maybe just didn’t care and definitely didn’t bother telling you about his big trip! So glad I married into this close, loving family.”

Crankshaft, 3/16/20

Trust me, Lillian, I know exactly what a podcast is, and I can tell you that it isn’t exciting at all.

Family Circus, 3/16/20

I apologize for implying last week that there were Freudian implications to Little Billy’s ongoing cartoon torture of his father. In fact, as the panel I highlighted then and today’s panel both demonstrate, he’s drawing on the Jungian archetypes that are ingrained in our folk memory and appear in the dark fairy tales our ancestors used to terrify their children.

The Lockhorns, 3/16/20

Amazing: the multi-month lead time in comics publishing has transformed Leroy from a cheapskate who never takes his wife anywhere nice to a true hero of public health! (Well, strictly speaking, he should be ordering delivery, but still, this is better than flying directly into a quarantine.)

Six Chix, 3/16/20

Looks like scientists have finally designed an artificial intelligence that can beat human players at poker … and it’s [record scratch] A WOMAN??? You go, girlfriend! Get that paper! [snaps fingers supportively]