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Alice, 3/18/24

Happy Monday, everybody! I’ve decided to add a few more strips into my repertoire, and here’s Alice. Here it is! I would describe this art as being extremely deranged in a 1990s-specific way, and as a Gen Xer who used to read alt-weeklies when those were a thing, I’m delighted to see it. What the fuck is going on, exactly? Can the children see the aliens? Does “Aunty” (the titular Alice, perhaps?) know this is a terrifying spacecraft and is trying to protect the children from that awful knowledge, or does she genuinely think what’s clearly a solid object is “just a cloud”? Are the ends of the spaceship transparent, allowing anyone to see inside, or is this like a cutaway drawing for the benefit of us readers, even though the exterior of the craft appears opaque to the characters? Why is one of the children not saying “Look?” Does she figure the other two are already doing it so why bother? Anyway, this is great, looking forward to more of it.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/18/24

Most Barney Google and Snuffy Smith Present … Sparkplug’s Grandson Li’l Sparky strips consist of absolutely terrible horse-related wordplay, so I’m actually kind of glad today’s is just about horse riding, and what happens when that goes wrong (you fall off and terribly injure yourself).

Judge Parker, 3/18/24

Ahh, it’s a classic Judge Parker time skip! I love the bold font in panel two here, which indicates that Alan is yelling. I certainly hope he’s been yelling for the past two months!

Beetle Bailey, 3/18/24

Big news, everyone! Beetle and Plato have been taken prisoner by the enemy. Guess this strip will have to go on without them until they’re released, after we sign a peace treaty with whoever it is we’re at war with.

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Beetle Bailey, 3/13/24

I’m not a huge fan of “Miss Buxley is the only sexually available female at Camp Swampy and the men all line up in hopes of being chosen by her, for sex,” but I do like that Rocky has shown up with a six-pack. Take a risk! Might not be what she likes but it also just might be, and you’ve got stand out from the pack somehow!

Gil Thorp, 3/13/24

I don’t know if they actually do full-on suplexes (suplices?) like this in high school wrestling, and I’m not going to look into it, either, because I’m afraid that if I plug “girl’s high school wrestling” into Google Image Search I’m going to end up on a watchlist. But this does happen, I have to imagine that it’s among the most exciting things to happen in the course of a bout, which is why I think it’s kind of odd to cut away literally before Inma’s opponent hits the floor to check in with Marty Moon and hear what he has to say about, like, hockey or whatever.

Mark Trail, 3/13/24

All the market research shows it: what the people want is a soap opera newspaper comic strip about somebody shitting themselves in the context of a musical performance. But of course, the industry’s last few shreds of dignity are preventing the syndicate from really pulling the trigger. Rex Morgan got close with the tale of a guy pretending to shit himself so that he could bump himself up from opener to headliner. But can we get closer still? What if the musician … wasn’t a person at all? Exciting news possibilities await!

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Beetle Bailey, 3/5/23

“Oh, posh,” you’re probably thinking, “Surely a tech whiz like Spc. Chip Gizmo would simply use a password manager to keep track of all his login information.” Sorry, wrong, this fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the Beetle Bailey universe. Chip Gizmo arrived in the strip in 2002 in response to the increasing popularity of these newfangled “computers” and, like all the other characters, has not evolved or changed or learned anything new since the day of his creation, so he’s never heard of a password manager. (Beetle was created in 1950, which is why he naively assumes that any complex piece of machinery must surely come with an instruction manual explaining how to operate it.)

Dennis the Menace, 3/5/23

“Older than I was when we got here. The linear flow of time and the operational state of our bodies only move in one direction, and that direction points us straight towards death. Feeling menaced yet, doc?”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/5/23

SPOILER ALERT: It’s piss, everybody! He’s an old man who’s been stuck in that chair all night, and the thing he needs to do is piss.