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Shoe, 2/27/21

Huh, I’ve been reading Shoe for years and I don’t think I ever knew that the Perfesser, in addition to being a newspaper reporter and columnist, is also a novelist! I guess that’s probably because his books are so bad that his coworkers aren’t even minimally polite about them, so it probably doesn’t come up much.

Sam and Silo, 2/27/21

Today, outside Sam’s (or maybe Silo’s? I long ago wisely declined to spend precious brain real estate remembering which one is which) window, a werewolf’s time of torment is ending and he’s transforming back into a person again, celebrating the blessed event by shouting out the human names of the friends who will no longer run away from his monstrous visage in fear — until the full moon comes again, of course.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/27/21

“Y’see, jedge, between my feckless lack o’ motivation and my r’fusal to develop any honest marketable skills, I’m in a prison of m’own design!”

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Dennis the Menace, 9/21/20

OK, look, Dennis, let’s never mind that Margaret doesn’t even seem to notice you’re there and is heading off on some business of her own. Where on Earth does the phrase “the silence before the storm” comes from? It’s not the actual correct phrase and it also doesn’t repeat the phrasing Joey used in the first panel. Plus it’s not a joke! I’m not even gonna get into the “how menacing is this” shtick right now, I just gotta ask … are you OK, man?

Gasoline Alley, 9/21/20

Meanwhile, these two panels are a real roller coaster, storywise and emotionally! Truly “Ha ha!” is how a congregation would react to a clergyman telling them that today’s sermon will be short, followed by “ooh! ah!” and “wow!” when he smoothly segues into “snakes are mentioned in the bible over 20 times,” which, folks, I may not be an expert in theological oratory, but if I heard the phrase “snakes are mentioned in the bible over 20 times” at the beginning of a sermon, my first thought would not be “oh, this sermon is going to be short,” but rather “ooh! ah! this guy’s gonna tell us about all 20 biblical snake references! wow!” And, honestly, I’d be into it. Obviously we start with the serpent in the Adam and Eve story (and I’d love it he could tell us when that guy started being identified with the devil, because in Genesis he gets cursed by God into leglessness as a punishment for leading Eve astray, and it seems weird for all snakes have no legs because of something the devil did), but I do hope he spends some time on the bad-ass brass snake Moses carried around on a pole that he used to cure snakebites.

Sam and Silo, 9/21/20

Sam’s (or Silo’s? if you think I’m ever going to remember which one of these two is which unless I’m looking directly at a strip where one of them is explicitly addressed by name, you’ve got another thing coming) cat just want out in the extremely dangerous nighttime, for sex. It’s worth it to him! In fact, the possibility he might be mauled to death by a dog just makes the sexual act more intense and erotic! That’s the joke today in Sam and Silo, a comic strip published in, I assume, several family newspapers.

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Arctic Circle, 9/7/20

Oscar brushes past “Right to Repair” and a common consumer gripe to set up a visual pun that … doesn’t quite work. First, Oscar has to hint at the joke: bad sign. Second, even with the hint, you might not know that’s an emperor penguin. And third, it’s hard to see the emperor penguin as naked when he’s wearing that sweet tux.

Curtis, 9/7/20

For a New York City straphanger whom we’ve never seen drive a car, Greg seems pretty damn excited about driverless cars! And Curtis is somehow Ted Forth?

Rex Morgan, M.D. 9/7/20

I was going to make a crude joke about Hank Jr. going at his Hulk Hogan doll with a vibrator when I thought, “Hey, are character model kits really a thing?” That set me off on a magical Internet adventure to learn about Bandai Hobby, Moebius Models, and LEGO Star Wars, convincing me in the end that yes, it is totally plausible that Hank Jr. is going at his Hulk Hogan doll with a vibrator.

Sam and Silo, 9/7/20

Lots of websites monetize their communities by introducing dating services, so here goes:

ED CRANKSHAFT — MEET YOUR SOULMATE, ONLY $29.95 PLUS TAX!

— Uncle Lumpy