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The Lockhorns, 4/22/21

As usual, I admire the craftsmanship that went into today’s Lockhorns. It would be easy to have the panel just consist of Loretta staring dead-eyed at the woman behind the counter, unsure if she’s making a little joke or issuing a serious warning or what, damn it, she just wants to sign up for a class and people seem to like Zumba, maybe some exercise would help pull her out of her decades-deep depression, why does everything have to be a comedy routine around here. But to have that going on in the foreground, while in the background, Leroy is thinking “Oh, ladies in leotards jumping rope and lifting weights in front of a huge window? Don’t mind if I do”? That’s how you know a real professional put this one together.

Dennis the Menace, 4/22/21

This is absolutely not Joey or Dennis’s house, right? Like, they probably don’t even know whose house this is?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/22/21

Weezy’s face in the final panel shows that she knows Snuffy is just joking. He may be generally averse to physical labor, but he never passes up an opportunity to dig a shallow grave for members of the hated Barlow clan who’ve died at Smif hands in the latest backwoods ambush! Plus he absolutely does not give a shit about the environment.

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Panel from The Lockhorns, 4/18/21

So … is Loretta over there audibly lying about her age to those women? Or is this just how Leroy strikes up conversations at parties? Honestly this shows an even looser grasp of social norms than all the times he ends up wearing a lampshade on his head and dancing with women three times his height.

Dennis the Menace, 4/18/21

It seems out of character for Dennis to be too scared to jump into the deep end of the pool, and it’s honestly pretty weird for him to climb up on the high board as he explains why he’s not planning on jumping off. There’s only one explanation I can come up with: he’s trying to really sell how scary the whole thing is so that nobody jumps off the diving board. Margaret’s obviously spent weeks getting more and more excited about all the social clout she’ll derive from this shindig, so ruining it even at the expense of his devil-may-care image is a truly menacing act on Dennis’s part. Look, it’s already working on Joey!

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Family Circus, 4/15/21

Many years ago, I was going through customs at Boston Airport, and one of the customs inspectors had an extremely cute beagle on a leash wearing a vest that said “I’M PROTECTING AMERICA’S AGRICULTURE!” This dog was sniffing around everyone’s bags, and he came up to a family with a little boy who had a soft-sided lunch box that was open, and the dog stuck his head into it to sniff around a bit. The boy squealed indignantly “That dog licked my lunch box!” and the dog’s handler replied, in a clipped and measured tone that I will never forget, “That dog’s mouth is cleaner than yours.”

Anyway, I immediately thought about this when I saw Barfy’s aggrieved face here. “Can you believe this shit?” he’s definitely thinking. “Have you seen the things this child has done with those hands? I came over here to eat food that had fallen on the floor, not to be slandered like this.”

The Lockhorns, 4/15/21

Speaking of Jeffy’s bullshit, you could definitely see a panel where one of the Keane kids, grinning in bed like a dope, declares, “I can’t wait to see how last night’s dream turned out!”, right? Amazing how that kind of sappy line can be instantly changed to a cutting Lockhorns put-down just by changing the speaker.

Pluggers, 4/15/21

This year’s tax filing deadline was extended to May 17, so I guess you’re a plugger if you have your tax day comic all ready to go for April 15 and you’re not gonna let big government tell you to change it! Also, it seems that you’re a plugger if you do your taxes by dutifully researching potential deductions you can legally take (this is how everyone else does their taxes, too).