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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/27/20

As you may know (and if you don’t buckle up because you are about to find out), I love etymologies. So, here’s a fun fact! In German, the word for “prince” (in the sense of “a sovereign ruler regardless of other title” rather than the sense of “the son of a king”) is “fürst.” Etymologically, this word means, quite literally, “the first,” as in the foremost person in the state; “fürst” and “first” also have the same etymological root, and are basically pronounced the same way, but because English always has to be fancy, we imported our word for the noble title from French, which in turn got it from the Latin word “princeps,” which also literally means “first.”

Anyway, I’m pointing this out mostly because of Jughaid’s “furst” in panel two, which is a prime example of the eye dialect used in this strip, designed to make the characters look like they’re speaking non-standard English even though the difference between “furst” and how anyone would pronounce “first” is negligible. And honestly, I’d like to believe that Jughaid is announcing that the Holy Roman Emperor had invested him in a small alpine principality with the status of imperial immediacy, and that he’ll be leaving the Holler behind to take possession of his new realm post-haste.

Beetle Bailey, 5/27/20

I woman I dated briefly years ago once said that it always made her cringe to see a couple both sitting on the same side of a table at a restaurant because she took it as a sign that the passion had gone out of their relationship, and while I definitely think that’s a sweeping overgeneralization, I admit I always think about it whenever I see people sitting like that. Anyway, I wonder what she’d think about a couple who’s sitting together on one side of the table at a restaurant and also one of them has fallen asleep face first onto their plate.

Gil Thorp, 5/27/20

Good news, everyone! Mike “The Mayor” has resigned himself to having his life destroyed for no good reason and has now come on down to see his old friends continue to play team sports, like he used to do. Anyway, would it be an appropriate response if he just whipped out a butter knife and started stabbling everyone to death with it? Well, no, no it wouldn’t. But would it work as narrative? Yeah, sure, probably.

The Lockhorns, 5/27/20

I know this isn’t the intended reading, but I am absolutely cackling at the thought of Leroy diligently printing out the “How To Fake Your Own Death” WikiHow article, which he’s now studying with more determination than we’ve ever seen him demonstrate in his entire life to this point.

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Beetle Bailey, 5/13/20

Literally every single one of Beetle Bailey’s running bits has been repeatedly done to death over the strip’s decades in print, with all possible variations mined for even trace amounts of humor, so I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that today’s edition of “Let’s crap on Lt. Fuzz” focuses on the fact that he gets more information via sound than smell. What a nerd, amiright?

Funky Winkerbean, 5/13/20

Look, Les, I do have a certain amount sympathy with … well, not with you, per se, but with anyone who finds themselves in the position of needing to perform some version of their genuine grief for professional reasons. But I guess you should’ve seen that coming when you decided to build your entire creative career and indeed your entire personality on the foundation of “I lost my young wife to cancer.” Now dance for the nice lady, Les! Dance! Weep real emotionally genuine tears if you want that sweet, sweet Hollywood cash!

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Beetle Bailey, 5/1/20

What’s your favorite incredibly wrong-headed aspect of this strip? For many, it will be the misguided implication that the cultural triumph of “nerd”-focused media like superhero franchises has upended society’s assessment of what is and isn’t sexually desirable. But I personally am a big fan of Killer wearing a v-neck sweater that somehow also has a shirt pocket on it.

Funky Winkerbean, 5/1/20

Speaking of the triumph of nerd-focused media, the Chinese market’s appetite for action flicks has definitely distorted the American film industry’s incentives in all sorts of troubling ways, but if that results in the new, gritty and realistic version of Lisa’s Story never getting off the ground, I for one am willing to forgive a lot.

Crock, 5/1/20

You know, sometimes you can actually forget that Crock is about a sadistic military officer who rules his colonial outpost as an unaccountable dictator, but then you get to a strip like today, when he forces one of his least favorite soldiers to eat a bowl full of rat meat.