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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/21/17

In their blind haste to develop self-driving cars, elitist Google ignores nutritional needs of rural Americans. Sad!

Beetle Bailey, 9/21/17

Got the celery and the baguette, but still the lamest Art Frahm knock-off ever.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/21/17

Heather gets her longed-for baby, and Rex gets an ocean between himself and his patient. It’s win-win!

Sherman’s Lagoon, 9/21/17

Fascinated by the island monkeys, Sherman asks Big Kahuna to transform him into one. I’m more than a little concerned about this! “Beach apes” are food to Great Whites like Sherman, yet he becomes a primate every time he gets a chance. A dimwit shark is funny; a dimwit self-loathing shark is just confusing.

Gil Thorp, 9/21/17

Prodded by evil Uncle Gary, promising left tackle Rick Soto must choose between a chance at high school gridiron glory or wowing the Elks Club with 1928 Kurt Weill show tunes. Follow your extremely modest dreams, kid!

B.C., 9/21/17

You’d think a prehistory-themed strip would know a little more about reptiles.

Luann, 9/21/17

Tiffany put on some weight, which is somehow now everybody’s business. Her nominal friends spring into action: Bernice to read to her from that big copy of Cosmo, Dez to light calming incense, and Luann to set things up with the team.

— Uncle Lumpy

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Hi and Lois, 9/12/17

The first thought I had reading this strip is that a bunch of cookies melted into one big cookie in the microwave sounds amazing. Then I realized the great thing about being an adult: you can do this whenever you want, not because you’re engaged in some child-lawyering with an authority figure, but because it sounds amazing.

Gil Thorp, 9/12/17

Oh, say, what’s going in panel three here? Not much, just Gil and Kaz checking out the spreadsheet where they’re keeping the baseline information on their football players’ cognitive functioning, so they can figure out at the end of the season who amongst them had their brains turned to goo by repeated blows to the head. Wowing the guys down at the Elks Club with your fidget spinner tricks doesn’t sound like such a bad deal now, does it Rick?

Mary Worth, 9/12/17

“I’m a good listener! For instance, I can easily tell from your ellipses and strange emphasis that this ‘friend’ is really you, and you’ve managed to get yourself into a hilariously terrible personal situation, again. What I’m saying, dear, is: proceed.”

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Shoe, 9/11/17

One of the main things I will remembered for long after my death is coining the term “nephewism,” which now has its own TV Tropes entry, and basically describes a common trope where the protagonist is cared for by an aunt and/or uncle with no actual parents around. Sometimes this is mined for creative backstory once the world of the strip has been established (as in the case for Spider-Man, which is what I made up the word to describe); other times, as in Shoe, it mainly serves to graft a younger character into the world of an established one without having to create a sexual life for the latter. Who are Skyler’s parents? How long has he lived with his Uncle Cosmo, who clearly barely tolerates him? We haven’t gotten much information on the rest of the Fishhawk family, which is why the Perfesser’s mention of his grandfather (Skyler’s great-grandfather) is kind of poignant. “Yep, grandpa used to lure fish into the boat by keeping his mouth filled with worms, which sounds disgusting but it’s not, because we’re birds! As birds, we’re actually pretty well known chewing up disgusting bugs and whatnot and then regurgitating them into mouths of our young. So if you think about it, this was actually a very tender and paternal move on my grandfather’s part, right up until he ate the fish. Just like he ate your parents. Oh no, I’ve said too much.”

Gil Thorp, 9/11/17

In slightly more realistic nephew-oriented scenarios, today’s Gil Thorp sets us up for the football season with a new character: Rick, who’s living with an uncle who he probably doesn’t know so well and who still thinks of him as a kid. What happened to Rick’s parents? I dunno, but after the decidedly dull summer plot, I am 100% ready for the story of the cargo-jeans-wearing Uncle Gary, who’s like a pageant mom only instead making his little daughter enter beauty pageants he’s making his teenage nephew enter talent shows down at the Elk’s Lodge, which he somehow thinks will jump-start a rocket ride to success for both of them.

Slylock Fox, 9/11/17

Most of these audience members are smiling because they’re excited to see a magic trick performed. Not Slylock, though! Slylock’s smiling because he knows this “magic trick” is going to suck, and that the rest of the crowd is going to be furious. “They’re gonna tear this clown apart,” he thinks, smugly.