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Panel from Slylock Fox, 2/10/19

I’m not even going to go into the insane “solution” to this puzzle — Smitty went in and “stole every item he had purchased earlier”? So it’s like he’s helping himself to a two-for-one deal? Also polygraphy is bunk, but not even its defenders would claim that it’s precise enough to indicate unambiguous truth-telling when someone is giving a narrowly tailored answer that is technically true but hides a larger lie? — and instead just want to point out Buford Bull is a well-known member of Slylock’s rogues gallery. How do we know that Buford isn’t making a false accusation of theft as part of some kind of insurance scam? It’s clear how Slylock and the animal regime he represents assesses a criminal vs. criminal dispute: when in doubt, blame H. sapiens.

Panels from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/10/19

There’s a lot to unpack in today’s Snuffy Smith throwaway panels, guys. At first, it seems that Snuffy is saying his wedding to Loweezy was a “shotgun wedding,” a term typically used to denote a scenario in which a young woman has become pregnant out of wedlock, and her family uses the threat of violence to coerce her paramour to legally bind himself to her and their future child. This seems to reveal some unexpected details about the world-building of the strip: it implies that Loweezy and Snuffy were unmarried lovers relatively recently, for instance, seeing as Tater is still a pre-verbal toddler. And what about Jughaid, a nephew of one or the other of them? He’s got to be at least 9 or 10 years old: does that mean that he was already dependent on Snuffy or Loweezy before they got together? Or was the orphaned lad put into their care specifically because they had formed a stable home?

But here’s an important detail: what brings up memories of Snuffy’s wedding day isn’t the sight of shotguns, but the sound of them — lots of them. That doesn’t sound like the somewhat ritualized coercion that can precede weddings brought about by unplanned pregnancies; it sounds a lot more like an ambush. In cultures where the authority of a central state is tenuous, kinship is all important, and blood feuds last generations, from the Appalachians to Afghanistan, weddings and other family gatherings are often a site of violence. Maybe Jughaid’s parents died that day, and by Holler Law he was subsequently adopted by the surviving couple.

Panels from Beetle Bailey, 2/10/19

Ha ha, it’s funny because years in the army have left Sarge more comfortable killing his fellow human beings than interacting with them in social situations!

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Dennis the Menace, 2/9/19

Not sure which is more menacing: that Dennis is trying to pull his mother into a pact of omertà, in which mutual silence encourages a downward spiral of crime; or that this alliance implicitly places Henry, who should be Alice’s equal and partner, in the role of enforcer of the morality that both she and Dennis will attempt to evade and undermine.

Hagar the Horrible, 2/9/19

The little detail that really makes this cartoon work for me is the circles under Helga’s eyes that you can see in the final panel. Ha ha, it’s funny because her husband forgot her birthday, and she’s been crying!

Gil Thorp, 2/9/19

And just like that, Marty Moon came up with the idea that would let him leave behind the small-town high school sports radio career he had come to loathe and skyrocket to fortune and fame: college-age Abraham Lincoln erotica.

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Your top comment: It’s here!

“Rusty is developing faster than Mark and Cherry realize. That is not the dewlap of a child, is what I’m saying.” –AhClem

Your hilarious runners up: also here!

“One detail Slylock will not include in his report was his inability to keep pace with a tree.” –Naked Bunny with a Whip

“The tree’s inevitable groans of ‘kill me’ will also fail to keep it well camouflaged.” –tb4000

“Blondie had sent the children to her mother’s house. She had fled, leaving behind the obligatory sacrifice for the unfillable void of which Dagwood was but the incarnation. She had taken every precaution, but once again, her post-Super Bowl plans would involve hiding the gruesome remains of a human being.” –Dread

“I guess the best thing to be said about that Pajama Diaries strip is that it wasn’t three separate Pluggers strips.” –Anonymous

“Newspapers get their ‘police blotters’ from the official records of the local police department. This means that any story in the paper is at least several hours behind the department’s record. The police department’s record is, of course, normally available to its employees. I can only assume that Dick is required to wait until the stories are in the newspaper in the vain hope of the city’s liability attorneys that this will give the suspects enough time to turn themselves in before the next inevitable police brutality lawsuit.” –Where’s Rocky?

“Tip for working at home: You wouldn’t develop ‘house bladder‘ if you didn’t keep sipping from that glass of ‘house vodka.’” –BigTed

“Why should he be invading my dreams?! There is no oil there!” –Ettore

“By which I mean, I will collect the copay in advance, so keep $75 in your wallet at all times.” –Foodar

“Making a wine reduction seems like an awfully complicated step for a couple who decide to outfit their enormous kitchen with a mere 2-burner stove. Maybe she’s drinking straight from the bottle because they don’t actually own any glasses?” –Dmsilev

“This strip has hit peak Funkyverse. It has everything; truly terrible wordplay that would absolutely not be appropriate even if it did make sense, the fucking smirk, and the looming spectre of death.” –Rosstifer

“Everyone knows puberty only happens if you talk about it.” –FeralCanadian

“Some other guys on the team did it! They abducted the other team’s mascot, thought it would throw them off their game during the playdowns. But we … but they didn’t know how little air there is in a car trunk. I … they remember … opening the trunk and realizing … oh god … what we … what they’d done. They … weighted it down with bricks and threw it in the quarry. It took forever for the body to sink, it was just bobbing in the moonlight like an accusing ghost. One of us … them … I had to go down and poke it with a stick until it sank. It was such a clear night, and the moon was so bright, I could see it all the way to the bottom … and I’m not sure … we weren’t sure … I mean they weren’t sure … it was dead even then. Oh, you said induct. Yeah, that’s great. Just don’t let there be any mascots at the ceremony.” –Voshkod

“Ah! Denial quickly followed by blaming someone else. Is that truly the Scapegoats’ way?” –tallyHO

“That is totally unbelievable. A real ham radio guy would just sit there and talk about ham radio.” –Mumblix_Grumph

“Toby is going to talk with Ian and find out how stupid the whole incident was, and then somehow think even less of Ian than she does now.” –JJ48

“Jannie, this is no time to stop doing what you do best. I want you to tear into Michael with every bit of savageness you can muster. ‘Girlfriend?! Ha! What kind of pathetic, no-self-esteem bimbo would agree to be seen with you?! By the way, you shouldn’t play pocket pool! I hear the referee’s a prick!’ And then walk away, all cool and dignified.” –Joe Blevins

“It appears that Jannie has stumbled across the casting tryouts for the spring campus production of Rebel Without A College Diploma.” –Just John

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