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Beetle Bailey, 12/13/15

Welp, looks like Beetle Bailey is going to start spending its Sundays focusing on the ways in which its characters’ lives are exactly as awful as they’d always feared! This one isn’t quite as grim as last week, when General Halftrack declared that his marriage was a prison and his hobby a punishment, but still: Lt. Fuzz worries for six panels that nobody likes him, and then in the seventh his worries are confirmed.

Hagar the Horrible, 12/13/15

Christianity is still a relatively recent import to Scandinavia, and Hagar is having a hard time remembering the schedule of its festivals. Don’t worry, Hagar: the medieval church is pretty accommodating of local traditions. That’s basically Thor’s Oak outside your house, and I’m sure there’s a yule log burning in your fireplace.

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Dennis the Menace and Beetle Bailey, 12/7/15

These are, in my opinion, some solid prompts for philosophical discussion. If we conceive of our lives as an endless series of journeys towards some specific destinations, don’t we ignore the charms and possibilities of the intermediary space we pass through, every inch of which is itself a possible destination? Similarly, why do we discount the third of our lives we spend asleep? It’s largely opaque to us, but is it possible that sleep is really what we’re for, and we only wake up when we can’t sleep anymore? Anyway, A+++ work this Monday, guys, feel free to spend the rest of the week slacking off with mild jokes about children who don’t understand that you shouldn’t repeat rude things your parents say about their friends and/or the tragedy of physical abuse in our armed forces.

Judge Parker, 12/7/15

Much as I would like the Spencer-Drivers to all be arrested at once after a long investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and IRS working in tandem, I’m assuming Neddy is about to get a ticket for her semi-competent operation of this huge behemoth of a motor home. You know, in some countries, monetary fines don’t have set amounts but are instead calculated based on the offender’s income, on the logic that otherwise the rich would be able to, say, speed or run lights with impunity; this can result in very wealthy people being handed six-figure traffic tickets. The practice is almost unheard of in the U.S., and it’s too bad because otherwise the local municipality here would have its budget covered for the next decade.

Herb and Jamaal, 12/7/15

Haha, yes, fish that’s of such high quality that you can eat it raw, that’s definitely like everything else on this list here!

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Beetle Bailey, 11/29/15

Usually Saturday is the day Beetle Bailey sets aside for strips about the Halftracks’ awful, loveless marriage, but you have to really give the creative team kudos for using the full scope of a Sunday strip to hammer home how truly hellish this relationship is. My favorite part is the topical shift as we move from the second to the third tier of panels: sure, the General’s marriage is explicitly acknowledged as a prison, but his supposed hobby, the sort of thing one usually engages in for enjoyment, is also a punishment. The only solution is to numb the body and mind with alcohol! Anyway, I know there’s a lot of awful things happening in the world right now, but I honestly think this strip should be in the running for The Grimmest Shit In The Newspaper Today.

Panels from Slylock Fox, 11/29/15

In the top panel, the abruptly Awoken animals are using their newfound sapience to try to come to an understanding with the humans, to create a new, balanced form of existence in which all species can live in harmony. In the bottom panel, the animals are merely establishing an insincere truce under which they will gather their strength for the inevitable violent uprising that will wipe humanity from the planet. I don’t really think the other five differences matter all that much.

Judge Parker, 11/29/15

Years ago, back when Sophie was prepubescent weirdo savant rather than an alpha-cheerleader mean girl, she cheerfully admitted to spying on Neddy while she was doing “that tongue thing” with some now long-forgotten boy. Voyeuristically keeping tabs on Neddy’s sex life is a Spencer-Driver family value, is what I’m trying to say.

Funky Winkerbean, 11/29/15

Long story short, Cayla, the answer to your initial question is “not well.”