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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/26/12

I had always hoped that, if there were anywhere in America where the bane of helicopter parenting had yet to arrive, it was Hootin’ Holler. And yet here we have the Smifs hovering intrusively over their toddler instead of just letting him engage in the sort of non-supervised play in a trash-strewn backyard that made Americans from previous generations healthy and strong (those that survived, anyway). My one consolation is that Snuffy is still pretty bad at this, having stuck li’l Tater in a dog house that’s almost certainly filthy beyond description.

Panel from The Lockhorns, 2/26/12

I suppose that Loretta needed to be in the back seat in order for this joke to work (to the extent that you would consider this a “joke” that “works”), but that still doesn’t solve the mystery of who this grim-faced fellow is in the front seat. He sort of looks as he’s being driven somewhere by the Lockhorns to be done in execution-style and dumped in a shallow grave, but if that were the case he’d probably be happier to see this cop, so I’m assuming that he’s just listened to them talk for 15 or 20 minutes and has now completely lost his ability to feel joy.

Panel from Slylock Fox, 2/26/12

It seems that Rodney Rat has graduated from eager teenage grifter to “career criminal,” with sunglasses and everything. It makes me a little sad that he’s hit this elevated status in his criminal trajectory while his much awesomer relative Reeky is left back in the small time. I also question the practicality of the rope-lasso as a prisoner-retainment device, which may help explain why Rodney gets to make a career out of his criminality.

Panel from Mary Worth, 2/26/12

Mary, no! You don’t have anything to prove to her! YOU’RE LETTING HER INSIDE YOUR HEAD!

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Pluggers, 2/25/12

When I was in college I had a big thing for a Catholic girl and one week I went to church with her (ROMANTIC PRO TIP: This very rarely works) and it was a typically crunchy collegiate parish and at one point the bearded priest busted out an acoustic guitar and we got a folk-rock version the Lord’s Prayer and all I could think was “Oh my God, Mel Gibson was right.” Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I feel you, my cranky plugger friend! And I’m not ashamed to say it!

Mary Worth, 2/25/12

More proof that Nola is being unfairly depicted as the villain in this story! Obviously in whatever badly decorated office this is the well-known rules of engagement are that one sleeps one’s way to the top. It’s probably right there in the HR manual! Our catty duo knows that they’d do the same if only they were endowed with the sexy gams and malleable face of their rival.

Crankshaft, 2/25/12

So Crankshaft was inducted into the local sports hall of fame to his great delight, but for some reason this week the plot took a turn and was suddenly about how this one-armed reporter we’d never seen before accidentally wrote and published an obituary for this other guy we’ve never seen before, which, weird and not-funny as it is, is surely better than seeing Crankshaft enjoy anything.

Marmaduke, 2/25/12

Don’t be ungrateful! It’s polite of Marmaduke to shake your hand before he brutally dismembers you, just as it’s polite of him to have dug graves for your various body parts rather than just leaving them strewn about the yard.

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Apartment 3-G, 2/23/12

Since Nina has agreed to be her husband’s smoke-filled incubator and nothing more, he’s left with the responsibilities of tricking out the future kid’s nursery, and as someone with external genitalia is obviously totally unfit for the task. Look at the little lost lamb, wandering around Manhattan with a giant stuffed bear, mewling for help! If you didn’t know anything about these characters, you might imagine that this is the start of some sort of sexy sex affair between Scott and Margo, but since this is Margo we’re talking about she’ll probably just end up berating him again like she did in 2006:

Haha, how much do I love that panel? A lot, is how much!

Archie, 2/23/12

Ha ha, yes, it’s funny that hockey goalies wear masks that make it difficult to tell who they are, despite the existence of other cues such as height and build, but I think we’re all missing the important point here, which is that Coach Kleats thinks that saying “Now I really want you to block that goal” imparts useful information about goaltending. I mean, I know what with the budget cuts he’s got a lot on his plate, but sure he could do a little online research and come up with some slightly higher-level jargon?

Mary Worth, 2/23/12

Oh, man, can we count all the amazing things in today’s Mary Worth? Let’s start with the classic word-sequences-that-would-never-be-uttered-by-humans “middle-management sales” and “I still can’t believe the events that led to Nola’s promotion!” Then there’s our male gossip’s hilariously exaggerated gestures and facial expressions; he appears to be auditioning for a nonexistent vaudeville revival circuit, in his mind. And of course there’s also his female counterpart’s bright blue hair, framing her sad, worn-down face. Probably she dyed her hair blue six years ago when she got this corporate job, as a last act of defiance to reaffirm her identity as someone vaguely cool; and yet here she is, having kept that color more out of habit than anything else, carping pettily about the new vice president of sales, without a hint of irony. These people deserve Nola, is what I’m saying.

Spider-Man, 2/23/12

Man, I wish I could get people to start referring to my naps as “the fabled Josh-sleep.” None would dare wake me then!