Post Content

Six Chix, 12/11/20

We’ve pretty well established at this point that the coloring of the non-Sunday strips as published online is not actually directed by the original artist, right? Because I am fascinated by what’s happening on the face of our depressed castaway here:

Computer … enhance:

It seems pretty clear that the beard is entirely drawn in by the colorist, yes? There are no solid lines that would define it in black and white. I’m not even wholly sure what the gender of this character was originally intended to be, but it seems like a colorist saw this and thought to themselves “People stranded on tiny cartoon desert islands with a couple random palm trees who have long hair also have scraggly beards! Please honor our most sacred traditions! I have to take matters into my own hands now!”

Funky Winkerbean, 12/11/20

Hey, remember how Les and his dead wife Lisa have a daughter, Summer, and also he has an alive wife who also has a daughter, Keisha, and they’ve been off at college together for a while? Well, they came home for the winter break and got seasonal jobs at the mall wrapping presents dressed as elves! What I like is that it’s only December 11th but the strip’s narrative has already jumped ahead to Christmas Eve. I assume the next two weeks are going to be a blow-by-blow of the kids’ next few hours, and we’ll see how frantic, angry holiday shoppers yelling at them will ruin their feelings about Christmas for the rest of their lives.

Post Content

Gil Thorp, 12/10/20

Well, it looked like Gil’s little stunt — benching his feuding #1 and #2 QBs and putting his #3 QB in at the helm of a wacky offense — worked! It didn’t work in the sense that it brought the team a championship (they’re playing for conference runner up here in their last game) but it worked in the sense that it taught his fractious starters a lesson, a lesson they learned so well that neither of them has much interest in playing football at all anymore. I assume in panel three we’re meant to understand that they’re doing “No, after you” pantomime gestures down on the sideline that are so exaggerated that they can easily be interpreted by their wide-eyed classmates sitting up in the stands.

Pluggers, 12/10/20

Reed Hoover may have passed away more than a year ago, but his utter dominance of Pluggers will never end. Like longtime and recently retired artist Gary Brookins before him, new guy Rich McKee isn’t afraid to turn a cold eye on the pathetic, eager suggestions clogging the pluggermail@aol.com inbox and say sneeringly “Sorry, folks, none of you can hold a candle to Reed.” Then he selects one of Reed’s banked Pluggers pitches at random, which I assume he keeps in an ornate wooden box.

Crock, 12/10/20

I never think the jokes in Crock are any good, so it’s kind of a relief to see a strip where they didn’t bother to include one! Just a little vignette about an incompetent military officer and his men, who are about to murder him.

Post Content

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/9/20

Say what you will about Snuffy Smith, but this is a strip that respects its own world-building. It has been long established that, while Hootin’ Holler’s denizens may engage in a certain amount of chicken-based barter with one another, and occasionally pay for potions from unlicensed apothecary Granny Creeps, Silas’s general store is the only place in town where money is exchanged for legitimate goods and services in the manner in which we flatlanders are accustomed. Does it seem weird to order pizzas from such an establishment? Maybe, but any Snuffy trufan knows it would be even weirder if we pretended that Hootin’ Holler had a local Domino’s or some such.

Family Circus, 12/9/20

The question of “If our religion is the only way to salvation, what happened to everyone who never heard about our religion because they died before it started or reached their part of the world?” is old and widespread enough that it has a fancy theological name, “The Fate of the Unlearned.” Still, part of the fun of the Family Circus is seeing kids say the darnedest things as they begin the encounter the problems of the adult world, and indeed I did actually chuckle to myself at seeing Billy look at that picture and think “Gee, it’s sad these cavemen never got a visit from Santa! Also, they’re probably in hell now.”