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Crankshaft, 7/3/26

Ugh, fine, I guess I’ll update you on what’s going on in this Crankshaft flashback: Harry Dinkle’s drunk dad was all set to debut a new song at the Starlight Ballroom, but then nobody showed up because they all liked Elvis now, and he threw the sheet music to the ground and stormed off, and later Eugene and Lucy picked it up. Anyway, then Dinkle Sr. drove away in a white-hot rage right into the lake, where he died! “That’s how he would’ve wanted to go out,” says Harry, about to play his father’s last song in the bombed-out ruins of the Starlight Ballroom. “At a real emotional low point.”

Judge Parker, 7/3/26

Hey, remember the early days of my coverage of this strip, when Sophie was a weird, unsettlingly adult-like child? Well, Neddie has scooted off to take a Hollywood meeting (you can tell because of the sunglasses) with her former roommate/writing partner and left Sophie in charge of Charlotte, who is the strip’s current weird, unsettling adult-like child, I guess to help her learn that someday she’ll grow up and become as normal and annoying as everyone else in this strip.

Crock, 7/3/26

Wow, a nose so big a maître d’ mistakes it for an entirely separate person? Can you imagine? That’s definitely the sort of thing that would lead someone to seek cosmetic surgery!

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Pluggers, 6/28/26

Oh, did you need Moses to commune with YHWH atop Mt. Horeb and bring down a commandment about it before you knew that you have to remember the sabbath day and keep it holy? Well, pluggers just kind of know to do that, like, instinctively. Maybe even biologically. When God says He’s making man in “His image,” maybe He meant a hideous beast-man, actually, you ever think about that?

Judge Parker, 6/28/26

Yeah, so, Sophie, what you are experiencing is not so much jet lag as what we in the biz call a “manic episode.” Not sure Norwegian coffee will help! Unless it’s the opposite of caffeinated? Like, not decaf, but way way past that into negative caf. Anyway, good luck!

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B.C., 6/24/26

Sorry, the kind of brain I have will simply not let me let this “60 years” thing go. Did you know that B.C. started its run in 1958, 68 years ago? Does that mean that somewhere in the Deep Lore of the strip there’s an installment from 1966 when one of the indistinguishable cavemen, inspired by the Beat scene or possibly the Civil Rights Movement, discovers fire?

Beetle Bailey, 6/24/26

I genuinely enjoy Sgt. Lugg’s beleaguered facial expression in the second panel. Is this what it’s come to? Is this the price of finding and keeping a barely half-acceptable partner? Is heterosexuality worth the cost?

Judge Parker, 6/24/26

“Norway was like, ‘Hey, is that what you look like? We agree! We agree with that choice! Keep right on doing it!’ That’s why I look like this. Same as I did before, I mean.”