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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/5/19

Ah, finally, the reason Silas wears a red armband makes sense: He’s a socialist, here to spread the word that the factotums of electoral democracy are in fact enslaved to capital. And if you’re wondering “why is a socialist the only person in Hootin’ Holler who runs a store,” it sounds like you’re unfamiliar with Marxist theory, which insists that a civilization must pass through all phases of economic development before it can achieve a truely classless society. Silas isn’t going to try dragging this barter-based agricultural community straight into the dictatorship of the proletariat like some kind of common Maoist!

Crock, 11/5/19

I’m just gonna ignore the “what if telemarketers, but in an ill-defined North African setting, where incidentally we’ve previously acknowledged that phones exist” joke here and focus instead on Maggot’s bib. Does it make any sense at all to wear a bib when you aren’t wearing a shirt? If you’re living in a tent in the desert with no running water to wash the food off your chest, maybe? I guess we should really factor in the fact that the bib matches Maggot’s skin color so precisely that it’s almost certainly made from the flesh of a member of his immediate family.

Mary Worth, 11/5/19

The best part about today’s episode of Wilbur’s Drunken Double Date Meltdown is Zak’s genuine smile in panel two. Not only is he (unsurprisingly) not even remotely threatened by Wilbur, but he’s enjoying this is as much as we are!

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Blondie, 11/4/19

I was going to say that Dagwood, who is apparently willing to stick his tongue into some sort of measuring/scanning apparatus and have the details of his mouth biology stored indefinitely in the cloud in order to prove his “loyalty” to a restaurant and get few percent knocked off his bill, represents the ultimate version of the modern human, willing to trade away his privacy for pennies. But then it occurred to me that restaurants could just do this with facial recognition, which makes me assume that this is actually just some kind of sick fetish idea on Dagwood’s part.

Mary Worth, 11/4/19

I fully expect that I’m going to be bringing you my close analysis of Wilbur’s Drunken Double Date multiple times this week. Today, as we learn that Zak does not subscribe to the cult of the grind prevalent among so many tech founders and game industry execs, we should pause and appreciate Wilbur’s facial expression in panel two, which is a pretty good illustration of a very, very drunk guy trying and almost succeeding in holding it together.

Dustin, 11/4/19

One of the core bits of Dustin lore that I already hate myself for knowing is that Dustin is a temp who gets assigned to generic white-collar office jobs from which he almost immediately gets fired because he sucks at them, but somehow his temp agency keeps finding him more work. Anyway, it’s definitely out of character for him to suddenly be given a job in the skilled trades, and I’d like to believe that it represents some narrative shift in the strip, but I’m assuming the cartoonist saw the phrase “Quick Lube” and thought, “Ha ha, you know who wouldn’t be quick at lubing things? That incompetent millennial Dustin!” We should probably be glad the strip ended up like this and not about sex stuff.

The Lockhorns, 11/4/19

My favorite thing about this strip is that Leroy has turned away from his wife and is heading into the bar while she narrates her disdain for him to some passerby. “Wife making mouth noises, but no time to process them,” he thinks. “Daylight waning, along with it opportunities for day drinking.”

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 11/3/19

There has been a population explosion of pythons in the forest. In the beginning of the Glorious Animal Regime, all animals were equal; but some, like the traitorous python, defied the reproductive quotas imposed by the benevolent new monarchy, which forced Slylock, more in sorrow than in anger, to impose ethnic cleansing and deport thousands of snakes to “another forest,” so far away that you probably won’t be hearing from your snake friends again, but trust us, they’re happier there. Will history absolve Slylock and Princess Pussycat of their crimes? Answer — No, but they’ll be long dead before the judgement of future generations condemns them!

Mary Worth, 11/3/19

You know, we’ve been spending a lot of time wondering what Estelle could see in Wilbur, but you gotta remember that she’s the woman who sent $10,000 to some dude she had only ever spoken to on the phone, and while “This guy I just started dating has shown up at my apartment very drunk, I’m going to physically and urgently drag him to the double date we’ve planned with his ex and her new boyfriend” isn’t a terrible choice quite on the same scale, it’s a reminder that she’s made some extremely questionable decisions in her life and will no doubt continue to do so in the future.

Dennis the Menace, 11/3/19

Did Dennis just try to pull the “I was resting my eyelids!” trick beloved by checked-out uncles everywhere? Dennis, my man, the only thing you’re a menace to here is your own dignity.