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Family Circus, 1/20/13

It occurs to me that, despite frequent appearances by grandparents and evidence that both Keane parents come from fecund stock, we never really see aunts and uncles or cousins come visit the Keane Kompound, so I guess I always assumed they were both only children? If these mysterious grown-ups in the living room were siblings and/or siblings-in-law of some sort, you’d think their adorable li’l nephews and nieces would be given free reign to leap and drool all over them, rather than be ordered to watch sullenly from thirty feet away. Thus, I’m forced to assume that these are just a couple of random adults, and Dolly and Jeffy are occupying their non-parent-annoying time with nonsensical and vaguely sexually weird idle chit-chat.

Apartment 3-G, 1/20/13

Wow, that clergyman looks awful smug in panel one, doesn’t he? “Ha ha, I love it when a couple gets all sassy and goes off script during a wedding! I’m pretty sure my 45-minute sermon created a ‘safe space’ for this kind of creativity.”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/20/13

Snuffy’s been seeing maniacally grinning demons with his own face for days now, presumably because of the corn likker and/or meth.

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Archie, 1/19/14

Today’s Archie is a fascinating look at the ways in which our lives are structured by the financial and emotional transactions we conduct with one another. Archie and Veronica both recognize the significance of his offer to perform unpaid labor on her behalf — even though, in her case, the only people who are being helped in practice by his gallantry are the Lodge family retainers, who presumably draw their salary no matter how much work they do on any given day. And yet generous and specific gestures aren’t the only components of an intimate life; there’s also the intangible qualities of just spending time together, as Reggie understands, to his benefit. In fact, this scenario immediately made me curious: does Reggie have the upper hand in reading this situation because he, like Veronica, is part of Riverdale’s leisured class? A quick search on Google proved that I wasn’t the only one wondering:

According to Comic Vine, Reggie is “medium rich,” a formulation that I find refreshingly frank. Reggie’s family probably refers to themselves as “upper middle class.” Let’s all support Comic Vine in its quest to establish a new, more honest vocabulary for America’s economic structure!

Judge Parker, 1/19/14

Speaking of rich people, here’s Judge Parker Senior fooling around with a deadly boa constrictor. “Ha ha, I’m a best-selling author, pillar of the community, and multimillionaire! This snake wouldn’t dare strangle me!”

Funky Winkerbean, 1/19/14

I can’t remember the details at the moment, but that park bench has Special Significance to Les and Dead Lisa — I think he proposed there, or she told him she had cancer there, or all of the above? It’s depressing, whatever it is, obviously. The question: is the bench Les’s permanent phone background wallpaper, which would explain why Cayla looks so emotionally numb in panel four, or does it just appear when Summer calls, which would explain why she’s so full of rage and frustration that she can’t fully explain?

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/18/14

Having been so long isolated from the mainstream of the U.S. and global economies, Hootin’ Holler has de facto become its own alternate currency zone.

Pluggers, 1/18/14

The crushing sameness of their dull, long, disappointing lives has numbed pluggers to the point that they rarely change facial expressions anymore. But they still need to occasionally groom the hair that continues to thrive even while their souls shrivel.

Mark Trail, 1/18/14

“Hey, wait, why are you shutting the door? Why are you locking the door? Why doesn’t my key work in the door anymore?”

Lockhorns, 1/18/14

Welp, looks like I’m pretty much the same age as Leroy Lockhorn, time to go weep endlessly somewhere!