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Crock, 7/27/23

The thing about ladies’ butts is that the societal consensus on their optimal size has waxed and waned over the years: some decades have extolled the skinny, while in other eras big and round has been the way to go. This is a particular dilemma in the universe of Crock. When exactly was this strip published? When is any of the action supposed to be taking place? I don’t know and my guess is that the characters don’t either, so “compared to what?” is a legitimate question.

Judge Parker, 7/27/23

You and I both knew in our heart of hearts that the newspaper funny pages were never going to show a guy getting torn to pieces by a bear, not even if we’ve already established that guy as a child kidnapper, so we should appreciate what we do get today, which is seeing his screams of agony coming in from just off-panel. Then, to chill us out a bit, we smash cut to Sophie and Marie watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, I’m pretty sure, but Sophie’s not even paying attention because she’s looking at her phone. Kids today! With their phones and getting kidnapped by guys who get killed by bears and such!

The Lockhorns, 7/27/23

A thing I love about The Lockhorns is that in most panel, no matter what the “joke” is, one or both of the title characters looks like they want to die. Like this is just a dumb and overdone bit of wordplay on “continental,” they didn’t need to go so hard, but Leroy is looking at those pancakes like he’s contemplating whether he can deliberately choke himself to death on them, and I respect that artistic choice so much.

Dennis the Menace, 7/27/23

It’s true: Mr. Wilson spent much of his tween years as a child soldier in the bloody spasms of civil conflict that wracked the Congo after Belgium pulled its colonial administration out in 1960. The experience has left him with terrible emotional scars that he cannot bring himself to talk about. His outfit today is unrelated.

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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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Mary Worth, 7/4/23

Greetings, fellow Americans! Hopefully you are spending today watching fireworks and patriotically contemplating’s our nation’s successful defeat of the accursed British in our War of Independence, like Mary is in today’s strip. But sadly, many comics characters are not — a group that apparently includes all of Mary’s friends, since she’s just sitting on this hillside by self. Sure, Old Man Wynter and his posse are probably making sure Greta’s trauma (oh, they found Greta by the way, she managed to get the cage open herself and escape) isn’t compounded by the fireworks noises, but what about Ian and Toby? Dr. Jeff? Wilbur? Do they have something better to do than bask in the majesty of American greatness? Apparently so, and as we’ll see in the following strips, they are not alone.

Blondie, 7/4/23

Remember back in May when Dagwood wanted everyone to know that nobody could best him when it came to respecting the troops, but it turned out it was just a ruse to prevent his nap from being interrupted? Well, now he can’t even be bothered to use patriotism as a pretext.

Beetle Bailey, 7/4/23

Honestly, though, who could blame him when the troops themselves don’t seem to care about America’s birthday? Today’s Beetle Bailey includes the most half-assed wedged-in patriotic message since the infamous Luann 9/11 anniversary strip. I guess we can’t expect these soldiers to put energy into frivolous partying, even the most patriotic kind, when there’s important military preparedness work to be done. I hear the People’s Liberation Army’s lawns are immaculate.

Family Circus, 7/4/23

Jeffy’s OK with fireworks, but doesn’t want to share space with others enjoying them in ways he doesn’t approve of. He loves America but is annoyed by his fellow Americans and that’s no kind of patriotism at all!

The Lockhorns, 7/4/23

Leroy is using the 4th as yet another opportunity to be unpleasantly horny, and honestly? I’ll allow it.