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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/16/04

Do you ever read a comic and get the feeling that you’re just missing something? Like, is there a connection between a stovepipe hat and cleaning a chimney that I’m missing? Is the fact that she’s cleaning the chimney part of the joke, or is it just an arbitrary chore that the artist picked out, and it the strip would be just as “funny” if Maw were sloppin’ the hogs or darnin’ socks or whatever the hell it is she does with her time? Would I get this if I lived in the heartland and actually did an honest day’s work around the house myself, instead of hiring a migrant chimney sweep like the Chardonnay-swilling member of the liberal elite that I am?

Like most Americans — heck, I’ll go out on a limb and say most people — the first thing I think when seeing a hat like that is “Abraham Lincoln.” Maybe it would be funnier if Maw were saving the union or something, though you’d think that being a proponent of the Union cause would get you tarred an’ feathered in place like Hootin’ Holler.

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Family Circus, 11/15/04

Um, yeah, gorilla arms. Except that someday little PJ will be all grown up, and then Mommy and Daddy will be stuck with hairy, extra-long gorilla arms, and then what are they going to do with them? Besides pick lice off of each other and fashion crude tools, I mean. I guess the people who want to ban genetic engineering of humans might have a point.

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Curtis, 11/14/04

Often, it’s not the punchline of a comic strip that makes me laugh the most. In today’s Curtis, the funniest thing was in the first panel of the second row: the evil Dr. Horsehead hides out in a “Co-op of Iron.” Curtis is an urban strip in the literal meaning of that word, and this just screams out “New York” to me in a pleasing and funny way. Were Dr. Horsehead’s parents renting back in the 1960s, and lucky enough to get in on the ground floor when the building went co-op? Do his neighbors complain to the Co-op Board about the constant gunplay, whinnying, and evil cackling? Is there a doorman? A view? And where do the other evil geniuses hang out? In the Condo of Despair? The Penthouse of Terror? The Walk-Up of the Damned?

I also like the pink welcome mat outside Dr. Horsehead’s door. Jeez, Supercaptaincoolman, all you had to do was knock.