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Mary Worth, 11/29/19

Well, Iris has decided to consult a doctor for the symptoms she’s been experiencing. This guy kind of looks like Dr. Jeff, except younger, so maybe it’s supposed be Dr. Jeff’s son Dr. Drew, who two-time Dawn and got smacked around for it but hasn’t been seen since the new art team took over. Anyway, remember years ago in Funky Winkerbean when Les’s wife Lisa was told her cancer was in remission, but it really wasn’t and she was only told that as a result of some kind of paperwork mixup, and then she died? Well, it looks like Iris’s obvious pregnancy is currently being misdiagnosed as a typical case of old-broad-itis, which should lead to wacky results. As Marx put it in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

Gil Thorp, 11/29/19

Ha ha, Chet thought he could trust Marty Moon to help him with his plot to undermine Chance Macy and win his stepson’s love, but that’s too far even for Marty, so Marty narc’d him out, probably ruining his career and his marriage! Good times, good times. When the Mudlarks fail to make the playdowns yet again, Marty and Gil will be able to agree that at least nobody likes Chet anymore, so the season hasn’t been a total loss.

Gasoline Alley, 11/29/19

Is … is this really a great story? I know that the economic collapse of many small-town and mid-market media outlets has been devastating, removing an important check on political power in those communities, but I’m starting to wonder if they maybe deserved it.

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Hi and Lois, 11/25/19

The fact that Lois’s dark shadow looms menacingly in panel two here really makes this comic. Some girls liked the beard, some didn’t. Some told Hi in no uncertain terms that the beard was forbidden, that even a hint of it had to be shorn off the moment it appeared, and that they would be watching, always watching, to make sure he would do as he was told. Now, some boys might not like that sort of arrangement, but as the bedroom eyes Hi is flashing at his wife’s silhouette clearly indicate, Hi is not one of those boys.

Shoe, 11/25/19

The Treetops Tattler, like many local papers, has a small staff that does double and triple duty, and it’s not unheard of to see them dedicating some column inches to arts coverage. Usually it’s the Perfesser who writes the reviews, though clearly that’s a conflict of interest here; it’s a little strange to see the editor in chief take on the role, but I guess he couldn’t pass up the chance to slam on his only full-time employee in a public forum.

Mary Worth, 11/25/19

Man, I barely have time for Mary still somehow being on Team Wilbur or for the delicious shade dished out by our narration box, because I think I now can’t avoid the conclusion that many of you commenters reached months ago: Iris is tired all the time not but because she and Zak are fucking all the time, but because she’s pregnant (which, to be clear, is still a result of the fucking, but it’s a second-order effect). The important question this raises: how will Wilbur react? Will this finally end his fixation on Iris, or will it send him even further into the deep end?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/25/19

I always had Snuffy pegged as a cynic, but it seems he still has a shred of idealism left — the belief that anyone, no matter how humble their circumstances, is entitled to the full protection of America’s laws and can seek redress in the courts if their rights are violated. But Sheriff Tait, the only representative of that distant government, quickly disabuses him of that notion: Snuffy is stuck here in Hootin’ Holler, in more ways than one.

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Beetle Bailey, 11/23/19

Real Beetle Bailey-heads know that General Halftrack has a driver, and his name is Julius, although I don’t think he’s appeared in the strip in a while; the only place I can find him in my archives is here, in what appears to be a gay panic dream sequence from 2004. A mere gap of 15 years is of course nothing to the deep lore of Beetle Bailey continuity, though I suppose it’s possible that he was reassigned to a more important job as part of Pentagon budget cuts; still, I assume that mostly this joke is about how the folks Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC finally heard about Uber and could’t wait to use it as a punchline.

Blondie, 11/23/19

Speaking of hilarious tech punchlines: you guys heard about this bitcoin thing? It’s electronic moola! You could buy [tries desperately to think of a cool high-tech thing a kid would like] a … drone? … with bitcoins, that’s for sure! Helpful tip: if your joke hinges on something being a high-tech novelty, but that thing was already a punchline in Snuffy Smith four years ago, it is no longer particularly novel.

Crankshaft, 11/23/19

Here it is, Thanksgiving weekend, and the boys are “enjoying” some good old-fashioned football! Remember when Crazy Harry laid out the rules of happiness in the Funkyverse, which are that you can’t ever feel happy because if you do the universe will make you regret it? I thought about that watching Jeff clinging anxiously to that unopened bag of chips there. A normal person would open the chips and eat them to enjoy time with their family. But that sounds like fun, and fun is the one thing none of these sad sacks is allowed to have.

Mary Worth, 11/23/19

Ha ha, how cool and fun would it be if your friend set you up with someone, and then that person got really drunk before a date and made just a complete theatrical ass of himself, and when you told your friend about it, they were just like “Oh, wow, yeah, that definitely sounds in character for him, this person I suggested you become romantically involved with!” Would you stay friends with this person? Would you ever speak to them again?

Mark Trail, 11/23/19

BAD NEWS: Mark Trail and company have still not encountered even a single yeti.

GOOD NEWS: Mark Trail and company are fleeing from a landslide while wearing … snuggies? Let’s say snuggies. More on this development as events warrant.