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Mary Worth, 6/21/22

One of the minor world-building things in the Star Wars movies that has always bothered me is how languages work. The humans speak English with each other (side note: I’m sure there are specific in-universe Star Wars terms for “humans” and “English” but I absolutely refuse to look them up); some of the droids and aliens (ditto in-universe Star Wars term for “alien”) also speak English, but then some of the aliens and droids speak gibberish and beep-boop, respectively, but humans can understand them and they can understand humans; yet other times, English and gibberish/beep-boop speakers can’t understand each other, and C3PO or whoever needs to translate. Also, sometimes the gibberish gets subtitles and sometimes it doesn’t, but I think that’s a narrative choice that isn’t meant to represent anything in-universe.

Anyway, my point is that it’s kind of interesting to see Jared addressing his cat as “Mister Solo” and the cat responding in what might as well be alien gibberish that he appears/pretends to understand, which makes me think it would be fun to do an alternate dub of the Star Wars cross-language scenes where the aliens are speaking in English and humans like Han Solo are speaking in gibberish. Thinking about this has both expanded my mind about how communication works in real life vs. fiction, and a franchise that despite its missteps I still have a lot of affection for, and has distracted me from the actual content of this storyline, which is “My boyfriend put me in the hospital but the PA who tended to my injuries was so nice I got horny for him and am going to break up his relationship.”

Dustin, 6/21/22

Speaking of unpleasant horniness, there are a lot of Dustins where Dustin tries and fails to pick up women, but honestly they really just feel like he’s going through the motions — he’s doing it because he thinks he’s supposed to, not driven by any particular romantic or sexual desire. Sadly, our first real encounter with Dustin’s sexuality occurs today, and it takes the form of him talking to his father about how sure, ballet is for nerds, but at least you get to see a bunch of sexy gals in tight-fitting clothes, eh? Eh? You can sit there in your tuxedo with a boner, thinking about banging a ballerina? There are no good Dustin characters, is what I’m saying, and you can sympathize with Dustin for being the strip’s strawman terrible young person character while acknowledging that he is also terrible in every other capacity as well.

Curtis, 6/21/22

Speaking of unpleasant horniness, is June the official month for accidentally walking in on middle-aged dudes in the shower? Like, did a memo go out about it? Will this memo be used at a future civil trial for emotional distress, hopefully?

Beetle Bailey, 6/21/22

But …… it’s not a false alarm at all? Because he is not, in fact, wearing a hat? Perms don’t go “over” hats? That’s now how perms work????? Honestly, we make fun of the Camp Swampy soldiers for never actually being deployed into combat, but I feel like not knowing what “false alarm” means illustrates just what a liability in wartime they would be.

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Mary Worth, 6/3/22

You know, Dawn, you rally ought to listen to your friend Cathy. She’s got a lot of common sense! Thanks to faithful reader Rita Lake who dug up some old links, we now know that she’s really matured a lot since 2011, when she said Dawn was lucky to have Wilbur as a dad, a perfectly insane statement even when delivered in the context of Cathy’s dad being dead. She’s also really matured a lot — and by “matured a lot” I mean “completely physically transformed” — since the time she interrupted Dawn’s sexually obsessive thoughts about her art history prof back in 2015. It’s possible that this isn’t the same Cathy? Maybe Dawn only allows herself to have one female friend at a time, and they always have to be named Cathy, but other than that she’s open to a lot of different possibilities.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/3/22

“I mean, this guy prescribed Cosentyx® for me like a pro. I didn’t even have to ask about it like they said in the TV ad, he already had a bunch of pens and notepads and stuff around the office with the name all over them. It’s … mostly cleared up now, I guess? Anyway, he seems like the kind of guy who could handle a delicate hostage negotiation, based on that one interaction I had with him.”

Beetle Bailey, 6/3/22

Look, I don’t pretend to be entirely sure what’s going on here, but the important thing is that Sarge is finally going to pay for his crimes of cartoonishly overwrought violence, in prison.

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Beetle Bailey, 5/30/21

Hope you’re having a happy somber and meaningful Memorial Day, everybody! Beetle Bailey, America’s #1 only military-themed comic strip, is honoring our war dead by depicting our NCOs as brutes whose murderousness can only be deflected by their encouraging their ravenous appetites. Someone has desperately spray-painted “ALWAYS REMEMBER!” on one of Camp Swampy’s buildings, in an attempt to force these people to remember the real purpose behind today’s celebration (it didn’t work).

Hi and Lois, 5/30/21

Hi Flagston is so disgusted by his brother-in-law’s unit that he and Thirsty are spending Memorial Day giving what I assume is a shoutout to Popeye and, by extension, the forgotten veterans of the Merchant Marine, who had a higher rate of casualties during World War II of than any other service.

Marvin, 5/30/21

Speaking of stolen valor, I think it’s important that names like “M.U.T.T.” only be used for robot dogs, with the initials standing for “Multipurpose Unified Technological Terrier” or something like that. Insult Bitsy without treading on the prerogatives of the noble cyber-dogs, Marvin!

Dick Tracy, 5/30/21

“Oh, man, that sounds like white collar crime, which I definitely don’t care about. Next you’re gonna ask me to do something about wage theft! Ha ha, go call some lib who cares!”