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Beetle Bailey, 8/29/17

As you know, I go straight-up nuts when Gil Thorp brings back beloved characters from years past, so I guess I should grudgingly acknowledge that Beetle Bailey does sort of the same thing, in that over its 67 years in print it has introduces new ancillary one-joke characters, mostly to keep up with dimly perceived trends, and then subsequently abandons them when they get tiresome but very occasionally bring them back. Cosmo is Camp Swampy’s black marketeer, straddling the line between capitalist and con artist; the official Beetle Bailey blog says he’s a parallel to Milo Minderbender in Catch-22, which honestly strikes me as a little highbrow for this strip. Anyway, the idea that in Cosmo finds the transition from pool shark to day trader a natural one strikes me as an intriguingly radical superstructure for a joke, even though the “joke” is yet another one that assumes “Are you checking your friends on social media?” is a thing that any human anywhere would actually say.

Family Circus, 8/29/17

It really tells you a lot that, when the Keanes decided to abandon PJ at the park, they left him there in a shirt that says PUSH and not FEED.

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Mary Worth, 8/19/17

HOW TO CONVINCE A GAL TO DO SEX WITH YOU:

1. Give responses that indicate that you’ve listened to at least the last couple of sentences she’s said. Example:

DAWN: It was difficult integrating my relationships with both of my parents, what with them living so far apart.

DR. NED: [PROCESSING DATASET: “CONNECTICUT”, “SANTA ROYALE”] Yes, it certainly is enriching to have lived in two widely separated locations!

2. Block her means of egress, initiate simultaneous physical and eye contact, and remind her that you remember what her name is. Example:

DR. NED: [SCANNING MEMORY: WHAT IS THIS ONE CALLED AGAIN?] Dawn…

Beetle Bailey, 8/19/17

Beetle is the victim of unrelenting physical abuse, and the church is only willing to do lip service when it comes to protecting him from harm.

Blondie, 8/19/17

“[enters staring at iPad] Ever use mobile apps, Mr. B?”: What an old person thinks a young person is like.

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Mary Worth, 8/17/17

Dawn is too young to legally drink alcohol, of course, but it’s nice of this fancy restaurant to pour her Diet Coke into a wine glass for her, to help her feel like a big girl. She’s adulting!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/17/17

I feel like a lot of people have seen the distinctive costumes from the The Handmaid’s Tale in posters and commercials and such and absorbed it as a pop cultural artifact without actually having watched the show or read the book, and, like … do you think they know it’s about state-sanctioned ceremonial rape, or what.

Beetle Bailey, 8/17/17

Today’s Beetle Bailey seems pretty strange if you take it literally, what with the awesome power and responsibility held by a general staff officer in the U.S. military, but it begins to make a lot more sense if you imagine that “this job” refers to, oh, just to take a profession totally at random, cartooning.