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Beetle Bailey, 5/28/18

The character design in Beetle Bailey is extremely stylized, which is actually fine and not anything to complain about, it’s a cartoon, for Pete’s sake, though I will say that if anything a little too much attention is generally lavished on the ears. I mean, why draw the head as a basic oval but then spend a lot of time getting the details of all the little cartilage nubs inside the earlobe correct? Why make two characters where the distinguishing feature between them is that one of them has cauliflower ears? I guess it’s all been leading to this moment, this moment when an amiable, popular, long-running newspaper comic strip takes a sudden and nauseating left turn straight into nightmarish body horror.

Hi and Lois, 5/28/18

I guess that’s supposed to be the Flagstons’ occasionally glimpsed elderly neighbor at the lower right there, but since Memorial Day is of course as we all know a holiday set aside to remember those who died while serving in the armed forces, and the day where we honor the living for their service is called Veteran’s Day and is in November, I choose to believe that that’s actually a ghost, sadly watching these civilians enjoying their three-day weekend and not remembering the reason for the season, which is to say him. That explains why he’s standing in the yard but nobody seems to notice him, and why his words are depicted in a thought balloon (ghosts cannot be heard by the living, obviously). “Ah ha,” you’re saying, “But Josh, why is he old? We don’t as a rule send the elderly off to die in wars!” Well, jokes on you, buddy: your assumption that we live on eternally young in the afterlife is obviously flawed. This guy probably died in Korea or Vietnam in his 20s and his spectre continued to age, much to his horror. “Maybe if I can will these living souls into remembering me, that will keep me young,” he thinks. Sorry, soldier! That’s not how the universe works, apparently! Enjoy growing older and older, forever!

Dick Tracy, 5/28/18

I’ve lived in California for close to four years now, and I gotta say: palm trees? Hot tubs? Attractive women of varying ethnicities? 58 counties, representing a uniquely powerful form of local government, often weilding more influence over our day-to-day lives than the administrations of our better-known cities? You sure have the “west coast lifestyle” pegged, Dick Tracy!

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Blondie, 5/26/18

There’s really no circumstance under which this joke would’ve “worked,” but it would’ve not worked less if Dagwood had been wearing something vaguely cool or even interesting. Still, as a not-particularly-hip incipient old person myself, only the extreme out-of-touchness oozing from every pixel of this image prevented me from briefly wondering if wearing polo shirt tucked into black slacks had, against all odds, suddenly become fashionable.

Hagar the Horrible, 5/26/18

It’s kind of interesting that Hagar’s reputation as an illiterate precedes him, and not, say, his reputation as a wanton, destructive plunderer.

Beetle Bailey, 5/26/18

We interrupt our usual military antics for this nightmare vision of the human race as nothing more than a buffet of flesh and blood to be devoured by eager, ravenous parasites!

Pluggers, 5/26/18

If I’m interpreting this correctly, these plugger dudes are definitely going to have no-strings-attached sex on that filthy, filthy couch.

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Mark Trail, 5/15/18

This is it, guys. This is the moment Mark’s been training for his whole life. He and a group of American tourists at this no-shower Mexican beachside resort have encountered a beached whale (not pictured, go back to Monday’s strip if you want to see it, I’m not going to do everything for you). One poor woman, weeping uncontrollably at the plight of the massive sea-beast and desperately searching for something solid to grab onto in this moment of tragedy, wonders aloud as to its species, and Mark, uniquely placed to meet her needs, steps up with facts at the ready. But then … but then … some Ernest Borgnine-lookin’ chump blunders in demanding to know where this know-it-all got all this useful whale taxonomy info. Who are you and how did you get so smart, mister? His hand, clenches, unwisely, into a fist. Oh, this gentleman’s about to get punched in the face, all right … but this time, with knowledge. (Later in the storyline, when it turns out he’s the sinister villain behind an illegal minke meat harvesting operation that caters to Japanese tourists, he’ll get punched in the face in the more usual sense of the term, with Mark’s crushing left cross.)

Beetle Bailey, 5/15/18

Remember, you can’t be as consistently furious with other people as Sarge is if you don’t also hate … yourself.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/15/18

Oh, look, we’ve been invited to watch the start of Snuffy and Loweezy’s sexual role play! I for one am extremely not down for this.