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Shoe, 11/13/20

I’m honestly not exactly sure, but I’m assuming the punchline here is that the mayor is not, in fact, living the high life thanks to thrift and good financial planning? Usually when Shoe does a joke about a comically corrupt politician, the strip deploys Senator Batson Belfry, but since senators pull down six figures, I guess he wouldn’t really work for the joke. But look: do you really believe that Treetops, a town that isn’t exactly Hootin’ Holler but is definitely depicted as having seen better days, somehow has enough opportunities for graft that its mayor can “live like a multi-millionaire”? I mean, the Perfesser is at this official city government press conference sitting on a crate, and I assume he brought it in from home.

The Lockhorns, 11/13/20

It can be difficult to ascertain the full social context of any given scene in the Mostly Featureless Lockhorns Void, but it really seems like nobody else is as this “party” and that Leroy went to the trouble of getting party hats and a cake just to give Loretta this cruel card. I like that he’s stepped a few feet away from her as she reads it, to be sure that he’s fully out of her emotional penumbra as the message really hits home.

Anyway, what do you guys think is going on over at Pluggers? I’ve gotten over that whole chicken leg business, probably they aren’t dabbling in body horror anym–

Pluggers, 11/13/20

AAAHHH

AAAAAHHHH

AAAAAHHHHH

WHAT IS THAT

WHAT’s GOING ON

This can’t be right, right? This has to be some weird Pluggers man-animal chimera nightmare bullshit. I’m just gonna Google Image search “rhino teeth” and s–

JESUS CHRIST, this is even worse, what the fuck am I even looking at, that can’t be right, keep scrolling through the images, there has to b–

NOOO I HATE IT I HATE ALL OF IT WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING

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Shoe, 11/9/20

One of the whole reasons this blog exists is to make you actually think about the longstanding institution of the newspaper comics and really appreciate how weird they are. Like, take Shoe, which is about bird-people who live in a treetop town, which sounds like a recipe for either gentle whimsy or manic antics, except for the fact that these bird-people are just miserable all the time. Often they’re depressed to the point of near-catatonia but sometimes they can rouse themselves to go out into the world and be merely unreasonably irritable. How long do you think Shoe’s been sitting there, listening in on other people’s conversations, waiting for any possible opportunity to jump in and gratuitously insult Roz, at whose restaurant he eats every day? It can sometimes be hard to parse the sequence of actions in a comic strip, but I’m interpreting the appearance of a stogie in panel two as meaning that he delivered his jibe, then pulled out and lit up a cigar right there in the restaurant, as if to emphasize all the different kinds of asshole he can be.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/9/20

Hey, remember when Harry Dinkle learned he suffered from hearing loss and had to quit as Westview’s band director? Well, he’s apparently nevertheless still teaching music to children, who are ungrateful little brats who would rather dick around on their phone than learn how to play an instrument they hate from a guy who can’t hear very well.

Dennis the Menace, 11/9/20

I truly, sincerely hope that Mr. Wilson is saying this because Dennis is in the middle of his front lawn, shouting about demons in Latin at the top of his lungs.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/1/20

I honestly find Mary Beth’s facial expression in the final panel heartbreaking. Aw, shucks, that’s her man! He’s extremely stupid but she sure does love him!

Blondie, 11/1/20

Dagwood’s facial expression in the final panel of this strip is equally harrowing, but it’s at least somewhat explanatory. Why does Dagwood, a grown adult with two kids of his own, spend an inordinate amount of time with Elmo, a neighbor child to whom he is not related and whose parents he never interacts with? We still don’t know the answer, but it’s clear from his facial expression that he has no other choice.

Shoe, 11/1/20

There are plenty of hints in Shoe that the Treetops Tribune is struggling, and of course there are plenty of problems that the entire publishing industry is up against, but it can’t help their cause that they used the same headline weight for an enormously consequential presidential election, a devastating pandemic, widespread nationwise protests and civil unrest, and the scheduled end of daylight savings time.