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Shoe, 9/13/23

A comic strip is such a condensed bit of storytelling that I generally think it should do one joke and and do it well. Today’s Shoe, for instance, should just lean into the fact that it’s doing a version of the well-worn “psychic fails to predict something that would actually have been quite helpful for them to know” bit or do something with in the fact that there’s a new psychic in town named “Claire Voyance.” “But Josh,” you’re probably saying, “‘Claire Voyance’ is an incredibly dumb and on-the-nose thing to name a psychic, I’m not sure how you’d squeeze anything funny out of that,” and you’re not wrong, but keep in mind that Shoe’s recurring psychic character, the one who’s featured in today’s strip, is named “Madame ZooDoo” for some reason, so you can see that the strip isn’t operating on a particularly high level to begin with.

The Lockhorns, 9/13/23

Man, I want to know about the chain of thought that led to Loretta hanging up a “Happy Anniversary” sign from Party City for a dinner of leftover orange goo and bright red wine. Normally I’d think this was set up to drop some kind of sick burn on Leroy, but instead it just made her an easy target, so I have to assume she just gave up, which is sad, honestly. You hate to see a great competitor in marital combat leave the arena.

Blondie, 9/13/12

It’s been a while since I watched the Weather Channel, but based on the general trajectory of basic cable channels, I very much would believe that America’s Greatest Weather Injuries is a big part of its lineup now. Gotta give the people what they want!

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Gil Thorp, 8/31/23

So before we get football season underway, Milford’s students are doing some kind of Night At The Museum sleepover thing, only without the part where the exhibits come to life, probably. Anyway, I’m not sure what possibility is funnier: if Luke Hernandez’s pay at his new Milford coaching job is so low that he has to moonlight as a museum security guard, or if he’s just doing this as part of his job as a Milford faculty member and went out and bought a vaguely law-enforcement-y uniform to help him establish his authority as a chaperone. (The other possibility — that, as this summer’s Prison Bowl demonstrated, Milford-area athletics is becoming full integrated into the carceral state — isn’t really funny at all.)

The Lockhorns, 8/31/23

I really like the expression this bait shop guy is giving Leroy here. “Hey man, that’s … that’s not really how you’re supposed to think about it. I mean, yeah, sometimes the fish die at the end of the process, but not always, and the point is to relax in the boat and have a beer or three, not to come up with a vivid scenario where you’re some kind of fish executioner. Is everything OK at home?”

Dennis the Menace, 8/31/23

Oh, so you don’t like it when tells your guests the mean things you say about them behind their backs, but you also don’t like it when he just quietly goes up to his room and lets the adults socialize? I’m beginning to think that Dennis isn’t the only one engaging in some menacing here.

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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.