Archive: Beetle Bailey

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Beetle Bailey, 5/30/07

While I’m not a morning person and sympathize with Beetle’s attitude, I’m a little unnerved by the way he goes about expressing it. Specifically, who exactly is he ordering to “go away” and “leave me alone”? It seems that he’s so haunted by this world that he’s addressing existence generally, preferring the icy numbness of sleep or even death to consciousness. Alternately, since he is Trixie Flagston’s uncle, he may be railing against her buddy Sunbeam, hinting that this is a relationship that can go sour once you grow up.

Gil Thorp, 5/30/07

I had high hopes that crafty old Clambake was going to launch into a detailed treatise on just when and how you launch a beanball at a batter for maximum psychological impact. Instead, he appears to be giving young Elmer a “we black folks have it much harder than you Mexicans or whatever ever will so shut your yap whippersnapper” speech, which will inevitably result in either a soul-searching look at prejudice in a new, multiethnic America or an all-out race war, neither of which I’m interested in seeing in Gil Thorp, now or ever.

It’s nice to see the most personable and attractive Gil Thorp recurring character in panel three. I’m talking, of course, about the disembodied alien claw-thing perched on Elmer’s shoulder. It sure loves to sit on people’s shoulders, but it don’t mean no harm to nobody.

Hi and Lois, 5/30/07

I’d fling my food at my parents too if they tried to feed me that undifferentiated inky black goo. It’s like a bowl of finely minced despair.

Mary Worth, 5/30/07

Mary Worth is looking more skeletal and Nancy Reagan-esque than ever in panel two. I have no idea whose enormous hands those are flapping around in front of her, but they clearly aren’t hers. Perhaps they were once attached to her latest hapless victim, the remainder of whom is baking in a casserole dish back in her apartment, to be force-fed to Vera later this evening.

Slylock Fox, 5/30/07

I know it’s all part of the Great Cycle of Barnyard Life, but, like the duck in the pond, I am a little unnerved to see that fox’s last moment of happiness before the farmer beats him to death with that stick. I guess the lesson is: if you’re a fox and you like getting into other people’s business, get a cape and a deerstalker hat and learn to spout some deduction-y sounding bullshit. Otherwise, you’re fair game.

Ziggy, 5/30/07

Ha ha! Ziggy is going to die of smallpox, because he’s poor!

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Beetle Bailey, 5/16/07

I’m pretty sure I don’t get this. Is it supposed to be funny that General Halftrack is all excited about his “fan club,” only to find to his disappointment that it consists of a single person? But really, wouldn’t having someone form a fan club composed only of himself still be kind of flattering? It would have at least made sense in the context of the Beetle Bailey milieu if the “General Halftrack fan club” had been founded by Lt. Fuzz as another outlet for his loathsome sycophancy, but adding a third panel in which the towheaded kissup actually appeared would have apparently required too much additional painstaking detail work on the background to make it worthwhile.

Kudzu, 5/16/07

Ha ha! Man, Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson only broke up, what, six months ago? How do these guys come up with zingers like these so quickly?

Judge Parker, 5/16/07

Wait, I knew that the Cabots were rich, but … Cabot Island? “Oh, it’s just a little place … they used to call it ‘Sicily’ before we bought it.”

By the way, Roger, I don’t care if you do you own your own island, no man with a mullet as stringy as yours should wipe his mouth with a napkin that daintily. It’s just against the natural order of things.

Mark Trail, 5/16/07

Man, I sure hope panel two gives us a hint about the Wicked Commissioners’ secret airport bird-attraction scheme: they’re going to regurgitate worms and grubs all over the runway in a bid to woo their feathered friends and disrupt air traffic! That’s why the dude’s taking his jacket off in the final panel. You don’t want to get half-digested larvae all over your nice suit.

Phantom, 5/16/07

Oh, by the way, the Phantom has started a new storyline that involves bickering wealthy white people on a huge yacht. And thank goodness for that, really, because the other serial comics have been terribly neglectful of the dramatic possibilities that could be built around money and the dilettantes who squabble over it.

Gil Thorp, 5/16/07

I had some kind of juvenile “pitcher/catcher” joke ready to go here, but then I realized that nothing I could say about this strip could possibly top Dean Booth’s take on it.

Ziggy, 5/16/07

THIS COMIC HURTS MY SOUL.

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Beetle Bailey, 5/4/07

Beetle is a zombie.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/4/07

Sarah and Herb’s sex life is pretty much nonexistent, much to her disappointment.

Family Circus, 5/4/07

Jeffy is a solipsist.

Apartment 3-G, 5/4/07

Lu Ann does not actually have any friends and family who love her.

For Better Or For Worse, 5/4/07

Liz is a total idiot.