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Sad couples Friday

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The Lockhorns, 12/3/21

That’s right, Leroy! Loretta is old enough to remember the golden age of online discourse, when people wrote long essays about culture, politics, and current affairs on their LiveJournal and thoughtfully engaged in robust discussion in comments. Leroy has moved on to the brave new world where he just quote-retweets an article with a biting “LOL,” but Loretta has never given up on the dream of the first broad flowering of the Internet as a tool for social betterment. Keep blogging, Loretta! Don’t let them get you down!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/3/21

Like all Snuffy Smith trufans, the question that keeps me up at night is “What makes Snuffy tick?” Specifically, what is it that might motivate him to exert himself to make an honest contribution to his own well-being and that of his family? Is it the chance to improve his social and economic position to get out of the impoverished Hootin’ Holler? Clearly not. Is it a worry that by constantly stealing chickens and cheating at cards and overfishing the local lake, he survives only as a parasite of his own community? Nope. Could he be convinced to change his ways by basic human affection? Today, we learn: no, not that either.

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Bitter old love

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Mary Worth, 12/2/21

“JOSH” I can almost here you yelling, “You haven’t talked about Mary Worth all week! Is there something wrong with Mary Worth, or with you?” Well, I’m fine, so you know what that means: we’ve gotten exactly zero fun strips about Wilbur bonding with his new fish, and way too many strips where Estelle is thinking “Hmm, maybe I should get back together with Wilbur, oh also by the way I have a memory shorter than the goldfish who we should be seeing Wilbur bonding with right about now.” Anyway, I hope we turn things around on both fronts as Estelle goes to Wilbur’s apartment and finds him in his tub, squealing with delight as he frolics with his fishie friends, causing her to flee in horror and disgust.

Shoe, 12/2/21

We get it Biz, you have a girlfriend, you’re 90 years old and that’s impressive, stop rubbing it in our face. Also you’re a bird and you have … hair? Fake hair? That’s not impressive, that’s just weird, man.

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Dick mostly wants to show off his physique the way a trench coat never could

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Crankshaft and Curtis, 12/1/21


I’m genuinely of the opinion that “gaslighting,” as a word, at one point conveyed a useful concept but has had its impact significantly reduced by ever-broadening use. But still! These two strips use a structure common to mild domestic comedies, where a child or old person is unfamiliar with or confused by a concept intuitively understood by an adult of a normal age. But in this case, the concepts are, respectively, “There’s a thing called a ‘smart pad’ that everyone has, maybe everyone is required to have” and “ghost flush,” and gosh darn it if I don’t feel as if I’m Ingrid Bergman being manipulated by Angela Lansbury and Charles Boyer! Am I an old person, like Lillian, flummoxed by the “smart pad” revolution and unable to remember where I put mine and increasingly suspicious that I don’t even own one? Am I a child, like Curtis, who has never heard of a “ghost flush” and would immediately assume that it was about a ghost, flushing? Am I full-on in the Berenstein Bears universe now? WHAT IS HAPPENING

Dick Tracy, 12/1/21

Oh wow, it looks like Dick’s decision to dabble in hoodies was actually just a way to help him to transition to full on disguises, huh. You know, I never pegged Dick as a supergenius or anything, but I have to respect the fact that he saw the flaw in in this criminal gang’s “Let’s wear identity-obscuring gimp suits at all times, even when we’re just hanging out with each other at the office” shtick before they did.