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Beetle Bailey, 2/12/17

I think anyone reading this blog at this point is pretty aware that daily strips are colored for online publication by syndicate hired hands (with sometimes hilarious results) while Sunday strips are colored by the actual artists. Beetle Bailey, though, has a problem that dates back to print: Miss Buxley’s dress has always been colored solid black in the dailies, leaving us with the canonical image of her coming to work every day in a classic little black cocktail dress. It’s only during her occasional Sunday appearances that we learn that her dress is actually supposed to be red. Red! Really shifts the whole vibe, doesn’t it? Unless we’re meant to believe that she usually wears black but has put on red today because it’s “casual Friday.” Honestly, it’s kind of odd that Miss Buxley doesn’t have a separate date outfit that she’s changed into after she came home from work. It’s also kind of odd that Beetle and General Halftrack are wearing their uniforms off duty, though since the strip’s military is stuck in a Korean War-era mode I guess that’s not terribly surprising. The general at least changed up his facial expression, from workplace wistfulness to date night suicidal despair!

Mark Trail, 2/12/17

Hey, kids, did you know that there’s more to nature than just alive things? Did you know that there are also … rocks? Some of those rocks are pretty! Some of those pretty rocks are right in the ground! Some of the people who own the ground will let you dig for the pretty rocks! Go ahead, rent a front loader and just start digging! The ground owner won’t mind, probably!

Mary Worth, 2/12/17

IT’S NOT TOO LATE IRIS

YOU HAVEN’T COMMITTED TO ANYTHING YET

IT’S NOT TOO LAAAAAAAAATE

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Mary Worth, 12/21/16

Ha! While Iris frolics with her boy-toy, look what’s become of Wilbur: he’s now a rugged, international man of action, pecking out the latest installment of “I Shouldn’t Be Alive!” belowdecks on some unheated tramp steamer, with only his faithful table lamp to keep him company. Sure, Iris, Zak may be aware that women can and should have orgasms, but would he put on fingerless gloves so he could heroically continue typing a syndicated newspaper column even when it’s cold? I think not!

Beetle Bailey, 12/21/16

There some clues here about what’s really happening in this strip. The endless void in the background, the way General Halftrack is lying back in his chair with his eyes half-closed, the fact that Miss Buxley has strangely gotten larger between the two panels: he’s dying, and not a moment too soon! Is his final moments, his brain is indulging his sexual gigantism fetish, the better to send him off into the hereafter.

Mark Trail, 12/21/16

Hey, were you worried about whether that island in Mark Trail was still blowing up? Well, here’s an update: It’s still blowing up. Stay tuned for further important developments in this exploding island story.

Six Chix, 12/21/16

It’s almost Christmas and you know what that means: Lots of jokes about Santa being horny!

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Hey, everyone! Before we launch into this week’s comics, I want to draw your attention to the Mary Worth And Me blog, where faithful reader Wanders has this year’s Worthy Awards nominees up! You get to vote in a number of categories, including Best Storyline, Outstanding Performances by Guest and Recurring Characters, Outstanding Panel, and, of course, the most coveted Worthy Statuette of all, Outstanding Performance By A Floating Head. Vote early, vote often!

Beetle Bailey, 12/19/16

One of my less favorite Beetle Bailey running jokes is the “troops dress up in wacky outfits and call it ‘camouflage’” joke that pops up on the regular. Obviously an army has to learn how to blend into the natural environment, but I’m reasonably certain that nobody has gone into either combat or an army training exercise dressed as either a bipedal, armless sheep or a bale of green hay with a visible face and limbs. In this lineup of madness, Beetle’s disguise actually seems most grounded in reality: after all, the history of soliders who have defected to the enemy when expedient — and indeed become their former opponents’ biggest cheerleaders — is as long as the history of warfare.

Shoe, 12/19/16

I spent an entire lifetime of comic reading getting accustomed to a world where sapient bird-people engage in journalism and live in a tree-city where certain architectural elements resemble those developed for human civilization, but today I feel like I’ve had a pretty important additional element — that said bird people are slightly more sophisticated than us technologically, and have access to near-future innovations like self-driving cars — dumped on me with little warning. Anyway, it’s good to have my fundamental pessimism confirmed here: even when the cars drive themselves, the rest of life is still going to suck.