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Shoe, 12/1/20

As is so often the case with Shoe, the eyes really tell the story here. Roz’s are bugged out in panic, of course, as she watches her life’s work and only source of income literally going up in smoke. The Perfesser is experiencing sympathetic shock in panel one, but by panel two has already wound down to his typical heavy-lidded ennui. He’s realized he’s got to die somewhere and somehow, so it might as well be here, where he’s wasted so much of his life, via smoke inhalation.

Beetle Bailey, 12/1/20

Beetle Bailey is of course a strip where every single character’s name is incredibly, painfully on the nose. The most recently introduced recurring character is a “computer whiz” tech specialist name Chips Gizmo, for Pete’s sake. So I’m not surprised that they needed the name of a general for a boxing gag and so just went straight to “Dempsey”; I am surprised, and pleased, that they made him young, handsome, and so clearly and wholesomely pleased about the prospect of punching General Halftrack in the face.

Dustin, 12/1/20

Look, man, he asked you if you were excited about the conference. You could’ve just said “no,” you know? Jesus, is everyone in this strip just incredibly sour about everything?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/1/20

From the feature that thrilled you with “Rex waking up” — get ready for the edge-of-your-seat excitement of “Buck falling asleep”!

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Gasoline Alley, 11/28/20

The current Gasoline Alley storyline is too boring and confusing for me to get into here, and in that sense it is quite frankly like most Gasoline Alley storylines. But I do want to point out that Gasoline Alley is one of those strips where the characters age over the years, which makes them not only more and more wrinkled but also results in them learning and growing as human beings. Why, it was a mere 13 years ago that Slim reacted to the presence of basketball-playing youths in his neighborhood by attempting to kill them by hiring a guy to drop a meteorite on them from a helicopter. But now it’s the year 2020, and Slim has learned that murder is one of those things that might’ve been OK in its historic context but is no longer “woke.”

Dennis the Menace, 11/28/20

Henry’s facial expression is kind of puzzling but it honestly looks like he’s trying to suppress laughter? “What a little idiot,” he’s thinking. “She’s not even in the top decile globally.”

Beetle Bailey, 11/28/20

How are things going over at Beetle Bailey? Well, the Camp Swampy boys are rounding up terrified civilians at gunpoint so … not great, I guess!

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Mark Trail, 11/23/20

You know, Allen-era Mark Trail already upgraded Rusty from “ward” to “son” so I was wondering if he’d be retconned into a biological child of Mark and Cherry under the new regime, but with all this talk of dark secrets and Mark’s cloned lineage, and now new-look biker dude Doc wondering how Rusty will think about their relationship going forward … well, I’m just going to assume they’re all clones, and now they’ll just address each other respectfully as “pod-mate”.

Beetle Bailey, 11/23/20

I’m assuming that “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” is in quotes here because Rocky’s just using it as a general stand-in for “I used to have fun and/or cool,” not because he’s had sex. Nobody in Beetle Bailey has ever had sex. Please, I desperately need to hold onto that notion to stay sane. NO SEX IN BEETLE BAILEY, I FORBID IT.

Dick Tracy, 11/23/20

This pair of criminal masterminds hasn’t exactly set the world on fire with their crime skills, so I think it’d be pretty fitting if Daisy slipped and fell back onto Yeti and they both fell into the sewer and drowned. Dick never spots anything on the drone cam, the meteorite goes unmolested, everyone just kind of moves on with their lives. “Hey, we ever figure out what was up with those people who fell into comas?” Chief Patton asks. “I don’t think so, chief,” says Dick. “I guess it was just one of those things.”

Funky Winkerbean, 11/23/20

If you, like me, find Harry Dinkle intensely unlikeable, I’m happy to inform you that he spends his nights writing in agony, thinking of his past failures.

Pluggers, 11/23/20

Damn it, pluggers. Do you … do you really think you’re the only ones who like ice cream. Come on. Come on now. Give us some pluggers-specific content in the Pluggers syndicated newspaper strip or give it the fuck up