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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/2/17

Usually Snuffy’s brushes with the law are depicted with the same jocular gloss as the rest of Hootin’ Holler’s dysfunctional culture. The crimes are generally relatively low-impact stuff like bootlegging and chicken thievery, and Snuffy goes to jail for a few days and there’s tongue-lolling hilarity all around. Today … today is different. The Holler’s judge, the only real representative of outside authority in this lawless community, looks genuinely horrified by the case he’s just finished presiding over: has his previous indulgent attitude led to this? Even Snuffy and Loweezy look like they’re suffering true shame. My assumption is that the generations-old Smif-Barlow fued finally escalated to the point where Sheriff Tate stumbled upon a ramshackle cabin on the creek where Barlow corpses were stacked like cordwood.

Spider-Man, 9/2/17

Wait, Kala and Mole-Man were engaged? You know, for a gnomish, homely, nearly blind cave-dweller, he still gets his fair share of attention from the ladies! This makes Kala’s insistence that her husband not disrupt the Mole-Man/Aunt May wedding all the more poignant. Why can’t everyone in this strip be as emotionally advanced as her?

Pluggers, 9/2/17

It’s no “Rhino-Man hocks his TV,” but “pluggers feel overpowering shame over something that’s entirely harmless and increasingly socially normalized” is pretty high up there in the pantheon of Extremely Grim Pluggers Punchlines, in my opinion.

Judge Parker, 9/2/17

“To the CIA! Once we turn in your wife, we can stop worrying about this — and, here’s the best part, probably get a big reward!”

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Judge Parker, 8/30/17

Oh, hey, Judge Parker, what’s been going on with you? Well it turns out April stopped by to leave an explanatory video where she explained that a group of her fellow CIA agents tricked her into unwittingly becoming a rogue agent, so now she’s on the run from everybody, but meanwhile she spirited her daughter away to her sketchy-ass and now mysteriously ruddy dad, who’s now had quite enough of the grandchild-raising and is dumping the kid on Judge Parker Emeritus, who has to raise her in Secret. The real weak link in that plan is Trophy Wife Number [DATA CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE] Katherine Parker, who is notoriously stepgrandchild hungry and who may be physically unable to stop herself from sharing photos on social media, thus getting April, Randy, and everyone else blessedly killed.

Mary Worth, 8/30/17

So I guess Mary Worth is committed to going the “he’s a genuinely nice person who only propositioned Dawn the one time and truly cares about her well-being” route with Jared, even as they layer on the “oh also he’s a loser nerd” signifiers. It’s nice to see a loving cat dad portrayed in a positive manner in mass media, of course, and I’m glad the ubiquitous Food Shapes In Varying Earth Tones meals so popular in Santa Royale are available in microwaveable dinners for one. But, I gotta say: that window display? With some of the most mainstream Star Wars characters on offer? A real fan would have a Bib Fortuna, Jek Porkins, and R5D4 up there. This guy smells like a fake geek boy to me.

Six Chix, 8/30/17

Nice try, doc, but the radiant light suffusing heaven is emitted from an omnibenevolent deity and can’t possibly include damaging ultraviolet radiation. You know what can burn human flesh, though? Hellfire. Your husband went to hell, lady.

Marvin, 8/30/17

In today’s Marvin, we learn that the title character’s sandbox is so thoroughly soaked with piss that it can support semi-aquatic fauna!

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Judge Parker, 7/9/17

Good news! Randy Parker’s mysteriously vanished wife has mysteriously un-vanished! Bad news! Randy’s still real mad about the whole wife-vanishing-and-denying-him-access-to-his-daughter thing! It all started so happily for Randy and April, really: Randy was about to make a politically expedient marriage to his previous girlfriend, Mimi, but it turned out she was in a weird cult called “Eon”, so they broke up, and then he started ham-handedly flirting with his legal secretary via suggestive chopstick instructions, which won her heart and made her all the more eager to take his “dictation.” Who could’ve guessed that that legal secretary was really a trained CIA assassin who was probably completely capable of using chopsticks both to enjoy various Asian cuisines and also murder America’s enemies, and that, eleven years, two writers, and (I think) four artists later, a grief-deranged Randy would be screaming “TO TELL ME MORE LIES?! TO PROVE OUR LIFE WAS JUST A FANTASY?!” in her face? I guess it just goes to show that workplace romances do not work out! Say, what do you all think Mimi’s up to?

Gasoline Alley, 7/9/17

One of my current objects of fascination on trips to the supermarket is Closer, a tabloid that mimics the format of other checkout-aisle celebrity-gossip magazines but focuses exclusively on famous people of interest to the elderly. It’s an example of how the logic of capitalism encourages different industries to fill various really specific ecological niches, and while it may seem that the comics pages are immune to market forces, I think the same process is at work here! For instance, Gasoline Alley began its existence as a general-interest strip, but like one of Darwin’s finches, it’s adapted to meet the needs of the old person market, and nothing makes that clearer than today’s strip, in which a World War I veteran rambles on to nobody in particular about how stamps are more expensive than they used to be and people don’t send letters or postcards anymore.