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Zits, 7/18/20

Zits has been doing this mildly funny thing all week where various characters in or ostensible creative personnel behind the strip have been absent because they’re “on furlough” (ha ha, it’s funny because the world is in an economic crisis leading to widespread mandatory underemployment!), but today’s edition took, for one brief panel, a turn for the horny! But that wasn’t just restricted to Zits: there’s a real epidemic of horniness in today’s funny pages.

Beetle Bailey, 7/18/20

The “Halftracks hate each other” Beetle Bailey strips have done angry horny before, but this is a particularly egregious example. I think what really makes it is not that Mrs. Halftrack has hired some shirtless himbo to bring her liquor as she sits in her poolless back yard, and not even that General Halftrack is staring at her out the window; it’s that Major Greenbrass, the General’s subordinate and golf partner (I hesitate to say “friend”) has been roped into the ugly scene, much against his will.

Blondie, 7/18/20

Blondie is also extremely horny today, though it takes great pains to emphasize that this horniness takes places entirely within the boundaries of normative suburban heterosexual monogamy. I can’t put a finger on why, but I find the idea of Dagwood going all ahWOOga after seeing his wife’s hot bod while wearing a tan polo shirt tucked into black khaki shorts particularly distasteful.

The Lockhorns, 7/18/20

Today’s Lockhorns isn’t horny per se, but seeing Leroy angry because this movie isn’t arousing him the way he wants it to is at least horny-adjacent.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/18/20

A stern, mysterious old woman, dressed all in black, ordering Rex to follow her detailed instructions if he wants to win June’s affections? That’s so not horny that I think it’s looped all the way back around to horny again.

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Beetle Bailey, 7/17/20

You don’t often see Sarge and Cookie in the strip right next to each other, for the obvious reason that they’re clearly based on the same character model with ony very minor differences, and you don’t necessarily want to draw attention to that fact. Still, today’s strip kind of works because their similarities actually help you see the emotional journey they’re both on. In panel one, the spaghetti dinner has brought near identical expressions of joy to both their faces — but for very different reasons, as we soon learn. While Cookie is still beatific in panel two at the thought that he’s helped two souls in love together, Sarge as more troubled, both because he generally finds romance disturbing and distasteful and because he didn’t get his big plate of yummy spaghetti.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/17/20

Sure, one of the main themes of this strip is that Snuffy rejects God and cares more about his passing pleasures than the economic well-being of his family, but it’s rare that you see that spelled out quite so explicitly as in today’s installment.

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Mary Worth, 7/16/20

“Not long. You know, Madi, I used to have a husband and son, but do you hear me complaining about their death and their mysterious disappearance, respectively? Of course not. I push all that pain deep down inside. Remember, the past only exists by how you remember it!”

Beetle Bailey, 7/16/20

The list of hilariously off base “This is what Beetle Bailey thinks a [insert any noun here] looks like” is of course long and storied, but what Beetle Bailey apparently thinks a rock musician looks like is a particularly great addition to it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/16/20

“It’s not like we, say, own a clinic together. Can you imagine? Like, I’d have to look at your dumb sour face all day, for one thing. To say nothing of dealing with your terrible personality.”