When it comes to locking horns and acne and marmadukin’, this is the post for you.

The Lockhorns

I think the Lockhorns is the only Sunday comic strip older than dirt that I enjoy unironically. Even as a kid, with no relatability with or personal frame of reference for romantic relationships, I found the simple fact that these two hate each other to be hilarious in of itself. As an adult, I have a strong appreciation for just how consistently clever the jokes are. We’re talking over 50 years of gender role humor! Do they get recycled? Is it even possible to tell if they are?

I don’t remember when Leroy started to look perpetually drunk, as illustrated with the jagged upper lip, but it’s an excellent touch for the panels that have nothing to do with partying. Just look how inebriated and dejected Leroy appears with that newspaper in Panel #4! I’m still laughing!

It makes one wonder when these 4-ft tall crabapples will finally get a divorce. Or feel the sweet, sweet release of death drape over them like a warm, fuzzy blanket.

David Rickard: “Loretta: I’ve often thought about going after you with a steamroller… but it would be too fast. I want you to suffer, Leroy.”

Ha ha! Heh heh heh… um…

Marmaduke

Who has two thumbs and wants to drag Marmaduke out to the backyard and blast him in the face with a shotgun at point-blank range, Old Yeller style?

The Winslows are stuck in an eternal Hell, we all know that already. It does seem naïve to me that Mother Winslow thinks she can break the cycle by repeating her demands twice in a row! Of course it doesn’t work. Nothing will work. They are all but ghosts in a house with fates they cannot control, desperate for means to finally put an end to all the suffering and transcend this existence of unrest.

Unfortunately, only Marmaduke can decide when this happens. And it ain’t gonna be anytime soon.

SHAKEDOWNVILLE: “‘Tossed’ salad.”
LookingGlass: “‘Hurricane’ Marm certainly did ‘help!!’ :-O”
anncorr339: “Marm is no good doing chores”

Well, I suppose we’re all stuck in an endless cycle of suffering, after all.

Zits

I hate having to clean up after my teenage son after he shits on the floor. Is this something every other parent of a teenage son has to deal with? Is it just me, then? Hello? Is this not a normal thing? I thought everyone had to deal with their floor-shitting teenager, like a rite of passage.

I’m happy that Mr. and Mrs. Duncan can escape into their Elephant & Piggie books. Take it from me, when you are raising children you don’t have much time or energy to invest in a novel that is any more complicated.

Do Tell: “Jeremy can’t be an elephant. He always forgets to do what his parents ask of him.”
eb110americana: “Jeremy’s his own Animal House”
wil22: “THAT’S ALL WRONG, IT SHOULD BE A DONKEY AND PIGLOUSEY. SPENDING LIKE THERE’S NO TOMORROW. FREE THIS, FREE THAT. THANKS TO JOE MANCHIN WE MAY LAST A LITTLE LONGER”

Oh wil22, you just wrote the funniest thing I’ve read all day. You should be a newspaper cartoonist!