Post Content

Beetle Bailey, 10/18/24

This Beetle Bailey honestly feels kind of grim to me, as banal as it seems on the surface. Sure, Sarge is joking around with Beetle in a way that alludes, in a vaguely threatening manner, to the power he holds over his subordinates, as is his wont, but he’s not glowering or even looking up from his paperwork to make eye contact as he does it. Instead, he’s efficiently taking care of some of his less glamorous duties as a non-commissioned officer and not getting overly emotionally involved in Beetle’s day-to-day life. Maybe all the work he did with Dr. Bonkus on his anger issues finally paid off.

Hi and Lois, 10/18/24

Sorry, Trixie! You’re damned to eternal infancy, and while your baby’s brain may somehow generate adult-level cognition, you will never develop even rudimentary speech capabilities. That means you can’t engage in sophisticated bargaining with your brother in scenarios like this. Thought balloons won’t cut it!

Hagar the Horrible, 10/18/24

Uhhh, no? Because it’s facing the other way? And because of gravity? Idiot.

Post Content

Beetle Bailey, 10/2/24

Hello, faithful readers! You might recall that last week I opined that Beetle Bailey had abandoned the spirit, though not the letter, of Miss Buxley Wednesday by producing technically Buxley-inclusive content that nobody could possibly be aroused by. Well, it seems that the bigwigs at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC have listened to my reasoned critique and delivered two panels of Miss Buxley in all her miniskirted glory. Sure, she’s as crudely drawn as ever, but she’s waving her arms around frantically and yelling right next to a laser printer that’s going crazy and spewing out paper, and I’m reasonably sure that a sizable minority of you could talk yourselves into getting off to that, if you really put in the work.

Pluggers, 10/2/24

I had always assumed that actual short-order cooks are plugger short-order cooks? I mean, I guess I haven’t been keeping tabs on the hierarchies, but do you mean to tell me that this underpaid, manually demanding profession is coastal elitist-coded now? That real pluggers are at home seething with class resentment at short-order cooks because they use fancy stoves to cook? By god, pluggers just eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and they like it! They don’t even toast the bread! Do you toast the bread, like some kind of communist? I’d blame Hulu’s hit show The Bear for this change in attitude, as it shows short-order cooks having aspirations beyond their station, but (a) no plugger subscribes to a “streaming service” and (b) if they did, as horrible man-animal chimeras, their primary reaction to the show would be confusion that nobody on it is actually a bear.

Post Content

Beetle Bailey, 9/30/24

Today, most food service in the U.S. military is outsourced to contractors, and one of the military’s most awesome powers is the ability to deploy a fully operational Burger King to a combat zone within 24 hours. But Beetle Bailey remembers an earlier time, when cooks would’ve been soldiers themselves — my grandfather enlisted during World War II and spent the war stateside making meals in bulk for soldiers about to ship out to the Pacific, for instance, and it only occurred to me reading this strip that I never knew what his rank was. Did he outrank a sergeant? Could he, within the bounds of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, have ordered a private to prevent his sergeant from gaining access to the company’s food stores, using deadly force, if necessary? Much to think about.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/30/24

Oh wow, Wanda, just casually demonstrating your ability to cross your fingers right in front of your trigger finger-striken boyfriend? Flexible finger privilege much????