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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/20/24

Oh no! In this rustic retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk, Jughaid traded Ol’ Bessie for a handful of beans. The beanstalks grew to the sky in the traditional manner, but there were no gold coins, eggs, or magic harps on offer up there. Deprived of essential amino acids from Bessie’s milk, the Smifs will now die, and Barney Google will at last reclaim his strip.

Hi and Lois, 9/20/24

Chip Flagston, like Alexander Bumstead, is an anti-Dustin, attracting pretty girls without the slightest effort. But in a strip with 1950’s-era family structure, work environment, social mores, and frankly jokes, how does anything here really qualify as “retro”?

Beetle Bailey, 9/20/24

In an vulnerable moment, Sgt. Orville Snorkle is at last ready to let the sun shine into the black pit of shame and anguish that drove him to a half century of verbal abuse, savage beatings, and arbitrary punishment of his subordinate. Beetle is having none of it: this may not be the life he chose, but it’s the one he’s got and he’s not going to change it now. “Things are just fine, Sarge, do you hear me? Fine!

Judge Parker, 9/20/24

Ronnie, you’re the sensible, grounded one, remember? And yet here you are confiding in Neddy Spencer about a self-centered emotionally needy person who is not Neddy Spencer? Sure, you can always talk to her, but God help you trying to get her to listen.

Marvin, 9/20/24

Marvin‘s Jeff Miller gamely steps into Ed Crankshaft’s role now that Ed’s strip is off fighting 1950’s-era censorship or something. Got to admire how deftly he blends Crankshaft‘s negligent arson into Marvin‘s central theme, filth.

Just a reminder that there’s no Comment of the Week on my watch, so 2+2=7’s comment will ride up there for another week or until the math checks out, whichever comes first.

—Uncle Lumpy

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Gil Thorp, 8/30/24

America yearns to know: What’s up with the beloved new character “Torch” in Gil Thorp? Have we figured out if “Torch” is his first name, or his nickname, or his last name, maybe? Well, we haven’t, as it happens, and some people are getting desperate to find out. Rodney Barnes, for instance, is trying to instigate a little on-field fracas, just to see if Gil hits the new kid with a “Mister” so we can find out his surname. Alas, however: Rodney miscalculated and ended up on the receiving end of a “Mister” himself! Ah, well, good try, son. We’ll get this figured out someday, don’t you worry.

Marvin, 8/30/24

“Jordan, you ready to swim in my pool?” “Is the water in the pool going to get befouled by your piss and shit?” “Yes.” “Pass.”

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Marvin and Hi and Lois, 8/24/24

Jeff … Hi … you morons. You idiots. You absolute fools. You’re already looking ahead to the passage of time, to the day when your kids have grown up and this phase of their life and yours is over forever, either with an anticipatory sense of nostalgia (Hi) or a frankly dickish mercenary sullenness (Jeff). But it will never happen. You’re stuck there, with these kids at the age they are, forever. It’s already been decades, but you can’t see it, can’t feel it, can’t know it. But it has been, and it will be. This is it. This is now. This is always now.

Mary Worth, 8/24/24

I guess Ed is cradling his new finacée firmly but gently in his arms to reestablish intimacy after their little dispute, but it really just looks like he’s physically restraining her from rushing to the table and adding yet another color-coded folder to her collection, this one for information on local DJs sorted by price and Yelp rating.