Archive: Beetle Bailey

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Mark Trail, 2/12/12

Oh, hey, Mark, have you slipped something completely horrifying into the last panel of Sunday’s nature lesson? Yes, let’s all gaze upon the repulsive New Zealand flatworm, which has no natural predators. Presumably once they finish devouring all the earthworms available, they’ll start moving up the food chain, and by the time they get to humans they’ll be about six feet long and completely unstoppable. Fortunately, these monsters appear to be confined to island nations at the moment, but it’s probably best to eradicate all life in New Zealand and Great Britain with atomic fire, just to be sure.

Beetle Bailey, 2/12/12

Of course, it may already be too late for the rest of the world, as even members of the U.S. military appears to have been infected with awful mutagenic diseases that can transform them into horrific beast-men.

Funky Winkerbean, 2/12/12

And don’t forget, Crazy Harry, every birthday brings you closer to the moment when you’ll tumble through the narrows of the hourglass of time onto an awful pit of impaling spikes! ARE YOU SMILING AS YOU BLOW OUT THOSE CANDLES, WHY ARE YOU SMILING, BIRTHDAYS ARE FOR THINKING ABOUT DEATH AND ONLY DEATH

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Beetle Bailey, 2/11/12

Fans of eroticized but poorly detailed sketch drawings everywhere know that Wednesdays are Miss Buxley Days over at Beetle Bailey! Similarly, we fans of vignettes of elderly marital misanthropy, alcoholism, and sadness (an admittedly much more exclusive fraternity) know that Saturdays are for General and Mrs. Halftrack to confront their rapidly failing bodies and their distaste for one another. For us, the sight of of General Halftrack staring sadly at a cereal bowl full of pills, unable to understand why medical science’s best efforts still can’t stop the pain, is much more exciting than a glimpse of Miss Buxley’s upper thighs.

Mary Worth, 2/11/12

The best part about today’s strip, in which Mary tries to figure out if she should come up with a name for Nola’s voracious appetite for sex and destruction and power or simply murder the woman now for the good of all, is that it’s Saturday and we’re still in mid-dinner. Could this mean that we’ll have another week of Nola’s Guide To Success In Life? What good deeds have we done to deserve such a gift?

Apartment 3-G, 2/11/12

Everyone who loved Nina for her cruelty and ability to strangle people with her mind, and who worried that becoming a mother would make her soft, have no fear: she’s only agreed to incubate this child so that she can make it the ultimate sacrifice to the dread god Moloch.

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Apartment 3-G, 2/2/12

I was going to make fun of Dan Diller for having a studio full of primitive, Eisenhower-era electronic equipment, but then I noticed that the UNIVAC I unit in the background seems to have sprouted a mechanical arm between panels one and two. “WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, FLESH-UNITS?” the vacuum-tube-controlled machine barked out, as its deadly new limb dealt out death to all biological life.

Beetle Bailey, 2/2/12

You know, much as I root with varying degrees of subtlety for legacy comics to one day realize that they’re relics and that they should just pack it all in, I admit that it can be hard to come up with a suitably dramatic ending for decades of newspaper comics entertainment. But I think we can all agree that, say, having all of your irritating characters being eaten by bears, one by one, would probably be a good showing.

Hagar the Horrible, 2/2/12

Hmm, it seems Helga has been saying for three years that she asked God to improve her husband ten years ago, which is chronologically confusing. Perhaps instead we are meant to understand that all of Hagar the Horrible takes place in some fractured, Tarantino-esque chronology, where we jump back and forth between different episodes (the castle raid, the shipwreck, etc.) in a non-linear fashion. Thus, assuming this is actually the same incident as the previous strip, my speculation in 2009 that Helga will offer the Nordic pantheon human sacrifices if they would only hear her plea seems to finally be confirmed.

Mary Worth, 2/2/12

Whoa, it looks like Nola isn’t just a sinister sexual she-predator; she’s a master of interpersonal judo as well! Rather than attempting to escape Mary’s meddling powers, she’s instead turned her opponent’s greatest strength into a weakness. All she has to do is ask for tips on bedding every man in the condo complex; Mary, having sworn the Biddy’s Oath to always offer friendly advice, will be forced to aid and abet her reign of erotic terror.

Phantom, 2/2/12

Meanwhile, the Phantom is infiltrating the lair of the Ten Tigers, a sinister Chinese crime syndicate! I’m glad to see that bloodthirsty Asian gangsters use the exact same speakerphone that I’ve seen in every conference room in every bland, low-slung suburban office building I’ve ever been in.