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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/5/25

Wow, I had always assumed that Hootin’ Holler was cut off from outside civilization to the extent that it’s blessedly not affected by unrealistic youth and beauty culture, but here I see that not only am I wrong but even the local chthonic witch is feeling insecure about herself. Fortunately, she’s invented a potion that can magically tailor clothes, and if she can refine it to be more easily controlled she’ll be able to afford all the more conventional beauty enhancement treatments she wants.

Dennis the Menace, 4/5/25

Usually it’s Dennis who interprets a normal turn of phrase in a way that’s wrong and kind of insulting, and I like his facial expression here in panel two, in which game seems to be recognizing game.

Crankshaft, 4/5/25

I’ve only started revisiting Crankshaft again in the past couple months but I’m sincerely glad to have gotten here in time to see Pam discover that her husband has been draining the family bank accounts to buy bootleg Huckleberry Hound DVDs. Do you think they’re going to divorce over this? I sure hope so!

Luann, 4/5/25

“Oh,” you’ve probably been thinking, “I guess Brad and Toni are doing a whole week at the amusement park, but at least it probably won’t end with them fucking in their car in the parking lot.” You fool. You idiot. You naive simpleton.

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Luann, 3/31/25

So last week’s “Brad and Toni are trying to have a baby and it’s making their sex life miserable” riff ended with the two of them (on TJ’s suggestion) running off to go to an amusement park rather than depress themselves with yet another grim session of intercourse. I assumed this was putting a little bow on the plot and we were going to move onto something else this week, except, no, we’re apparently going to be treated (?) to the two of them at the amusement park. Anyway, it’s kind of comforting to be regularly reading this strip again after more than a decade and learn that it’s still doing its thing (its thing is coming up with extremely off-putting euphemisms for sex like “doing ‘maybe baby’”).

Dick Tracy, 3/31/25

Gotta admit I don’t fully get what the deal is in the non-nephew part of this Dick Tracy storyline, but our heroes have connected the mysterious corpse with someone named “Mr. Piltdown” and have roped his poor dentist into trying to positively ID him. That name is probably most famous from “Piltdown Man,” a hoax fossil that was supposed to be a “missing link” between humans and apes but was actually just a fake someone made by combining a human skull with an orangutan jaw and teeth, so I certainly hope this signals that something profoundly weird is about to be revealed by this post-mortem dental exam.

Gil Thorp, 3/31/25

Big news, everyone! Marty’s drinking binge has run its course and now he’s back at his AA meeting, along with a fellow alcoholic named “Clam.” Short for Clambake? A guy can dream!!!! (About a long sob story about how Clambake got caught lying about being in the Negro Leagues and it sent him into a downward spiral of alcohol abuse but then Marty Moon interrupts him by saying “Hey everybody, I’m Marty Moon, from the radio!” and they all applaud.)

Alice, 3/31/25

I know that a classic comics thing is having someone ask a weirdly specific question so that another person can answer it with a punchline, but Disconnection Syndrome is actually a fairly serious neurological disorder. Maybe you should find out why exactly your niece is asking about this rather than just cracking wise, Alice!

The Lockhorns, 3/31/25

So why are you going to someplace called “Coverage Provider Outlet,” guys? That sounds boring as shit!

Blondie, 3/31/25

“Ha ha, but enough about my depressing personal life and my dead marriage! I want to buy all your cupcakes and then throw them in the garbage so my husband can’t have them.”

Hagar the Horrible, 3/31/25

Hey man, did you know you can just put straight-up naked asses in the comics now? God is dead, do what you will, etc.

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Marvin, 3/25/25

“Wow,” many of my longtime readers have no doubt concluded, “So Josh makes money by flying into a rage whenever the comic strip Marvin does jokes about shitting? Nice work if you can get it.” And that’s fair, but it isn’t all fun and games. For instance, part of my job also entails dispassionately and meticulously keeping track of the timeline of Marvin’s parents’ lives and relationships. We already knew that Jeff is 35, which means that he put “Who Let The Dogs Out” on a mix CD in college ironically, rather than sincerely. Today we learn that that he and Jenny have been married for seven years, since he was 28, another interesting data point. It is, of course, difficult to get a handle on how old Marvin is exactly, what with him walking around and talking in complete sentences but also not being potty trained, but he’s definitely several years younger than seven, which means there was a fairly extended Marvin-free period in Jeff and Jenny’s marriage. Now, the question this raises is: did they originally love one another, and the introduction of the awful Marvin in their lives lead them to the Lockhorns-like state of enmity we see in the strip? Or did they always hold each other in blistering contempt, and that anger made Marvin the hell-infant that we all know and loathe?

Andy Capp, 3/25/25

Speaking of comics character ages, it occurred to me the other day that, what with all the cultural signifiers in Andy Capp being ossified in a milieu quite foreign to me (working-class northern England sometime in the late 1950s), I had no idea how old Andy is supposed to be; any number between his mid-50s and, like, 28 seemed potentially realistic. Fortunately, today the strip introduces (?) a respectful zoomer character, “Young Tommy,” who “do[es] internet dating” so Andy can remark on it. I met my wife on the internet in the very early days of doing internet dating, which means that Andy is probably a few years older than me, which you can imagine comes as a great relief.

Luann, 3/25/25

Ha ha, remember back in the day, when Brad and Toni’s relationship was alive with a level of over-the-top ribaldry that they seemed to enjoy even though right-thinking readers all found it deeply distasteful? Well, they’re married now, and the passion is long gone, and now all that they have to look forward to is the grim, relentless cycle of sex for the purposes of reproduction. Right-thinking readers also find this deeply distasteful, but can at least take solace in the fact that Brad and Toni don’t like it either.

B.C., 3/25/25

Ha ha, remember back in the day in 2001, when you had to worry about whether B.C.’s Easter strips were maybe anti-semitic? Well, now it’s 2025, and you have to worry about whether B.C. is encouraging children to do whip-its. Life comes at you … well, not fast, exactly, but it does come at you. I know you’re all thinking “This isn’t a problem because no children actually read B.C.,” but I do think they’re marginally more likely to read B.C. than Judge Parker, so we’re slipping into dangerous territory here.

Shoe, 3/25/25

Being a syndicated newspaper comics artist doesn’t carry the rewards it used to, in terms of money or cultural impact. But there are few better ways, outside of a moderately successful Twitter or Instagram account, to share with hundreds or maybe even thousands of strangers your annoyance at a minor inconvenience you encountered in your daily life.