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Mary Worth, 11/21/13

Mary Worth is being mugged in broad daylight in the middle of Central Park (THANKS A LOT DE BLASIO) and things probably aren’t going to end well … for the mugger. Mary starts off by shouting for help, to be polite, but by panel two her face suddenly bears a striking resemblance to movie tough guy Claude Akins, or perhaps to a majestic lowland gorilla; this transformation, combined with her outfit’s similarity to a karate gi, implies an imminent savage beatdown that our petty criminal won’t soon forget.

Momma, 11/21/13

If you ever need proof that Francis isn’t just a loathsome layabout, but a loathsome hipster layabout, look no further than his sports fandom. Following Ivy League football when you don’t actually attend an Ivy League school makes all those European soccer nerds who smugly tell you about how they illegally stream Bundesliga games online in the wee hours of the morning look like amateurs. And the Ivies are actually among the more normal pennants on display here! “Oh, your favorite team is Ohio State, huh?” he says. “Mine is NYU. They played their last collegiate football game in 1953. You’ve probably never heard of them.”

Family Circus, 11/21/13

This is also what Jeffy will someday tell the cops when they finally arrest him for that string of brutal stab-murders.

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Archie, 11/19/13

I know this isn’t news to anyone who’s spent any time reading the adventures of the Riverdale gang, but Archie, the ostensible protagonist of the long-running Archie comics franchise, is kind of unbearable. Normally this is most obvious in the shabby way he treats the multiple young women who for reasons unknowable are in love with him, but his attitude towards his male pals is frankly not much better. Today’s strip is particularly poignant: Archie’s class-based anxieties are on full display as he attempts to worm his way into Veronica’s high society world, and he apparently thinks that loudly mocking his best friend’s poor-person habits is his key to gaining the one percent’s acceptance. Fortunately, Jughead once again proves that the most radical form of resistance to the economic elite is a complete lack of shame over the so-called “manners” they deem so important.

Wizard of Id, 11/19/13

I don’t know what’s more slapdash about this: that all three quotes are from J.R.R. Tolkien (who, for the record, is not the only author in history who has written about wizards), or that the strip freely admits to not bothering to figure out what the second quote even means.

Mark Trail and Mary Worth, 11/19/13

Meanwhile in Mark Trail and Mary Worth, true terror is in progress: old people are falling down! Say what you will about the soap opera strips, but they seem well aware of the main anxieties of their primary audience.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/11/13

Happy Veterans Day, everybody, and let us never forget that once, long ago, Private Snuffy Smith helped defend the free world from the menace of fascism, as depicted in live action films in which Snuffy was played by little person Bud Duncan wearing a shockingly true-to-cartoon fake nose:

A few years back I linked to 1942’s Private Snuffy Smith, in which Snuffy enlists in the army in order to avoid trouble with the revenuers. In the intervening time, the sequel to that film, the Holy Grail of Snuffiana, has been uploaded to YouTube, the film with the most amazing title of any movie ever made: Hillbilly Blitzkrieg.

The plot involves Nazi spies trying to steal Snuffy’s moonshine formula and use it for rocket fuel, I guess? I only made it through about three minutes of it! Let me know what I missed, if anything.

Mary Worth, 11/11/13

“Neither would I. If not for me, I wouldn’t be here today. I create myself whole from within myself. I am the alpha and omega and nobody, least of all me, can escape me.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/11/13

Guys, were you worried that the Morgans might not be extracting maximum revenue from Sarah’s drawings of horsies? Well, their highly compensated lawyer will see about that.