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Archive: Beetle Bailey

163

NAS-CAR MERCH-AN-DISE (clap clap clapclapclap)

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Gearhead Gertie, 7/16/26

Really love Gertie’s gobsmacked look in the top panel here. Sure, she’s been dutifully putting away cash for retirement for her whole life. But what was it all for exactly? What exactly should she be spending her money on? There’s an open world of possibilities that’s almost too vast to get her head around! That’s why mere seconds later her brain obviously completely short-circuited and this whole narrative was replaced by NASCAR MERCHANDISE NASCAR MERCHANDISE NASCAR MERCHANDISE NASCAR MERCHANDISE NASCAR MERCHANDISE NASCAR MERCHANDISE NASCAR MERCHANDISE NASCAR MERCHANDISE NASCAR MERCHANDISE

Beetle Bailey, 7/16/26

I’m glad that the panels here get a thought balloon treatment showing that this whole alien encounter was all a dream of Sarge’s. Otherwise readers of the comic strip Beetle Bailey, where nothing outside of the experience of everyday real life ever happens, might be confused and terrified!

Slylock Fox, 7/16/26

Ha ha, wow! 1,728 words! That’s amazing, for a parakeet! Hey, quick question though, what the fuck is the deal with this giant dog sitting on the couch like a person and why does the lady sitting next to him have a facial expression that makes it look like she’s never seen him before in her life and only just now noticed he was there

107

Strong labor solidarity among comics characters really would solve a lot of problems

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Beetle Bailey, 7/11/26

The thing about the daily comics is that they’re still drawn as if the black and white version is canonical, even though probably most people who read them now see them online, in color. That means that if you want your imagined audience to know that Sgt. Luggs really dolled herself up for this date only to be humiliated by Sarge’s combo gluttony/cheapness, you have to draw her lipstick in black, even though you’ll give online readers the impression that she’s “gone goth” in an attempt to distract Sarge from his pathological need for food (it didn’t work).

Hi and Lois, 7/11/26

Genuinely love that Lois just had the Flagston home inkjet printer spit “NO JUNK FOOD” in 490 point font out and handed it to Hi on his way to the supermarket. I assume he doesn’t even have a list beyond this. “Just follow your instincts and then buy the opposite,” she said.

Crankshaft, 7/11/26

Real talk: I have zero idea who these people are supposed to be. Is it Mopey Pete and Mindy, and he’s put on a lot of weight in the last year and she’s caught whatever he has that causes the visible eyebags? Or are they day players, hired because everyone in the regular cast steadfastly refused to deliver the line “I’m glad we went with Harry to that abandoned amusement park today”?

131

Workshopping terms for friends of Elmo. “Frelmos?”

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Blondie, 7/4/26

On this, America’s most sacred fireworks-related holiday, not one but two comics did “people making fireworks noises with their mouths in lieu of setting off actual fireworks” jokes. One of them was Crock, which I’m not even going to bother inflicting on you; I kind of enjoy this one because it ends with at least the hint that Elmo and his little friend are going to come back with actual fireworks that they’re going to set off in the Bumsteads’ living room.

Beetle Bailey, 7/4/26

At least Beetle Bailey, the strip about America’s military, takes a properly patriotic tone! Oh, wait, what’s that you say? They actually did a joke about the grim reality of the physical abuse of low-ranking enlisted men by their superiors? Hmm. Hmm!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/4/26

Rex Morgan, M.D., meanwhile, doesn’t have time to celebrate. It’s focusing its patriotism on improving America by targeting and revealing the scammers that bedevil us all. Or the one scammer who’s doing that, anyway. A lot of commenters were like “These ladies are somehow going to end up both being Rene Belluso,” and I was like “Ha ha, very funny, but that can’t be right,” and they’re not, but they almost certainly are his nieces, given that we learned a couple years ago that Jimmy was Rene’s actual name. Anyway, I gotta say that “pretending to play your violin so people give you spare change” is not anywhere near as impressive as “running a scam self-help cult that ends up actually helping people” but you gotta start somewhere, I guess!