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Beetle Bailey, 4/19/15

Never mind the deceptively delicate “sent to look for dangerous things” mission description — this is a hardened, deadly battle-drone that forces Beetle to reveal himself as a pacifist shirker or die. Deftly, Beetle inserts a brief viral message into the drone’s code, a vision of happy indolence — to live in the midst of an army, yet be far removed from the exertions and terrors of war. The drone is immediately and completely disarmed. Asymmetric warfare, indeed!

Beetle is thus exposed as a subversive menace and an imminent threat to our armed forces. I’m counting on Sarge to crush him. At least a couple times, this week.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/19/15

Say, didn’t we just finish “petulant writer gets the chance of a lifetime in Hollywood and whines about it the whole time”? Why yes we did. So why are we sending in the B team? And will we never, ever be free of Starbuck Jones? Didn’t John Carter teach Hollywood that old-timey science fiction is a bore and a money pit?

I do like the “handsome actor drives around mumbling incoherently” bit, although that car should definitely be a Lincoln.

Prince Valiant, 4/19/15

Nearing home, Aleta reflects, “Sure, girls, you can always enslave your enemies. But take it from Mom, it’s much easier just to straight-up crucify them. Oops ha-ha, I mean ‘peg’ them to ‘posts.'”

Val thinks, “Uh-oh, wife’s in one of her moods again. Hmm, maybe I can help out in the galley for a while.”

— Uncle Lumpy

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Mary Worth, 4/15/15

Nice to see that the “Adam is a stalker who just straight-up moved into his ex’s apartment complex without telling her to woo her back” aspect of this storyline hasn’t been dropped! Adam has room for only one creepy, all-consuming emotional attachment in his life at a time, people. Now that he’s physically incapable of foiling the many, many assassination attempts against Congressman McDugal, all that energy will be directed at loving Terry with a laser-focused, un-asked-for intensity that makes all other loves look like a pile of hot garbage by comparison. BRACE YOURSELF FOR THE LOVING, TERRY.

Phantom, 4/15/15

So it looks like the Phantom’s long bout of amnesia is finally going to be cured by … hearing a bunch of people say “walker”? As in “Ghost-Who-Walks?” This just makes Bangalla’s outdated state-run television service’s failure to acquire rights to AMC’s hit show The Walking Dead all the more tragic.

Beetle Bailey, 4/15/15

Not one crude drawing of a woman must be allowed to remain unsexualized! Not on Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industry LLC’s watch!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/15/15

Surely Cuzzin Irvin is aware that he (or at least his cuzzin) lives in an enclave of violent anti-government extremists? This is like one of those tragic stories where someone who happens to like wearing blue bandanas wanders into the wrong gang’s territory.

Herb and Jamaal, 4/15/15

“And none of us ever saw him again.”

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Dennis the Menace, 4/9/15

“Hey, Mr. Wilson, you’re a hoarder! A sad old hoarder! You think you can fill the empty hole inside you by getting more stuff, but you can’t and you never will!” Menacing level: extremely high.

Heathcliff, 4/9/15

I’m pretty sure all the tough guys out there with “THUG LIFE” tattooed across their knuckles or shoulders or whatever would be horrified if they found out that Garfield had gotten the phrase inked onto his fuzzy orange belly. But Heathcliff? Heathcliff’s a tougher breed, and is also less ubiquitous and commercial. I’m going to choose to believe that, after the initial shock, there would be grudging respect for this cartoon within the thug life tattoo community.

Spider-Man, 4/9/15

Spider-Man has, as is its wont, devolved from a brief bout of superheroic action into petty bickering. At least the bickering is over vaguely interesting philosophical questions this time around! If “superhero”/”ordinary human” is a spectrum and not a binary, how can we truly distinguish between “human altered by radioactive spider bite”, “highly trained assassin/spy who wears a distinctive skin-tight outfit”, and “actress portraying a fake superhero in a movie who took her costume home and was wearing it in public for vaguely erotic marital cosplay purposes”? Do Marvel Comics characters know about DC Comics characters like Superman, and if so do they know them as real or fictional? Are Spider-Man’s pleas for Mary Jane to help prop up his brand his most pathetic whine yet?

Beetle Bailey, 4/9/15

Oh man, I guess we’re gonna get uncomfortable glimpses into the inner sexual life of Beetle Bailey characters all week! “Can you make your computer have sex with me?” Private Blips asks, grinning girlishly. “I want to have sex with a computer!”