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Shoe, 8/15/17

Today’s Shoe takes us on a fairly baffling rollercoaster of the Perfesser’s emotions as he quickly cycles from grinning mania to dead-eyed ennui. Are we meant to believe that our love-starved protagonist is getting excited at the prospect of a companion that he can enjoy late-night strolls with, only to abruptly realize that the construct of an outgoing, active romantic partner he’s building for his dating profile is a web of hopeful lies? Or did he have this gag all plotted out, hoping to tickle this poor dating service employee’s funny bone if only briefly, but then realized halfway through it — too late to pull out — that it wasn’t funny and wasn’t going to make anybody laugh? If it’s the latter, then both depressed-looking characters truly represent all of us in that final panel.

Mary Worth, 8/15/17

Please clip ‘n’ save this second panel, as it I feel fairly certain this is going to be exactly as happy as Dawn will ever be in this medical love triangle scenario. Let’s just refer back to her gazing enraptured up into Dr. Ned’s calm, handsome face in six to twelve weeks after the dumping, or the murders, or the dumping-murders, or whatever we have in store for us.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/15/17

Ha ha, it’s funny because Hootin’ Holler is so impoverished that its citizens have to resort to robbing one another just to survive!

Hagar the Horrible, 8/15/17

Ha ha, it’s funny because this man’s job is to kill people one by one to enforce the brutal will of the state, and he is haunted by each and every one of their faces!

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Spider-Man, 8/11/17

Oh, man, looks like we’re about to learn what the most powerful force in the Newspaper Spideyverse is. It’s definitely not various relative attributes of a spider, that’s for sure! Nope, it’s love, which has transformed our Plutonian tyrant into a sweet suitor for a kindly widow. The question is: will it do the same for his successor? Sadly, no! An tyrant with a healthy relationship with his bride would talk through their differences, and see if there’s a way for them reconcile her sentimental affection for weddings with his need to ruthlessly smash every aspect of the former regime to cement his power. Crossing your fingers is for nine-year-olds, dude, not eternal undead Roman emperors who are [checks wikipedia] probably around 1560 years old but nobody’s sure because our sources for the Latin west in the late 5th century are pretty spotty!

Hagar the Horrible, 8/11/17

Oh, this is a nice touch: today would’ve been Hagar the Horrible creator Dik Brown’s 100th birthday, so his son, current artist Chris Brown, has put a portrait of him on the wall of Hagar’s hut! (Here’s a pretty great picture of him.) Unfortunately, the colorist doesn’t really seem to have a handle on what’s going on with Dik’s beard, so he looks like he’s covered in gravy.

Mark Trail, 8/11/17

Uh, guys? I know we’re all doing a lot of posturing about who guessed who’s identity and everything, but, uh, have you considered not standing out there in the freezing rain? Your skin is an unhealthy shade of blue. Maybe seek some shelter, see if you can light a fire … guys? Guys?

Mary Worth, 8/11/17

Sheesh indeed, Jared! It’s like you can pull out as much charm as you want with a girl and she still thinks it’s OK to make eye contact with other men???? I personally blame feminism for this!

Family Circus, 8/11/17

Oh no, who let Billy know about the devil’s metric system

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Crock, 6/22/17

I like the black smoke rising in the background of the strip; it implies that Poulet’s defeat has had devastating consequences, but gives you room to fill in the blanks about their exact nature. Has some Algerian village been reduced to a smoldering ruin by insurgents because the inhabitants were too accommodating to the foreign occupiers who, when it came down to it, were unable to protect them? Was the Legion’s fort overrun by rebels and burned to the ground as a hated symbol of French authority? Are Crock and Poulet standing on the quay in Algiers or Oran, awaiting the boat that will evacuate them to the métropole, watching the city burn in an orgy of retaliatory violence as colonial rule collapses into a nightmarish power vacuum? “I wish life had a backspace key!” Poulet quips, referring to 130 years of brutal conquest and exploitation.

Mary Worth, 6/22/17

Haha, whoops, looks like I was wrong and it’s Esme who’s going to be tumbling into the wine-dark sea, never to be seen again. This happened because the ship lurched, so Katie didn’t even have to make a choice or feel morally responsible! Remember, kids, smoking is bad, and so is attempted adultery, and so is violating workplace regulations about sexual relationships with customers. If you do any of those things, you’ll drown, probably!

Family Circus, 6/22/17

Are you asking if Big Daddy Keane has noticed that the forward progression of time has ground to a halt, and that he’s doomed to live an eternity with his children never aging, never growing up and leaving the house, just hanging around and saying the darndest things, forever? Look at his face; I’m pretty sure he’s noticed.

Hagar the Horrible, 6/22/17

Ha ha, it’s funny because Lucky Eddy thought he was going to die in agony, so he pissed himself!