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Family Circus, 7/9/19

I gotta say, if Jeffy had his usual facial expression of moronic joy as he said this particular darndest thing, I would’ve scrolled past this panel without a second thought. But his heavy-lidded cynical look here really drew me into this scenario. I’m imagining him talking to Dolly very sarcastically. “Oh, are there butter saucers, too? How far are you willing to take this metaphor? It’s typical you don’t have the courage of your convictions on this.”

Beetle Bailey, 7/9/19

Where do you suppose Sarge went between these two panels? Do you think he saw one of the privates under his command — one of the men who he’s been charged with molding into a warrior who will fight to the death to defend our nation’s honor — just waving his tongue around, eyes closed, slobbering everywhere, and decided to take a long walk and think about his choices? Maybe he’ll finally follow up on that offer he got to join ISIS. Couldn’t be much worse!

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/17/19

Oh hey, remember that Barney Google and Snuffy Smith crossover business from a couple weeks ago that I quickly lost interest in? Well, it was all a run-up to the strip’s 100th anniversary. Thanks for 100 bodacious years, the strip’s titular characters say, though given how the history of the strip has played out, really Snuffy should be saying “Thanks for 85 bodacious years,” and Barney should reply “Thanks for 35 bodacious years, and then decades of extremely rare bodacious cameos, and then more frequent bodacious appearances starting in 2012 for whatever reason.” I was going to make fun the today’s boast (threat?) that this strip will last another century or maybe even more, but it’s honestly pretty wild it’s lasted this long, so who’s to say what the future holds? Anyway, let’s see how the other strips in the King Features stable are kissing Barney Google and Snuffy Smith’s ass today!

Mark Trail, 6/17/19

Kudos to Mark Trail for dispensing with its contractual obligation with a bit of confusing dialogue rather than trying to integrate Snuffy into the wold of the strip, possibly as a grotesque, gnomish hermit living deep in the Sonoran Desert. Instead we’re just left with Mark looking at Doc thinking “Is this … a bit? Is he doing a bit? Couldn’t he just call from his cell phone? We all have cell phones, right?”

Shoe, 6/17/19

I’m also fond of today’s Shoe, in which the sapient bird-characters threaten to kill and eat (hopefully in that order) the beloved sapient (?) horse-character Spark Plug. Then they’ll eat Barney and Snuffy too! How dare these humans come to the treetop realm of the bird-men! They must be punished!

Six Chix, 6/17/19

Six Chix gives a shoutout to Barney’s … famous … self-driving car? Maybe this is a reference to Waymo, the autonomous vehicle company that spun off of Google, or maybe it’s just acknowledgement that Barney will need a new form of transportation now that the birds have eaten Spark Plug.

Family Circus, 6/17/19

Meanwhile, that other venerable institution of the funny pages, the Family Circus, absolutely cannot be bothered to say anything nice about the birthday boys. Oh, your weird urban-sharpie-turned-hillbilly-minstrel-show strip is a hundred years old? Who cares. It’s Father’s Day week, and that means Jeffy Keane is going do a strip where he pretends to be his brother insulting his sister while giving their dad a day off. Fuck Dolly and her shitty toaster-operation skills and fuck Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: that’s the official Family Circus position.

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Family Circus, 6/15/19

God help me, but I laughed at today’s Family Circus. Not because of the lame golf joke — it will never cease to amaze me the extent to which syndicated cartoonists think golf is a infinite supply of relatable laffs — but because of the wary way that Jeffy is eyeing the head of that club that Billy has somehow managed to get his grubby little hands on. What will he damage, or destroy, with it? Will it be one of other Keane Kids’ skulls? Jeffy is resigned to finding out, possibly the hard way.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/15/19

The newspaper industry’s few remaining shreds of decency sadly precluded actually showing us Darrin and Jessica going at it once they were reunited earlier this week. But I appreciate today’s strip for letting us know, in as vivid terms as possible, how extremely gross it all was. What would a monkey do to a cupcake, exactly? I’m not sure, but we can all agree that we’re better off for not having seen it happen!

Gil Thorp, 6/15/19

Gil Thorp spring storylines often verge dangerously into the summer months, but I certainly hope that this one, which has been pretty boring, is just going to end here. Ha ha, we spent so much time on the “too cool for school” drama that we barely noticed that the softball team won the Valley Conference, and did the baseball team even play this year? What would be extremely funny would be if the last word on all this is Mudlark #2 saying “I bet no one noticed” and then next week we just start the summer storyline and the championship is never mentioned again in any way, thus proving her point.

Mark Trail, 6/15/19

“Plus he’s a human being with inherent worth so, if he’s dead … someone, somewhere will be sad? I guess?”