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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.

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Crankshaft, 4/16/16

Hey guys, remember Ed Crankshaft, the almost wholly unlikeable protagonist of the comic strip Crankshaft? Well, Crankshaft and Mary, who is a perfectly nice person, have been going on dates, and other people have noticed, and somehow Crankshaft is the one who finds this embarrassing, though he claims that it’s only because his relationships all seem to go south whenever they’re recognized or acknowledged, in some kind of Romantic Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle or something. Anyway, Mary now knows she’s truly been claimed by the ’Shaft, because her relationship is now being labelled with a terrible and unfunny malapropism, in line with his personal beliefs and lifestyle.

Beetle Bailey, 4/16/16

Haha, it’s funny because Sarge would rather look like a dope and fail to clean his stinky feet than appear even slightly feminine, even for a moment, and oh my god wait is he just full on nude in the comics pages??? That water droplet is extremely strategically placed so as to obscure his entire butt crack, but that doesn’t make this acceptable at all.