Another think coming
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Herb and Jamaal, 1/20/26
Man, that’s a harrowing expression on Herb’s face. He just realized that he shouldn’t engage in thinking … and he can’t stop thinking about it! Much as he knows he should, nay, must stop thinking about it! Where’s Jamaal, Herb should not be left alone at the restaurant with his thoughts. His terrible, terrible thoughts.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/20/26
Oh wow, Rex’s cataract surgery has been delayed by several hours, leading to … sex? Sexual relations with his wife? Not since the great “Rex and June lying around in their underwear for a whole Sunday strip” incident of aught-eight has this strip teased something so risque. Too bad everything will just be all blurry for Rex so he won’t fully enjoy it! (Ha ha, just kidding, Rex doesn’t “enjoy” sex, because it involves sustained interaction with another human being, something he generally tries to avoid at all costs.)
Beetle Bailey, 1/20/26
Oh, wow, I know we’ve always assumed that Beetle just magically bounces back, cartoon-style, after Sarge beats him into a pile of goo, but in fact it appears that each beating is followed by several painful months of recovery in a hospital, with the abuser staring down at his victim the whole time. Grim stuff!
64 replies to “Another think coming”
RMMD:
“What was that about?”
“Something about ‘Prince Albert in a can’ !”
Beetle Bailey:
It’s always a good idea to treat a head wound by keeping the patient’s hat on.
MW: The new parrot has eyelashes so we realize it’s female. I’m truly impressed Moy had the restraint to stop herself from telling Brigman to put a little pink bow on the bird’s head.
RMMD: That 2008 strip has reminded me that June’s hair once looked nice, and Rex used to be cut. I guess there was a trade so that more focus could be spent on weird hand gestures these days.
Beetle Bailey:
“If this had been a real cartoon injury, he would have begun sporting cruciferous bandages wherever I hit him, just as soon as I did so — I call fake!”
RMMD:
“But, gosh, what will we do with a whole morning to ourselves with no kids in the house?”
“The same thing Mary Worth and Dr. Jeff always do — absolutely nothing!”
RMMD: “June, with that masculine haircut, have you ever considered what it would be like if you actually were a man? Specifically, a man with a prostate problem?”
Wrecks Moregone:
“We could take the eggs out of the fridge and put them back again!”
Wary Morth:
Spoiler alert:
That’s actually Sunny, who flew out and back in again, pretending to be someone else, just so he can have a HA HA HA at the DRUNKEN AXX.
BB: Sarge is definitely staring at that nurse’s ID badge.
Herb and Jamaal:
“Thinking is probably not a good idea.”
We agree, Herb — which is why we commenters say what it is we say on the comment boards!
Herb would do well to heed the words from the bathroom stall: “Some come here to sit and think….”
For a minute I thought Rex was performing surgery, or one of the many other responsibilities of a doctor. Phew! Glad we nipped that in the bud.
RMMD: If Rex, who has been a whiny drip for over a week, can pull it together to perform his husbandly duties, I for one, will be impressed.
BB: Healthcare workers are mandated reporters. Justice for Beetle!
DtM: Is this a harbinger of future conjugal visits for Dennis? (not from Gina, she’s got too much sense)
MW: If I were suddenly attracting parrots, I’m not sure I would be so unflappable.
Yeah, I went there.
H&J Wow, Jamaal is depressed, Herb is having an existential crisis, if i could remember a third character from this strip I would say to check on them…
RMMD I was going to joke ‘do their taxes’ but that might be too stimulating for this pair. No, I imagine it’s going to be a morning of staring at a wall. The white one, probably, or maybe a green one if they’re feeling naughty.
BB Precisely, Nurse Whoever: Beetle’s ‘treatment’ isnt going to end just because he was hospitalized. As soon as he’s cleared to go, it’s right back to the beating!
BB: “Oh no, this nurse’s lanyard is covering up her breasts. How will my audience of horned-up geriatrics get their mildly arousing kicks now?” *glances up, notices a Picasso print* “Hang on, I have an idea…”
RMMD: Did you know cocaine was used as an anesthetic in eye surgery? I bring it up because it’s more interesting than anything happening in this strip.
RMMD: In panel one, is Rex wearing a turtleneck, or is he trying to jump-start an ascot revival?
At least Herb can. . .
limit the damage. . .
from thinking all the time. . .
by drawing the smallest little thought out over four panels. . .
it’s really efficient. . .
to make the impression that. . .
a lot of time is passing.
