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Beetle Bailey, 1/3/20

My favorite person in this little scene is the pizza delivery guy, walking out the door of the barracks with his face utterly without emotional affect. He’s seen how these things go down, how too many families and communities see the sudden arrival of pizza as a panacea, a quick fix to conflict and emotional struggle, only to be quickly disappointed when the true underlying issues aren’t addressed. He’s not interested in sticking around to watch it all play out. He’s got a lot more pizzas to deliver tonight.

Hi and Lois, 1/3/20

The scene: Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC’s writers’ room. The goal: Defeating Marvin, the comic strip about a perpetually shitting baby that is wildly, unaccountably popular. It is very late. The clock is ticking. Tomorrow’s deadline is near. Finally, from the back of the room comes a quiet, hesitant voice: “Vomit?”

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/21/19

We all definitely have been enjoying Barney Google’s visit to Hootin’ Holler, this week! You know who really enjoyed it, though, is Jughaid and Li’l Tater, who used to the distraction that Barney provided to do some really, really bad stuff, just like completely evil and unforgivable. Snuffy and Loweezy are never going to know about it, and we’re never going to know about it, but it’s definitely awful. Santa’s gonna know about it, I guess.

Hi and Lois, 12/21/19

Have you enjoyed Hi and Lois running gags like “Trixie has a fully adult mind and yearns to grow up but never will?” Well, you’ll love “The Flagstons have a friendly helper device that’s fully sentient but can’t communicate and is just a mind endlessly trapped and screaming internally!”

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Hi and Lois, 11/25/19

The fact that Lois’s dark shadow looms menacingly in panel two here really makes this comic. Some girls liked the beard, some didn’t. Some told Hi in no uncertain terms that the beard was forbidden, that even a hint of it had to be shorn off the moment it appeared, and that they would be watching, always watching, to make sure he would do as he was told. Now, some boys might not like that sort of arrangement, but as the bedroom eyes Hi is flashing at his wife’s silhouette clearly indicate, Hi is not one of those boys.

Shoe, 11/25/19

The Treetops Tattler, like many local papers, has a small staff that does double and triple duty, and it’s not unheard of to see them dedicating some column inches to arts coverage. Usually it’s the Perfesser who writes the reviews, though clearly that’s a conflict of interest here; it’s a little strange to see the editor in chief take on the role, but I guess he couldn’t pass up the chance to slam on his only full-time employee in a public forum.

Mary Worth, 11/25/19

Man, I barely have time for Mary still somehow being on Team Wilbur or for the delicious shade dished out by our narration box, because I think I now can’t avoid the conclusion that many of you commenters reached months ago: Iris is tired all the time not but because she and Zak are fucking all the time, but because she’s pregnant (which, to be clear, is still a result of the fucking, but it’s a second-order effect). The important question this raises: how will Wilbur react? Will this finally end his fixation on Iris, or will it send him even further into the deep end?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/25/19

I always had Snuffy pegged as a cynic, but it seems he still has a shred of idealism left — the belief that anyone, no matter how humble their circumstances, is entitled to the full protection of America’s laws and can seek redress in the courts if their rights are violated. But Sheriff Tait, the only representative of that distant government, quickly disabuses him of that notion: Snuffy is stuck here in Hootin’ Holler, in more ways than one.