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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/5/14

I guess it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the eschatological beliefs of the residents of Hootin’ Holler trend towards Christian futurism. Loweezy isn’t sure whether the Great Tribulation will happen before the Rapture, or after, or if one will happen in the midst of the other, but one thing’s for certain: it’s best to stock up on detergent now.

Apartment 3-G, 12/5/14

The first three times I read this strip, I thought Baldy McPresumptious said “Ah, yes — you’re with Ms. Magee,” presumably because my brain is desperately trying to make things interesting. Anyway, the strip is still noteworthy for the narration box in panel one, which seems like a grudging workaround for the fact that no A3G character is going to have anything other than an expressionless rubber mask for a face anytime soon.

Gasoline Alley, 12/5/14

As you know, I routinely ignore Gasoline Alley for months at a time. But clearly I need to tune back in for the thrills and twists of our latest plotline, “Skeezix buys a phone charger,” which promises to reach the heights of “Skeezix returns a DVD player.” Elderly characters grappling with mundane tasks involving modern technology are the core of this strip’s brand!

Mary Worth, 12/5/14

“It’ll be a good way for you to see them interact,” said one completely normal human to another! If you had “alien anthropologist studying Earthling behavior” in the “What exactly is the deal with Mary Worth” pool, you’ve gotta be pretty psyched today.

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Gil Thorp, 9/13/14

The tale of True Standish from the summer is now clearly also the tale of True Standish for the fall, and that tale will entail: quarterback controversy! Yes, the next several months will involve high school QB phenom with painfully overbearing dad True being preternaturally nice about the fact that he just loved Milford and really wants to win and if that means that high school QB phenom with painfully overbearing dad True Standish ends up taking the starting quarterback job away from “Jarrod,” a guy who’s probably been on the team for a while and who’s maybe even been in the strip before but about whom I could tell you exactly nothing, then that’s just how the ball bounces, you know? Anyway, today’s episode involves “Jarrod” dishing out a sick burn about not knowing the name of the local newspaper. All of today’s teens are very clued into their area’s print media outlets; the daily paper is a core aspect of teen identity in modern culture. Point: “Jarrod.”

Gasoline Alley, 9/13/14

Gasoline Alley has spent the past few months on an extremely mawkish story about a dying little boy with a wacky parrot sidekick who just wants to operate a real life steam locomotive before he kicks it. I’m a guy who loves trains and isn’t in favor of little children dying of mysterious diseases, and yet am wholly unmoved by all this, mostly because the lad has been introduced to us already pre-dying, a transparent spectacle for our emotional catharsis. “I’ll remember this the…” [SIGNIFICANT PAUSE TO REMIND YOU THAT THE NEXT PHRASE IS POIGNANT AND SIGNIFICANT] “…rest of my life! Come here, parrot, give me a big hug! WEEP FOR ME, ENGINEER-MAN!”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/13/14

By the way, if you’re wondering how long it takes Uriah the mailman to “give Miz Prunelly a special delivery” (i.e., have sex with Miz Prunelly): it takes about half an hour.

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Apartment 3-G, 8/28/14

Ah, Tommie’s Parade of Paramours marches on – today it’s IT Gary, whom Tommie didn’t find so robotic back in the day:

Apartment 3-G, 12/4/07 (panel)

The background on this baffles me a little – is Gary just not that into her?

Anyway, Tommie and Gary got pretty serious until Gary pulled up stakes and headed for Colorado in search of IT fulfillment, expecting Tommie to follow. She didn’t, because as Margo helpfully explained to her at the time, “You don’t even SKI!” These days, of course, people visit Colorado for all kinds of reasons other than IT and skiing. Which raises the question of how Tommie would act if she went to Colorado and got really, really wasted — like Maureen Dowd wasted. I think she’d probably spin around the room with a vacant expression on her face, getting into endless, pointless conversations with her roommate Carol.

Archie, 8/28/14

Ooh, menace points for the little scamp in Archie. But is this even a thing people do any more? In California where I live, state agencies and TV newscasters encourage people to turn in their water-wasting neighbors for fines and reëducation; we have camps. There’s even an app to make shaming them more convenient. So it’s more likely somebody would write “Thanks” on a dusty car, and “Don’t waste water” in mud on a perfectly clean one. And then get fined for wasting water to make mud.

Gil Thorp, 8/28/14

Hey it’s Marty Moon! Marty takes a lot of grief here for being a pissy little alcoholic failure. And while that’s 100% accurate, credit him for being the only voice in Milford to call Gil on all the B.S. he dishes out in lieu of doing his damn job. Sure, right now it’s looking good with the 7-man practice of all against all and Sa’ad Shamoun’s muscle mass, but wait ’til mid-season when he pulls out the Wing-T or 5-wide or some nonsense and everybody mutters, “Sure, Coach.” Right now, though, it’s the first day of school, and Gil has other things on his mind – that enormous stein of coffee isn’t going to drink itself, you know.

Gasoline Alley, 8/28/14

The team at Gasoline Alley wishes to remind its readers that while “real life” may be where you live, it is most definitely not where they live.

And while we’re on the topic of gasoline: you can just see it on the poor guy’s face — “How, oh how can I possibly afford all this costly fuel?”

Faithful Comics Curmudgeon readers can think of a way!

— Uncle Lumpy