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Funky Winkerbean, 5/27/16

As part of the “Starbuck Jones is filming in Northeastern Ohio” plot, handsome, popular movie star Mason Jarr agreed to give the commencement address at Westview High. Naturally, as one would expect from a celebrity in the prime of his life and career, the speech is entirely about the inevitability of death.

Beetle Bailey, 5/27/16

“Long story short, there was a war and the US Army lost! I have some pictures of the new Supreme Leader we need to hang up around the house.”

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B.C., 5/12/16

A common and amusing thing you see in Victorian-era English translations of ancient Greek literature is that sexual terms are translated into Latin, the logic being that if you were educated enough to know Latin, you were presumably morally sound enough to read 2,000-year-old dick jokes purely out of literary or historical interest, but we don’t want the unwashed masses reading Aristophanes and getting aroused, now do we? Anyway, I have to assume that’s the logic behind this strip getting through the editorial process: by the time you’ve learned that “coprolite” is fossilized feces, you’re presumably past the age where this punchline would make you gleefully shout “It’s funny because he touched a doody!” at anyone within earshot.

Beetle Bailey, 5/12/16

You know how Beetle Bailey adds a new character every decade or so to glom in the most awkward way possible onto trends that the strip’s creators only half understand? What I’m saying is that 2016 is probably the year Camp Swampy gets its newest recruit, a vaping soldier named Private E-Juice.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/12/16

Yes, Uhuru is praying

praying to her insect god

SPREAD YOUR CHITINOUS WINGS, O CHITTERING ONE

I YEARN TO BE TAKEN UP TO THE GREAT HIVE

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Archie, 4/18/16

Who says you can’t learn valuable historical and cultural data from Archie reruns from the early ’90s? Take today’s strip, for example. Archie and Jughead spend so much time together that they’ve exhausted just about every possible topic of conversation, leading Archie with nothing to ask Jughead about except dietary supplements, and this awkward conversational gambit reminds us that there was at one point a craze for shark cartilage pills as a cancer cure. This quackery was promoted by Sharks Don’t Get Cancer, a 1992 book whose Wikipedia page hilariously notes that “despite its title, the book does not claim that sharks never get cancer.” Anyway, shark cartilage does not in fact cure cancer, but the idea that it might is frankly more believable than the conceit that it might make you extra bitey.

Mary Worth, 4/18/16

If we ever needed proof that Dawn is Wilbur’s daughter, we wouldn’t have to get some fancy paternity test; we can just watch her rub her hands together in deranged anticipation of shoving that sandwich in front of her into her eager gullet, just like her dear old dad would. I’d find it a little dubious that Dawn is now openly eating lunch with her professorial crush object in front of her classmates, but clearly the only erotic stirrings she’s feeling at the moment are for what’s on the tray in front of her. “I, uh, think lunch is pretty awesome too!” says Harlan Jones, suddenly realizing Dawn will never look at him the way she looks at a cafeteria BLT.

Beetle Bailey, 4/18/16

I had a vague memory that Beetle Bailey’s resident psychologist had a hilariously shticky name, and I was right: It’s “Dr. Bonkus”! And I assume that, like all joke psychologist characters dreamed up in the 1950s, he’s a strict Freudian, which means he probably would have some pretty interesting things to say about Sarge’s subconscious life.