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Gasoline Alley, 3/31/20

I’m going to ignore panel three here, which makes the frankly offensive suggestion that Snuffy Smith somehow has an ownership claim over entirely common turns of English phrase, and instead focus on panel two, which I love very much. “Figure out an equitable way to cushion family farmers, who are committed to an increasingly economically unviable business model today, at the tail end of a century-long process of agricultural industrialization?” says Boog. “I doubt it! I’m, like, twelve years old!”

Dennis the Menace, 3/31/20

There’s actually a couple different kinds of menacing happening here, as Dennis dreams of a machine that can control the weather and thus impose its master’s will upon a terrified world, but is also stupid enough to think that that’s what he’s looking at right now.

Curtis, 3/31/20

While it’s not quite explicit here, I think we have to give Curtis the award for the first syndicated newspaper strip to acknowledge the coronavirus pandemic and the prolonged social distancing necessary to fight it. I don’t really have much of a joke here, other than that Curtis and Barry are definitely going to murder each other before this thing is done.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/30/20

What’s your favorite part of this extremely improbable scene? Some might say it’s that the makeshift Hootin’ Holler clinic, which is in such dire shape that the waiting area is separated from the rest of the facility by a patched sheet in what is almost certainly a serious HIPAA violation, somehow has a functioning EKG machine, even if the accompanying treadmill is predictably not in operation. But for me, it’s that Snuffy has stripped to the waist so the electrodes can be attached to his gnomish torso, but is still wearing his overalls, the straps flapping behind him as he hops.

Blondie, 3/30/20

The only way this smash-cut joke actually works is if Blondie chloroformed Dagwood between panels one and two, changed him out if his work vest into his casual sweater, then hauled his unresponsive body to the car, dragged him into a restaurant booth, and waited for him to come to before delivering this zinger. It would mess with the rhythm of the strip to show all that, of course, but I do sincerely want to see it.

Mark Trail, 3/30/20

Wow, this really takes a lot of the weight off of Rusty, who thought he was going to have explain this! Thanks, Eric, for breaking the bad news to Kevin. You’re the real hero!

Six Chix, 3/30/20

“If You Truly Want To Be One Of The Six Chix, You Need To Do A Vaguely Pervy Bigfoot Strip”: another installment in a continuing series.

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Funky Winkerbean, 3/29/20

One of my least favorite running Funky Winkerbean bits — amazingly, I do have a hierarchy — is jokes at the school that are set up by the teacher saying “Can anyone tell me [fairly obscure fact X]” in a way that really seems to strongly imply that the students have never encountered fact X in their curriculum, but he’s mad at them for not knowing the answer anyway, because it’s their fault they don’t know the name of, for instance, random Kuiper Belt objects off the top of their head. Anyway, did you know that this particular Kuiper Belt object isn’t even called Ultima Thule anymore? Science teacher dude whose name I forget hates kids, hates teaching, doesn’t keep up with his field of study, and probably should look into retiring as soon as possible, is what I’m saying.

Blondie, 3/29/20

Today’s Blondie is kind of interesting because it doesn’t really make sense if you don’t know that Dagwood lives in an impeccably manicured suburb where, anachronistically, people let their dogs roam free at night, but I’m more interested in the throwaway panels, where Dagwood identifies himself and his neighbor responds with an excruciatingly neutral “Yes”, implying that she knows exactly who he is and has some opinions about him that she is not eager to share.

Six Chix, 3/29/20

oh no the cartoons are getting horny and no one will help them