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Gil Thorp, 6/7/18

So it took almost a month, but the Milford Trumpet finally landed its interview with Barry Bader, to allow him to tell his side of the story! I thought the high point was a few days ago, when Barry said that his dad feels bad about killing Boo Radley in a drunk driving accident, but he’s doing his time and have you noticed that Boo could be kind of sarcastic when she was alive but now that she’s dead everyone thinks she’s a saint? Today, though, we get to the true meat of the interview, which is that Barry is convinced that the world is stacked against him because he’s short. Did you know that Barry was supposed to be short? I sure didn’t! I guess that’s what the joke in this strip is supposed to be about, because I guess Jay Bhatia is supposed to be short too! It would probably be easier to tell which characters in Gil Thorp were short if the POV in every panel weren’t at some crazy, improbable angle, just sayin’!

Mary Worth, 6/7/18

I regret to inform you that Mary and Dr. Jeff have spent their entire lunch date chatting about Wilbur’s journey of self-actualization, although apparently they’re still of the generation that doesn’t like to use the word “therapy” and so resorts to circumlocutions like “talking to a professional” or “seeing someone at the Medical Arts Building.” Dr. Jeff seems into it, but I do notice that he’s just rattling off whatever vaguely therapeutic things he can think of while holding the door open pointedly and hoping Mary gets the hint that it’s time to go.

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Beetle Bailey, 6/6/18

May 27, 1994: the day the Pentagon ordered General Halftrack’s troops to prepare to be deployed to support Operation Deny Flight in the Balkans, and, receiving no reply, determined that the existence of “Camp Swampy” in their records must be some kind of clerical error.

Crock, 6/6/18

It’s fairly grim that Schmeese has spent years tied to a post, awaiting the imminent execution by firing squad that never seems to come, and I’m glad to see Lt. Poulet acknowledge that this is just part of a larger pathology on the part of the Legion — that a seeming eternity engaged in this grinding colonial war has driven him and his fellow soldiers mad and capable of any kind of cruelty.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/6/18

Never has the process of creating art and the final artistic creation itself dovetailed so closely together as they do in the “Claude Barlow” Funky Winkerbean strips, in which a man writes truly awful puns and then smirks to himself in unbearable self-satisfaction.

Judge Parker, 6/6/18

“Plus we hear you’re fucking Randy Parker, and that’s gotta be a great way to get the inside info you need to break some stories, right?”

Family Circus, 6/6/18

The fact that this panel doesn’t depict Jeffy attempting to eat the candle just shows that the Family Circus lacks the courage of its convictions

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/5/18

It’s hard to get a handle on exactly what the larger world of Snuffy Smith is supposed to be like, either geographically or chronologically. Is Hootin’ Holler a uniquely isolated community, surrounded by a modern flatlander civilization we would recognize, or is it simply one of a whole complex of adjacent hollers, each similarly cut off from mainstream American life but all connected to each other via a tenuous network of mountain roads? And if our protagonists were to wander beyond the hills, would they find the big-city denizens to be dressed more or less like us, or in garb as anachronistic as their own? What I’m trying to say is that I really want to be mad that this dude has old-timey prospecting gear and not, say, a metal detector, but I feel like I need to understand where and when he comes from before I get all worked up.

Mary Worth, 6/5/18

Why, look! It’s Mary’s beloved boyfriend Dr. Jeff! When we last saw this distinguished gentleman, he had just enthusiastically introduced Mary to his good pal Ted Miller, who then tried to rape her and so she cut off contact with him but never told Jeff about it. Now they’re getting together on Jeff’s lunch break and talking about … how lucky Wilbur is to know Mary? God, I just love the solid line of communication that keeps this relationship strong!