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Panels from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/16/25

Now, I joke a lot that the only real industries in Hootin’ Holler are moonshining, chicken theft, and (Doc Pritairt only) Medicaid fraud. However, obviously it’s realistic that some of its inhabitants toil in the dirty and dangerous extractive industries that power the flatlanders’ cities. A few dare to dream of ascending to management positions, only to be laughed at for their rustic diction by the city slickers until they give up. You can understand why Snuffy and Lukey don’t even bother trying!

Panel from Slylock Fox, 2/16/25

Today’s strip offers some interesting insight into the question of why humans as a species haven’t been exterminated altogether in the post-animalpocalypse world, and are even still legally allowed to own pets: animals may have occupied most important social roles, but the remaining veterinarians are still necessary to treat their new overlords’ health problems, at least until enough animals get through the new medical schools. But until then, the vet offices are still open and very necessary. Look at poor Max! He’s very sick, or possibly very high, and either way is in dire need of medical attention.

Judge Parker, 2/16/25

OK, very little about the backstory of Judge Parker that’s lead to this moment is believable, and it’s also not particularly believable that Sophie would use her family turning to her for her superhacking skills into an excuse to do a bunch of emotional processing, but you know what is honestly believable? Referring to Randy Parker as “Sam’s friend.” Like, yes, I’ve been writing about Sophie since (gulp) 2006, but in the world of the strip, she’s literally a teenager, and Randy is just some guy her adoptive dad hangs out with occasionally and is fundamentally not interesting or relevant to her life most of the time. And good for her! He’s not that interesting to me, honestly!

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Slylock Fox, 1/27/25

Now, on the surface, this one is a puzzle. I’m not talking about the actual puzzle in the strip, but the bigger picture: why would this ursine rustic be nattering on to the press here in an abstruse but technically correct way about the relative altitude at which he found this treasure chest? What does he possibly have to gain from it? I think the answer has to do with Slylock’s presence, actually: there’s something shady about that treasure (tax fraud? let’s say tax fraud) and he needs to distract Sly into aiming his big brain at just about anything else. Dropping an unusually precise trivia fact like “282 feet below sea level” is like throwing rice in front of a vampire: it’s such an obvious target for ratiocination that he simply won’t be able to not waste his time on it.

Pardon My Planet, 1/27/25

Hmm, so what I’m getting from this comic is that … the prosecuting attorney has called the defense attorney to the witness stand? And also the two of them are married to each other? Ha ha, this is an unusual court case indeed!

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/22/25

So with Kelly out of the house, Summer has been whining about being bored and lonely to everyone she knows, and by “everyone she knows” I mean her daughter and her two coworkers and that’s it, which is very clearly part of the problem. The way the whining went is that she would say “What if I got back into the dating scene! Ha ha! Wouldn’t that be crazy” and other people were like “Uh you know there are lots of other things you could do outside the house, right” and Summer was like “What I’m hearing is that you think I should find a man, for sex.” Anyway, I’m loving the footnote in panel two, assuring us that Summer’s first pass at finding a sex partner isn’t really ending with the guy having a stroke right there at the table and Summer just sighing heavily rather than attempting to find medical help for him. He’s just boring!

Slylock Fox, 1/22/25

Both these panels take place as part of the awful Event that saw animals abruptly become sapient and our human world violently transformed into the animal-dominated realm of Slylock and his Forest Kingdom apparatus of oppression. In the first panel, the wolf, still puzzled by his newfound knowledge of the world, is merely aping the predatory stories he’s discovered in human fairy tales about animals; in the second, the wolf is angry at the humiliation heaped upon the animal characters in those books and has decided to elaborately act out one of those stories but change the ending in an act of bloody revenge. It’s a subtle change but I trust you are discerning enough to pick up on the different vibes. In both panels, that’s a real human femur leaning up against the bed, licked clean, as evidence of the carnage that’s already occurred and an indication of more to come.