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Hi and Lois, 4/25/18

They called it the Day of the Second Sun: one morning, people woke up to see another luminous star blazing in the sky. The disasters began almost right away, of course: the effects on the tides, the ecosystem, the atmosphere, and the Van Allen belts were swift and catastrophic, to say nothing of the corrosive effects of endless day on the world’s collective psyche. But still, in those first few moments of that first awful day, there were a few scattered reactions of naïve hope and even delight.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/25/18

Man, you ever publish a comic strip for, like, literally 35 years, so long that you basically forget that there was at one point a conceit to the strip, something about fairy tales, or maybe that was only the title and it was never used as a joke, it’s been 35 years so who can remember at this point, but then — but then! — you suddenly come up with a perfect punchline that ties into this long-forgotten strip origin story, and it’s just in time to be only a week too late to be topical?

Pluggers, 4/25/18

Pluggers have developed their own elaborate version of hanky code, in which the various colors and labels of the work shirts they hang on their clothesline indicate their availability for various sex acts.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/20/18

I was struck by the first panel of today’s Snuffy Smith, as the strip generally doesn’t do much by way of experimenting with form but today gives us a different perspective of our diminutive title character, just barely visible from the judge’s bench. Perhaps it’s meant to be symbolic of today’s installment’s narrative: normally we see things from the viewpoint of Snuffy Smith, to the extent that we find his layabout criminal attitudes normal and even charming. But the mention of Farmer Clem reminds us that there are in fact honest citizens trying to extract sustenance from Hootin’ Holler’s meager soil, their lives made all the harder by Snuffy’s thievery. And then there are the chickens. My god, think of the horrors the chickens have to suffer! (I’m talking about being killed and eaten, of course. You thought I was talking about weird sex stuff, didn’t you? What, being killed and eaten isn’t bad enough?)

Hi and Lois, 4/20/18

This is an intensely weird setup to this joke, right? The definite vibe I’m getting here is that the “new friend” is going to follow the trail of detritus to Chip’s lair, where he will have to defeat him in combat and either win glory or be devoured.

Gil Thorp, 4/20/18

This seems like an adequate penance for Marty, but I see a big loophole: he’s going to take that ad time he’s forced to buy during the girls’ game and fill it with his own stream-of-consciousness take on what he got from reading the “Latin America: A Land Of Contrasts” ebook while drunk.

Mary Worth, 4/20/18

Oh, I guess Wilbur is only getting dumped from his local paper, so his livelihood won’t be destroyed; it’s just that his ex won’t be reminded of what she gave up every time she opens the Santa Royale News-Intelligencer to the op-ed pages, which, I assume, she probably doesn’t do very often, because print media, am I right? I know we did a whole storyline about how Iris is unusually old to be dating Zak, but come on, she’s not that old. Anyway, I certainly hope that, just as Santa Royale is a thinly veiled stand-in Santa Barbara, the Santa Royale Democrat and Telegraph is similarly modelled on the Santa Barbara News-Press, because that paper’s story is nuts. It’s probably the only small-city daily in America to merit not just a Wikipedia article but an entirely separate Wikipedia “controversy” article, and the idea of Wilbur stomping down there to whine about his columns while the staff is in the midst of labor agitation, ideological purges, and child porn investigations is delicious.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/20/18

“I thought I was going to be paired up with some young guys, some new blood,” Flash Freeman thinks mournfully to himself. “That Wayne and Garth shit is more than 25 years old at this point. This is going to be a disaster.”

Pluggers, 4/20/18

I think I’ve spotted your problem there, sir: your GPS is designed to navigate you from place to place via America’s road system and not, say, across an open field or wherever the hell it is you are.

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Mark Trail, 3/31/18

Ha ha, Marlin looks horrified in that last panel, doesn’t he! “Wow, I thought … I thought I would just come by and deliver some cages, maybe tranq an elephant or two. But apparently, I’m going to have to punch out a rhino. I’m probably gonna die in the process, or at least be horribly injured, but it looks like I don’t have any choice in the matter.”

Funky Winkerbean, 3/31/18

“By which I mean things will soon give rise to a massive explosion that will poison the area around it for years.”

Hi and Lois, 3/31/18

So, uh, Thirsty has been immobile out in his lawn chair in various types of inclement weather for two weeks now? That … that can’t good.

Judge Parker, 3/31/18

Remember the last lady the then-future Judger Parker Jr. urged to “call me Randy“? She was just an innocent paralegal named April who didn’t even know how to use chopsticks, who later turned out to be a CIA assassin and member of a family of arms dealers and international criminals and probably did know how to use chopsticks, very well, and also how to use various deadly knives and other killing implements. What I’m trying to say is that we’re going to find out some real dirt on Toni Bowen sometime in, say, 2023.