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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/7/16

Congratulations to Barney Google and Snuffy Smith for deftly handling this reveal, this sudden shift in perspective revealing that those we see as bestial have their own way of looking at the world, and that our actions through their eyes are truly monstrous. It’s right out of the classic sci-fi horror novel I Am Legend, and it’s sad that this century-old comic strip created to make fun of hillbilly stereotypes manages to pull off this nuanced narrative twist better than, say, any of the movies the novel was turned into.

Shoe, 2/7/16

OK.

Your comic strip characters are all bird-people and they live in trees and sometimes they fly but they never, ever acknowledge “Oh, we’re genetic freak shows that look like birds but wear clothes and talk and have jobs.”

Fine.

I get it.

But if you’re going to go down this road

don’t

birds

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Dennis the Menace, 1/31/16

After seeing the graphic in the title panel, I was extremely disappointed that this comic is about an old man grousing about technology until his irritating neighbor shows up. Clearly it should be about Mr. Wilson travelling back in time and preventing Henry and Alice from meeting so Dennis is never born.

Shoe, 1/31/16

Ha ha! It’s funny because a dog beloved by schoolchildren died!

B.C., 1/31/16

Ha ha! It’s funny because they thought their friend had died, but he hadn’t, and they don’t seem to care that much one way or another about it!

Six Chix, 1/31/16

WHY IS THE PIG’S TONGUE HANGING OUT

DO PIGS’ TONGUES REALLY DO THAT

IF SO WHY ISN’T THE OTHER ONE’S TONGUE ALSO HANGING OUT

BY THE WAY DON’T GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH “PIG TONGUE,” THE RESULTS ARE SUPER GROSS

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Shoe, 1/18/16

Last week I was on the I Haven’t Seen That podcast, a very funny and exciting podcast hosted by Whitney Reynolds and Mark Popham, and we talked newspaper comics, among other things, and it was interesting to see what people do and don’t pick up from the comics. For instance, Mark claimed that, despite reading Shoe regularly, he never realized that its damned bird-men characters work at a newspaper! But they do, and that newspaper apparently runs restaurant reviews, which is curious because the only places where we ever see the bird-people eating out are Roz’s, the sad ’70s fern bar, and I think maybe a fancy white-cloth restaurant with a snooty French waiter? Anyway, there’s three of them, tops, so I assume that each one is reviewed about once a month or so, which the Perfesser’s look of crushing ennui confirms. “Ugggh, what to write about Roz’s this time … old people? Old drunk people? A review for old drunk people? Sounds about right.”

Mary Worth, 1/18/16

You’d think a “professional bakery kitchen” would sound pretty dull even to a known square like Olive, but the alternative seems to be putting together a completely white jigsaw puzzle with Mary while enjoying cookies and water, so you can see why she’s jumping at the opportunity.

Heathcliff, 1/18/16

This is a joke about how Heathcliff and his girlfriend are going to engage in some pharmaceutically-enhanced fucking right here on this couple’s lawn! They brought props, to taunt them with! Let’s hear it for Heathcliff, and for newspaper features editors who just don’t care anymore!