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Hi and Lois and The Lockhorns, 7/15/23

Call me “out of touch” all you want — my family certainly does — but golf seems like a hugely expensive and boring waste of time to me, and I have other hugely expensive wastes of time that I actually enjoy, so I will never play golf and you cannot convince me to do it. By “you” here I specifically mean newspaper comic strip creators, for whom golf usually lands somewhere between “relatable pastime” and “holy sacrament,” though these two strips today seem to admit that golf is, in fact, not as enjoyable as they usually make it out to be, and can even add to the overwhelming sense of oppressive ennui that we as middle-class inhabitants of the 21st century West cannot escape. Golf is at least giving Hi and Thirsty the opportunity to avoid their spouses, but somehow Leroy and Loretta have turned the game into yet another opportunity to spend time antagonizing one another while also getting a sunburn. Truly grim stuff!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/15/23

Now, I’m sure the first panel of this strip has raised objections among the more pedantic among you who are well aware that Snuffy’s house and the local church are not situated close together like this in established Googleverse canon. But the composition is in fact symbolic — the two structures are shown next to one another, prefiguring Snuffy and Parson Tuttle’s proximity in the next panel. The art in this strip is not and has never been literally representational; if it were, why does everyone look like [shudders in disgust] that?

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Gil Thorp, 7/5/23

Ahh, there’s nothing like waking up on a fine summer morning, picking up the morning dead tree paper, and seeing the banner headline that your hated rival was not only fired but escorted off the field by a police officer. Gil is too “old school” to have already learned this via Marty Moon’s podcast or TikTok or whatever like everyone else did, so this is a pretty great way for him to start the day. It’s nice that the paper reminded Gil that he also won a championship himself, in case he forgot.

Mary Worth, 7/5/23

Welp, Greta’s been reunited with Saul and a large steak, so I guess all’s well that ends well! We know that Greta had been held captive by evil Lyle Lovett, but Mary and Saul definitely don’t, and I think it’s very funny that they just assumed, based on some dramatic local news reporting, that a nervous dachshund in a bow tie managed to successfully escape an evil underground dogfighting ring, when the much more probable explanation is that she just wandered off when Saul wasn’t looking and temporarily got lost.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/5/23

TIRED: The weird adult-teens of Glenwood finally graduating from high school
WIRED: The idiot citizens of Glenwood blowing off several fingers, much to Rex’s disgust

Hi and Lois, 7/5/23

Not sure how I feel about Trixie transitioning from “Trixie, the baby who talks to the sun” to “Trixie, the baby who can’t wait to show off her hot beach bod … just like her mom.”

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Blondie, 6/30/23

The idea of being put in a situation where you respond to someone awkwardly in the moment and dwell on it later is of course relatable. I would think that a fun way to grapple with that situation in an art form like the comics would be to think up a snappy response at your leisure and then write up a little scenario where you get to use it in the moment, rather than doing a strip where you flop and then are embarrassed and resentful for the rest of the day. I guess that’s why I’m just a humble critic and not actually the writer of a widely syndicated newspaper strip (I also did not inherit a widely beloved syndicated newspaper strip from my father, which may be a factor there).

Family Circus, 6/30/23

I’m really enjoying Ma Keane’s little smile here. “Should I tell him it’s dead now, and watch his little face crumble? Or would it be more fun to see him walking around with a dead bug in a jar for the rest of the day?”

Hi and Lois, 6/30/23

“People like getting bombed, kid. Why not ask Mr. Thurston about it? If he’s not ‘asleep.’”

Six Chix, 6/30/23

The crotch is next, folks. The crotch is next