Post Content

Shoe, 3/22/16

I’m not a fan of either playing or watching golf, but after reading this article, I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that what most people think of the particular artificial landscape created for golf courses is actually an attempt to reproduce the natural environment of coastal Scotland where the game was invented in the 1400s. You can see another strange echo of the now worldwide game’s connection to a particular place in today’s Shoe, in which a bird-woman is wearing a tam o’shanter. This is, I suppose, to provide a setup for the feint that produces the strip’s punchline. Did she purchase this faintly absurd hat, which Americans probably primarily think of as a goofy thing you wear ironically while playing golf, as a part of her decision to try to share her husband’s passion for the game? No. Her marriage is a nightmare nest of suspicions and deceit, but the hat is unrelated to any of that, and we’ll probably never know why she’s wearing it. Its inherent whimsy now merely serves as a sad counterpoint to the bird-woman’s depressing home life.

Dennis the Menace, 3/22/16

To maintain some poor soul in a rapidly decaying flesh-prison, to create a ghastly living portrait of Dorian Gray, in order to grant yourself an ageless existence as a sinister, eternal child — I would be hard pressed to imagine something more menacing than that. “Please, you’ve got to believe me!” Mr. Wilson gasps, smelling the stench of decay arising from his own flesh. “I’ve been bewitched by his foul magic! I’m only 35 years old!”

Plugger, 3/22/16

You’re a plugger if the only thing in your sad, plodding existence that can inspire you to muster up any sense of occasion or formality is when someone dies.

Post Content

Slylock Fox, 3/21/16

Ha, Slylock, this is pretty much the lamest anti-drug campaign I’ve ever seen. “No!” he shouts at the glassy-eyed hordes, eager to hand fists full of money over to Wanda. “Don’t you understand? She isn’t using honey at all!” The animals stumble back to their homes, or just lie down on the grass, chemically fueled happiness shooting through their veins. Slylock runs from prone form to prone form. “Honey is created by bees in hives! At best, she’s using honey that bees created after gathering nectar from lily and cactus flowers. At best!” Nobody listens. Nobody hears. They’re thinking happy thoughts! Nothing but happy thoughts! Your honey talk isn’t happy, Slylock, and they can’t even hear it.

Gasoline Alley, 3/21/16

Good news! Gasoline Alley’s Mildly Irritating Appliance Salesman Guy, who you might remember from strips like these, is back! And he’s a … police officer? Sure, why not! I don’t really understand why Gasoline Alley thinks Frank Nelson’s character from Jack Benny’s 1940’s radio show is someone that modern people yearn to see in cartoon form, but you could argue that if The Simpsons did it, it can’t be the worst idea in the world. You could also argue that this is a comic strip that just wrapped a multi-month story arc about scrapbooking, so clearly nobody involved gives a shit about what you or I or anyone else thinks!

Crock, 3/21/16

Since Crock is nominally set in early 20th century French colonial North Africa, if I had to identify the religion held by most of its characters, I’d have said “indifferent Catholics.” But clearly, in its decades wandering the desert, the Lost Patrol has fallen into some odd polytheism.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/21/15

“Your body is strong and robust and will go on living for years as your brain turns to goo and you lose every shred of the memories and personality that makes you you! This will only be a problem for your loved ones and people who talk to you, though, and I’m gonna stop talking to you right … about … now.”

Post Content

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/20/16

I guess the point of this comic is that … cruel bullying doesn’t stop in high school, but will continue well into your adult life? And women are more likely to use mockery and social exclusion than out-and-out violence in their bullying? Of course, this is lawless, feud-ridden Hootin’ Holler; as Mabel’s clenched fists in the final panel demonstrate, this confrontation is going to to get violent soon enough.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/20/16

You know, I joke about all the old people drama in Rex Morgan, M.D., but to be fair, this strip is one of the only bits of pop culture that actually treats the lives of the elderly as interesting and worthy of dramatization, which I definitely approve of! Still, today’s strip is here to remind us that, while old people may in many ways be vibrant, intriguing human beings, in other ways they’re crumbling, feeble, and on the verge of death.