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Mother Goose and Grimm, 7/29/21

So, Grimm, who is a dog, got his owner/”mom” a “gift,” but the joke is he’s too cheap to actually get her an engraved champagne bucket (?) and instead he stole one (???) from the Sheraton in Chicago, a fairly nice hotel where he somehow managed to stay, despite being a dog, and also cheap? Interesting. Interesting.

Shoe, 7/29/21

The Pefesser, who I have always assumed to be in late middle age at the youngest (not that it’s easy to tell when you’re dealing with a bird-man) is often seen using a crate as a chair. Speaking as an early as a mid-middle-aged man myself, I can say with some confidence that this would be terrible for your back! There’s something particularly grim about it here, as the Perfesser puts the finishing touches on his presumably unsellable book, in what appears to be his large and almost entirely unfurnished attic.

Dennis the Menace, 7/29/21

Dennis the Menace appears to have taken a tiny step forward into the modern age by depicting Alice engaging in the near-universal 2020s pastime of simultaneously watching TV and playing around on her phone. Of course, she’s still in a world where her husband is wearing a checkered sports coat while relaxing at home, so let’s not get too excited just yet.

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Gil Thorp, 7/13/21

It’s summertime in Milford, everybody! Is this the year we’re going to get a wacky summer storyline that isn’t about golf? Maybe! We definitely are going to get a wacky summer storyline about a beloved character from the past: Heather Burns, who you might remember as the girl who convinced a professional basketball player to get a master’s degree in history, possibly one of the worst pieces of advice I’ve ever seen given and I read the Mary Worth where Mary told a woman that if she didn’t like her past she should just remember it differently. Anyway, I can’t wait to see what Heather learned in Iowa (possibly after taking out tens of thousands of dollars in loans to get an MFA in creative writing) that will definitely help her career as a poorly paid writer for a dying small-town daily newspaper.

And in the other plot, we have … well, golf, I guess! At least one guy’s wearing a dumb hat, though. Can’t wait to see what antics this hat dude gets up to!

Hi and Lois, 7/13/21

Speaking of golf, I know it’s a rule that legacy cartoonists have to spend the entirety of each and every workday absolutely consumed with thoughts of all the golf they’re going to play when they’re finally done drawing cartoons for the day, but I think they’re supposed to actually come up with a punchline before they head out to the links, sorry guys.

Shoe, 7/13/21

[don’t get mad don’t get mad don’t get mad] IF YOU THINK HE TALKED FOR TOO LONG WHY ARE YOU MAD THAT HE TALKED SO FAST, WOULDN’T THAT HAVE MADE THE WHOLE THING GO QUICKER?????? [aw crap I got mad]

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Shoe, 7/9/21

A few weeks ago, faithful reader Tabby Lavalamp raised questions in a COTW runner up about why the notoriously heard-hearted Shoe would accompany the Perfesser on a tender-hearted errand. It stuck with me and was definitely the first thing I thought about today, as Shoe has not only accompanied his employee to the latter’s uncle’s grave (signs of multigenerational newphewism?), but has brought a bouquet of flowers along as well. Anyway, the reason Shoe actually goes along on these trips is that there needs to be another bird-person present so that the exchange of dialogue that creates these joke-like utterances can happen, but today’s strip did make me wonder if he’s actually there as part of his journalistic mission. There isn’t a lot of news in Treetops and anything sensational could make a good story that would get people sharing links to treetopstattler.bird on Facebook, and he’s always had a gut feeling that there was more to this uncle business. So the guy died in some unexpected and perhaps shocking way due to a terrible mistake he made, huh? Sounds interesting. Putting that gruesome tale into the newspaper might be a cruel thing to do one of the paper’s longest-suffering employees, but don’t let the flowers fool you: Shoe’s no softie.

The Lockhorns, 7/9/21

Meanwhile, it looks like the Lockhorns’s Featured Brands program is off to a great start! Congrats to Ann Taylor for partnering with this universally beloved feature, which is bound to portray their brand in a positive light!