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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/19/12

You know how I pedantically insist on calling this strip “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith,” even though original main character Barney Google hasn’t appeared in it in years, having long ago helped it transition from “Roaring Twenties City Lowlife Humor” to “Depression-Era Hillbilly Humor”? Well, hold onto your hats because Barney’s back, baby. He isn’t named here but you can tell by his goo-goo-googly eyes (and a quick Google Image search).

I was thinking that Barney’s visit to Hootin’ Holler would be a happy occasion full of mischief and hijinks, but then it occurred to me: how bad must things be in the flatlands to get a fancy fellow like Barney to flee up to this impoverished rathole? He’s probably just a few hours ahead of the roving cannibal gangs. And the rest of Sunday’s comics weren’t that much cheerier!

Panel from Slylock Fox, 2/19/12

Like, things are getting pretty grim down at the trailer park! With the nearby forest having been stripped bare (you can see one of the sad few remaining trees in the background), the local mobile home denizens have resorted to burning their own furniture for heat. Or, in Reeky’s case, other people’s furniture.

Six Chix, 2/19/12

Over in Six Chix, a child’s penchant for thoughtless violence has angered a species of advanced aliens with the capability of interstellar flight. Best-case scenario: Our conquest and enslavement. Worst-case scenario: Earth vaporized by a powerful space-based death-ray.

Curtis, 2/19/12

And in Curtis, we learn that Gunther’s spacey bonhomie masks a deep and unshakeable longing for death.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/3/12

I have to admit that I’ve had a hard time following the current Rex Morgan plot, which involves one of Rex’s patients who died and left him everything, and a mad (ex-?)wife, and a mysterious daughter who may or may not be the (ex-?)wife’s daughter too, and an equally mysterious book, but I am pretty amused by June’s seemingly very firm knowledge that whatever it was Foster Woods wrote about, it was not for little girls, not even creepily precocious ones. Despite June’s best efforts, though, Sarah has already stumbled upon the CD-ROM containing the audio-visual component of Chasing Mildred: An Erotic Multimedia Experience.

Six Chix, 2/3/12

“Don’t worry, we’ve left you this scalpel and this hypodermic as weapons. How long can you fend off the residents’ unnecessary and invasive procedures? A nationwide TV audience will be watching to find out!”

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Six Chix, 1/24/12

I’m totally in love with this drunken lump’s extreme level of dishevelment! I especially like the incredibly awkward position he’s passed out in, and the fact that he’s still clutching his precious, precious tallboy, even in unconsciousness. Also, that slice of pizza, just sitting on the couch with no plate or anything and almost certainly permanently grease-staining the cushion, is charming to me in its disgustingness.

But still, ladies! Do not fear that any man you meet on the Internet will be gross! My wife found me online, and I have rarely left any kind of mark on the upholstery in her house in the eight years or so since I moved into it.

Mary Worth, 1/24/12

Well, if against all odds and good taste Mary’s victory lap is going to be extended for another week, I guess having Emily and her family do the worshipping is marginally OK, considering. “It’s good to see you too Ms. Worth! We are so very grateful! And we thought to ourselves, what gift could possibly be adequate to show our gratitude to the God-woman who rescued our daughter? So we now present you the dismembered torso of Emily’s kidnapper, wrapped in a plastic bag for your convenience. A blood sacrifice for you, O divine being!”

Archie, 1/24/12

If you need proof that the current run of Archie strips are repeats from a pre-Internet era, consider this: can you imagine any news event so horrible that would reduce a seasoned TV anchor, cynical to the core and used to smiling his way through whatever words the teleprompter spit out at him, to tears, that you wouldn’t learn about until the six o’clock news? Anything worth ol’ Dan Brenon’s anxiety here — nuclear holocaust, one or more coastal states falling into the sea, a mass outbreak of zombie plague, what have you — would surely have been chatted up on Twitter or something hours ago.

Spider-Man, 1/24/12

Having realized that he’s far too incompetent to defeat or even find Thor, Spidey has decided to seek help from the Avengers, just in time to be four months ahead of the Avengers movie! Anyway, they’ll probably rescue MJ for him, but they’re gonna smack him around a bit first, just for fun.