Rex Morgan, M.D.: NO REX WAIT UNTIL THE BROWNISH FILMY BLOB IS REMOVED AND YOU CAN SEE THE WORLD IN TECHNICOLOR AGAIN YOU WILL THANK ME
Also Rex Morgan, M.D.: “Well, I don’t know about you, but I intend to stand around all morning looking dramatic in this Aristide Bruant scarf getup.”
@Pozzo: June talked him into wearing a green pirate shirt with puffy sleeves for his surgery.
GT On a small screen, I thought we were seeing the announcer being zombified to declare Gerads the Coach of the Year, not doing a massive eyeroll – we could have circled back to the ghost and séance and had a *much* more interesting plot
FC I actually appreciate Thel’s support for her kids’ imaginative game here – she clearly came out and checked how much foil they had, presumably would have handed them the roll if the household supply was sufficient. Heck, she’s thinking, too bad it isn’t enough for them to be kept quietly amused wrapping each other in enough to make roly poly balls and keep them immobilized till lunchtime.
H&L … or it’s just a toy like a rattle?
Beetle Bailey: Ha! I used this line with a patient just the other the day. Of course, the joke was that we both had dementia, so, uh…I guess that tracks? Has anyone checked to see if Herb has left any burners on lately?
RMMD:
“I’ve got it, June! Let’s the two of us conjugate! …verbs.”
H&J: The four-panel format really sells this. We can Herb straining to put these words together in his mind.
H&J – Don’t overthink it, Herb.
Wumo: Yes, Substack, the home of the rich, simple-minded, squash-players laid off from their jobs in publishing.
Even Herb’s thoughts are entirely nonspecific and generic. Kinda makes you think.
RMMD – They could have had the same conversation if the surgery had been pushed back five minutes.
H&J: Herb is a real Plugger’s Plugger.
H&J: This strip does an interesting take on the old buddy trope. Jamal is both the brains and brawn of the two while Herb is more of …a schlubby, mildly petulant man-child.
Serious question: is Luann set in an oppressive fundamentalist Christian environment? Because that’s what this story feels like. When most young adults discover one of their friends making out in a car, they have the good taste to go away and leave them alone. And when most young adults are discovered making out in a car, they will tell any interlopers to bug off in no uncertain terms. Nil dragging them into helping with this amateur crap he insists on calling an “art exhibit” seems like an attempt to “take their mind off their sinful urges.” Which Phil and Luann will only go along with if they are sufficiently indoctrinated.
H&J – Also attempts at humor….
RMMD – I’ll get the scrabble board….
BB – No flowers or gift shop teddy bear? Cheap bastard….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Beetle Bailey is a series of stories set across a multiverse of infinite timelines where we follow the lives of different Beetles until those lives are forever changed, sometimes even ended, at the fists of Sargent Snorkel. “But this is a gag strip, these are just jokes!” YES! But the joke is our raging against an uncaring cosmos and our pitiful attempts to escape the fate that eventually claims us all! Ha ha!
FC-I thought they were knights of the poly-cotton blend.
BB-Sarge is there to finish off the job.
MW-“Lady, I’m just passing through on my way to a better comic strip.”
RMMD-June, you might want to look around but you have no house either.
H&J-“And I came to the conclusion that someone already came up with the idea to kill the first born male child in every household.”
Is Herb wearing blackface in panel three? If so, is it offensive or just confusing?
Crankshaft: I suppose if his first apartment had been across the street from the funeral parlor he would have come up with a comic about Rigor Morty, the laff-a-minute grave digger.
DT: Uh oh, he cracked his face. Seven years bad luck.
Go Comics apologizes for running Pluggers out of order. Today’s “gorging yourself on hot dogs” entry was supposed to run before Thursday’s “falling asleep on the toilet while pooping in the dark” strip.
BB- I haven’t been to a hospital lately, but are all the cool nurses tucking their ID badges between their breasts? Or does the artist just have a boob fixation?
@Lauralot: At least they didn’t give the bird boobs–or would that have been considered too risque?
H&L: If it takes you four panels to get to that lame punchline, then yes, thinking is definitely not your strong suit.
RMMD: Now, now, June, you and Rex have just endured the heart-pounding excitement of a minor scheduling delay. You need to pace yourselves.
BB: That nurse is just Miss Buxley minus the rack.
FC: Great parenting there, Thel. Just let a bunch of unsupervised small children armed with sticks whack on each other with reckless abandon. Nothing can go wrong here.
Ripley: ”At 95, Texas resident Raymond Hager still drives city buses, financially unable to retire.”
