Why Do They Call Them Comics: Snuffy Smith

Get a load of this Snuffy Smith comic from last weekend. If we're to believe Loweezy's plaintive cry in panel three, her husband Snuffy has apparently stopped drinking (!). 

Wha...? When the hell did that happen? For 80 years now, Snuffy Smith has been portrayed as a lazy, uneducated, chicken stealing, card cheating, law dodging, moonshine brewing no good hillbilly drunkard. Now suddenly he's off the sauce?

I have to assume this ret-con is all part of the touchy-feely, Kumbaya singing, politically correct system that passes for our current society. I wouldn't be surprised if the Brittle Soccer Mom Brigade had something to do with it as well.

Because a character who's a "comical drunk" is no longer acceptable, especially on the nation's comics pages, dontcha know. People with such addictions are terrible role models! Won't someone please think of the children?

I can't wait to see what's next for Snuffy. I suppose in addition to his alcohol abuse outreach program, he'll also seek help for his gambling addiction. Then he'll no doubt stop stealing chickens and become Sheriff Tait's deputy. Or maybe he'll quit dozing against a log, leave Hootin' Holler, move to the big city and finally get a job. Perhaps as an investment banker, or marketing consultant?

I don't want to live on this planet anymore...

By the way, here's some fuel for your nightmares: see those two pendulous masses sagging well below Loweezy's waistline? Those aren't folds in her top. Those are her mammoth, drooping breasts. Shudder.

Tales From The Grocery: The Minor

A few years ago I got a second job as a cashier at a grocery store in order to pay off some bills. It was a miserable, humiliating and demoralizing experience in every measurable sense, and I got the hell out of there as soon as my bills were paid. I feel genuinely sorry for anyone who has to work in such a place.

Here is a terrifying Tale From The Grocery. Please note that all Tales are 100% true.

One day I saw the store’s undercover cop confront two male customers-- one older and one younger-- who were buying beer. He said he’d been watching them and saw that the younger of the two had paid the older one to buy beer for him. He didn’t arrest them, but he gave them a warning and told them to beat it.

One of the teen cashiers saw the commotion and asked me what was going on. I said the cop threw the guys out because the older one was buying beer for a minor. He looked shocked and said, “That’s illegal?”

Wow. Like so many of the things that happen at that store, I didn’t know how to respond to that.