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Beetle Bailey, 11/10/17

Today definitely represents a high point in the 67-year-long failure to pass the Bechdel Test that is Beetle Bailey. The joke (“joke”) requires another woman with whom Private Blips can cattily gossip about Miss Buxley. Too bad there aren’t female characters available! Apparently it wasn’t considered realistic for her to be chatting with Mrs. Halftrack, Sgt. Lugg, or Sgt. Lugg’s cat [the following name came instantly to mind, despite my inability to remember, say, how old any of my nieces or nephews are] Bella, so the Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC creative team just summoned a raven-haired doppelgänger out of the ether for her.

Gil Thorp, 11/10/17

Wow, Rick’s thousand-mile stare in the final panel is something. In an instant, he sees his life flickering ahead of him: his fame on message boards and Facebook groups frequented by elderly war vets will inevitably lead to a tour of VFW halls around the country, endless staring into seas of rheumy eyes as excited to hear patriotic ditties as they are suspicious of his shaggy-haired youthfulness. He’s going to be singing the national anthem a lot. Maybe “God Bless America,” too, if he’s feeling a little crazy. But he and Francis Scott Key are going to be locked in an intimate, suffocating embrace for years to come.

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Six Chix, 11/7/17

Each of the titular six chix only gets a comic in one day a week in this strip. So, I can see how frustrating it would be if your assigned day was Tuesday, but you came up with a joke about Daylight Savings Time that’s so side-splittingly hilarious but also poignant, timely, and not at all baffling or opaque that it seems a crime not to publish it a few days later! Thank goodness King Features decided to treat this whole week as “Daylight Savings Week” and allow continued time-laffs through at least Saturday so we could enjoy this strip.

Mary Worth, 11/7/17

Technically, Wilbur isn’t an explorer at all, since he’s travelling to countries with long-established populations that are well-connected to our global civilization. Iris, on the other hand, is an explorer, as she’s going to explore her long-neglected erotic sensibilities — which, again, is in contrast with Wilbur, whose signature sex move is to remain absolutely still until the danger passes.

Mark Trail, 11/7/17

As an LA resident, I personally find this Mark Trail very relatable. Driving all the way to LAX is a huge pain in the ass, and there are a variety of easy transit and ridesharing options you can take without too much expense or hassle. If you pick someone up at the airport, they had better be the perfect guest, in my opinion!

Beetle Bailey, 11/7/17

I know Major Greenbrass’s line in panel one is phrased so unnaturally in order to set up the punchline, but I’d like to imagine that he’s careful to avoid big technical words that General Halftrack doesn’t understand, like “electricity.”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/26/17

Oh, I forgot to mention the other day that we got a look at what our other beloved Rex Morgan, M.D. characters are up to, and what Heather is up to is being pregnant in England with the child of her now-fully-demented husband who no longer recognizes her, with the method she used to to achieve this state left tastefully unmentioned but presumably being along the lines discussed here. This means that family manservant Jordan’s job went from the extremely tricky (trying to help care for an increasingly infirm old man and offer emotional support to his bereft younger wife) to the comically easy (living in the Averys’ vast American mansion and, like, making sure it doesn’t burn down or anything). Apparently the price he has to pay is that whenever he brings a lady over, he has to kill any sexual tension by reminding her of her own mortality. He doesn’t make the rules!

Beetle Bailey, 9/26/17

Speaking of dementia, in Germany one nursing home figured out how to keep Alzheimer’s patients from escaping: setting up a fake bus stop just outside. The patients might be seized with the idea that it was very important that they go home, and rather than forcibly stopping them from leaving, staff would just allow them to go sit on a bench waiting for bus that will never come; eventually they forget why they’re there and can be convinced to come back inside more easily. I’ve always been fascinated by this technique, and it really came to mind today when I read Beetle Bailey, in which a soldier at a military base that has never quite seemed to have any of the details correct stands smiling at an obviously toy BUS STOP sign with two pork chops in his pockets.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/26/17

Ha ha, it’s funny because the pets in Hootin’ Holler are covered in vermin, just like the people!