9CL: ”I love how your new husband is able to shift sizes between 5’2” and six feet. Can he do that with his dick, too?”
@Bob Tice:
I deny
You deny
He, she, it denies
We deny
You deny
They deny
C’shaft: I mean, I’d sooner believe this guy is a shut-in whose observations on life and the human experience were based on whatever he saw through his window, rather than a teacher who actually spoke with a teenager once or twice in his life.
GT: Did Coach Gerards temporarily possess her to make her refer to him as “Coach of the Year Coach Gerards”?
JP: This scenario indicates that the Parkers haven’t so much as given a thought to Ann throughout her trial, incarceration, and release, which…yeah, that tracks.
Luann: Yes, because artists never bother to think about things like structure and composition, especially when doing large-scale installations. Christo just showed up one day at the Reichstag with some bedsheets and a few rolls of twine and said “Eh, we’ll just see where this goes…”
And imagine being so boring and unimaginative that Luann is the creative free spirit in your life…
MW: Mrs. Sunny has dramatic winged (pun not intended) eyeliner, since she is an Amazon parrot and therefore must adhere to “spicy Latina” tropes.
Pluggers have the diet of a ten-year-old.
Luann:
Old Person Zoo* Retirement home resident: “Nurse, there are some kids in the hall hanging up my dead mother’s underpants on a clothesline. I would like to register a formal complaint.”* http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=278
MW: “I wonder if you’re a VEHICLE CRASH SURVIVOR…?”
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! I think The Ladies might be testing my plot suggestion after all. Perhaps the return of Aldo Kelrast as a Spirit Bird isn’t as far-fetched as initially supposed. Certainly, it’s not as far-fetched as someone actually using such a creepy opening line. (If you don’t believe me, try using it on some stranger, the next time you’re in the grocery store, or in an elevator.)
JP: Ann, it’s the 5% who were smart enough not to get nabbed you’ll have to worry about, any one of which can ruin your day.
Luann: Wait until some old geezer comes tooling down the hall in her wheelchair, sees one of those vintage outfits and yells, “That’s my high school prom dress!”
Beetle Bailey:
“Next time, Sergeant, send someone who wasn’t involved in the fracas that had him wind up here — you know, like Corporal Punishment!”
GT: Wait, when was Gerads named Coach of the Year? Did we actually see that, or did it just happen in the netherspace between strips?
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Serious question: is Luann set in an oppressive fundamentalist Christian environment? Because that’s what this story feels like.
Luann is almost Bizarro*-Dumbing of Age in that regard.
Man, if only Luann ALSO did inexplicable, tone-jarring superhero antics from time to time…*************
@TheDiva:
On Crankshaft : this is just Bat
iukTON THOMAS trying to pretend Three O’clock High isn’t a drug reference.*Bizarro : vs Six Chix today! Is depression the loss of a will to live, or a burden of heavy, negative, oppressive thoughts? Should one go to a pawn shop to try and find the former, or to try to unload the latter?
BB: I’m just impressed the nurse is wearing something vaguely like modern scrubs and not a starched white outfit with one of those hats with a red cross on it. I worry a bit about the space-time continuum if modern people are starting to interact with those stuck in the Camp Swampy time-loop
@Guts Dozier: and where it is lodged!
@Lauralot: After winning the award he legally changed his name to Coach of the Year Gerard’s.
@Bob Tice: #5- Grade papers?
Herb’s doing his best not to think about Jamaal’s Sandwhich sex session in the other room, hope they remember the health inspector is due today!
The Familliar Mucus: “We are the knights who say, ‘Meh’ “
@Lauralot:
Yes! The Rex Morgan weird hand gestures are highly distracting. Every character does them. They’re not Masonic, or Illuminati symbols, no matter what Alex Jones says.
@Bob Tice: It is there to help protect his ICP (intracranial pressure) monitor.
@TheDiva:
GT: She really commits to a bit with the full eye roll even if no one else is in the radio booth with her; either that someone is scanning her and her head is about explode!
BB: I once knew a guy who was about to join the army. He said drill sergeants are no longer allowed to scream at the new recruits. He never met Sgt. Snorkel!
CS: Comments I read yesterday indicate this on again/off again story arc involving Skip & Batton date all the way back to August, 2024. The one time I wrote an article for an independent newspaper, it took about 2-3 months of research and interviews. I don’t care if you’re lucky enough to score an interview with Bill Watterson, it is not going to take almost 30 months to get to “How did you come up with the idea for your comic strip?”!
MW: Post a notice in the neighborhood website? Gee, Toby, why didn’t you think of that for the first bird?