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Beetle Bailey, 1/15/11

This is another strip where the top row of throwaway panels — so called because they’re often discarded by newspapers to cram the strip into various arrangements — completely change the tenor of the strip. Without those first two panels, we have the story that we’ve always been sold about Beetle: that he’s smugly and pathologically lazy. But with those added strips, we see that he only spends as much time as possible in bed because he’s in constant physical pain, no doubt because of some combination of forced manual labor and the beatings he receives daily from Sarge. So too his final panel fantasy becomes much more poignant: it doesn’t represent some kind of apotheosis of sloth, but rather his dream of a job that helps alleviate his all-pervading agony.

Mary Worth, 1/15/11

So Mary Worth and this waitress have basically been congratulating themselves on saving Emily since about Tuesday, and you know how sometimes something irritating in small doses can become awesome in mass? That’s pretty much how I’m starting to feel about this. I’m hoping the two of them just keep saying this stuff back and forth for another week or two. “Do you think she’ll be OK?” “Hopefully! But the real important thing is that we saved her, together, as a team! We’re amazing!”

Panel from Slylock Fox, 1/15/11

I don’t know what I like best about this: that the sentient lobster is making a desperate bid for freedom to avoid being eaten by the sentient mouse, knowing that it’s either kill or be killed, or that Slylock finds the whole thing so amusing. “Ahh! Ahh! Ahh! It’s tearing my nose apart! For the love of God, Sly, why won’t you help me?” “Heh, heh, Max, looks like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew! Should have had your food-animal killed and slaughtered before you tried to eat it, like I did!”

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Beetle Bailey, 1/10/12

Since all of the soldiers at Camp Swampy have long stopped being scared of or even vaguely impressed by Sarge’s bluster as a result of decades of exposure to it, we occasionally need an outsider character to show that he’s still a terrifying monster of shouting. We get that today with this poor plumber, who appears to be in a state of advanced psychological shock, or maybe having some kind of fear-seizure.

Gil Thorp, 1/10/12

Oh, man, this is great! Milford’s mildly dodgy tattoo parlor is clearly going to be the origin of every mildly dodgy vice in town, including … knockoff DVDs! I’m not sure who those actors on the cover of TITHNIC are, but I’m guessing they’re named something like “Mutt Damone” and “Kathy Winslow”.

Mary Worth, 1/10/12

Yes, yes, Emily Smith has been saved from a horrible fate, blah blah blah, but what I mainly want to say is: if you can look at the hilarious chase scene going on in the background of panel one and not hear “Yakety Sax” playing in your head, you’re a better person than I am.

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Gasoline Alley, 1/5/12

I won’t waste my time or yours trying to explain the Gasoline Alley plot that led up to this — it’s all summarized in the first two panels here, and it took months, and Slim and Clovia were very angry with each other about it — but I do think it’s worth pointing out that all this drama has very suddenly been resolved with no action on the characters’ part, and with enough time left over to slip in a joke about toilets to boot. It’s kind of disorienting to see it all end so abruptly, and on a Thursday too. I’m thinking that the original ending, which involved yelling and knives, was nixed by the syndicate at the last minute. The remaining three days until the next plotline starts will just consist of Slim and Clovia standing around awkwardly.

For Better Or For Worse, 1/5/12

Ha ha, For Better Or For Worse, remember that thing? When it stopped with the ongoing storylines and became mostly reruns of young versions of the Pattersons talking in weird fake cute-speak it stopped being all that interesting to me, but I still feel compelled to read it daily. I also feel compelled to try to figure out, based on the art, whether we’re seeing old strips or new ones injected into the old continuity, and I think these are the latter, and I’m thinking: what if Lynn Johnston suddenly feels compelled to seize the reins and start aging the characters all over again, only this time John and Elly have a contentious divorce, leaving April to vanish in a limbo of never-was and Michael and Elizabeth with terrible emotional scars? Except look how they turned out when their parents stayed married, maybe they’ll be healthy, functional adults this way, who can say. Michael’s already showing a streak of self-loathing that, with years of therapy, might serve as a counterweight to his unbearable smugness.

Gil Thorp, 1/5/12

I’m extremely amused by the low-key Mudlark reaction in panel two, though you know that deep down they’re thinking that a Pokémon tattoo would be kind of awesome. They’re also playing it cool so as not to anger the disembodied claw-thing that’s casually draped itself on Punisher t-shirt dude’s shoulder.

Mark Trail, 1/5/12

“Yes, why don’t I come and hang out with you and Sally and your blind dog for a few days? Sweet Christ, I’d do anything to get away from my wife and adopted son.”

Beetle Bailey, 1/5/12

After billions of dollars were spent, the Defense Department began to suspect that Camp Swampy may not have been the best test site for its robotic supersoldier experiment.