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Tina’s Groove, 6/13/24

Say, it’s been a while since we’ve checked in with the anxious depressive food service workers over at Tina’s Groove. What are they up to? Ah, well, seems like they’re taking rotting meat home, to eat? Ha ha, that’s, uh, that’s something … funny? I guess? She’s eating rotting meat?

Beetle Bailey, 6/13/24

There’s nothing rotten going on over at Beetle Bailey, that’s for sure! Just delicious pie. It’s hard to top a fresh-baked pie, except when it’s a la mode! In that case, you have to top it, with ice cream, because that’s how it works. Anyway, today’s Beetle Bailey, which features these two guys about to dig into some delicious pie, has been brought to you by an arts grant from the American Pie Council®: For The Love Of Pie!

Mary Worth, 6/13/24

I love that Wilbur has not only announced that he’ll be coming by Mary’s apartment, but has also described how he’ll be alerting her to his presence. Only open the door if you ring the doorbell, Mary! If you hear a knock, just aim your gun at the door at your best approximation of center mass and start firing.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/27/24

Big news, everyone! Our character wrap-up is finally over and we’re getting to our next exciting Rex Morgan, M.D., medically themed storyline: Buck’s tween son Corey, who appears to have hit puberty and also grown his hair all long and greasy, just like the ladies like it, is getting into standup comedy, along with his friend Parker. Now, having been to far too many open mics myself, I can tell you that they are wretched hives of scum and villainy and “supportive” parents who take their children to them should be investigated by CPS, but it is true that testing out the timing and delivery of the jokes you write is an important part of the proces, so they’re a necessary evil. For instance, is “as always, the sky” a funny response to “what’s up”? Well, it really depends on whether you say it in a jokey, smirky way (bad) or deliver it with a world-weary sigh, as if you cannot believe how many times you’ve been forced to answer this simple and obvious question (good). Anyway, in this plot we might get to see Corey become the Joker, so fingers crossed for that.

Hi and Lois, 5/27/24

One of my pet peeves is that Memorial Day, a holiday specifically set aside to honor those who died while serving in the US armed forces, has sort of become elided with Veterans Day and is now just treated as “let’s respect the troops, but when the weather is nicer.” The result is that you get strips like this, where two little kids knock on the door of their elderly neighbor and are like “Hey, Mr. Weaving, do you have any memories of your dead comrades? Were they shot down right in front of you? Does the image never leave your mind?”

Beetle Bailey, 5/27/24

Beetle Bailey understands the holidays correctly, at least. That’s what I’m taking from Gen. Halftrack’s facial expression, anyway, which reads less as “sentimental” and more as “my God, look at how young and full of promise they were. I’m the only one who made it out and I’ve wasted my life. I should’ve been there when that NVA artillery shell hit, not them. It should’ve been me. It should’ve been me!”

Mary Worth, 5/27/24

What do you think she’s hearing, exactly? Snoring? Sobbing? Chewing? Some unholy combination of the three?

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Hi and Lois, 5/12/24

The “joke” of today’s strip is that the Flagston children have announced that their mother now has to share Mother’s Day with their father, and that their father will not be receiving any recognition on Father’s Day next month at all. And the adults are just sitting there smiling about it! Have some self-respect and stand up for yourselves, you two! I know you’re outnumbered by the children, but one of them is a literal baby, I think you still have the advantage.

Beetle Bailey, 5/12/24

Beetle Bailey fans, of course, delight at strips where Sarge uses kinetic violence to reduce Beetle to an unrecognizable and mangled pile of flesh, but as today’s strip demonstrates, they would be horrified at the thought of Sarge poisoning Beetle and need to be reassured that he is being sprayed with only “toxin-free” chemicals. In this sense, and in this sense only, Beetle Bailey is very much like modern combat, as governed by the 1925 Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare.