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Archive: Beetle Bailey

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It’s funny because he uses alcohol to numb his emotional pain

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Beetle Bailey, 3/28/20

Lots of people, me included, criticize legacy strips like Beetle Bailey for just going back to the same well over and over again. But I want to recognize the fact that they can be innovative too, often refining established joke premises into sharper and sharper barbs. Take this strip’s now beloved weekly regular, “The Halftracks Hate Each Other.” Today’s installment really presents us with a harrowing and baroque version of what’s usually a quick and savage interaction: Amos sitting in a bar drinking himself blotto, with every sip reported back to his wife, who’s no doubt lying in bed alone, staring at her phone and getting more incandescently angry and bereft with every text. I personally feel like I will never be warm again after reading this!

Gil Thorp, 3/28/20

Oh man, remember how this Gil Thorp storyline began with jokes about how annoying it would be to have the same name as a popular digital assistant? Well, guess how it’s ending! Let’s please do something dumb about baseball starting Monday and never speak of any of this again.

Dustin, 3/28/20

Dustin was of course created to specifically poke fun at the tensions between millennials (who suck) and baby boomers (who … don’t, apparently?), but that doesn’t mean it can’t also take on some more universal truths, specifically that women be shopping. Throughout time, in every nation, across generations: Women. Be. Shopping.

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Sunday quickies

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Beetle Bailey, 3/1/20

I don’t think anyone was surprised that Sgt. Snorkel got fragged; but certainly nobody expected it to be pulled off so subtly.

Daddy Daze, 3/1/20

Ha ha, it’s funny because infancy is an awful prison, but parenthood is an awful prison that lasts forever!

Hi and Lois, 3/1/20

Are … are Hi and Lois and the kids gonna die?

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Beetle tries futilely to punch the very concept of “daytime”

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The Phantom, 2/23/20

In the Sunday Phantom storyline, our hero is taking his daughter on a trip down memory lane (if you’re a Phantom or Phantom-adjacent, a “trip down memory lane” is your dad reading from a musty old journal while you sit in a creepy cave full of tombs) to teach her about her heroic Phantom ancestors. Did you know the 13th Phantom helped defeat Napoleon? This might seem a little far afield from the Phantom’s remit to fight against piracy, but surely by aiding the British and their Empire this hero helped defend his African home … wait, what’s that you say? Well, hmm, maybe he would’ve been smarter to let the French win, and … huh, that wouldn’t have helped either? Well gosh, our hero certainly was in a pickle, wasn’t he. Might as well stick it to Napoleon, I guess!

Funky Winkerbean, 2/23/20

I’ve always found the title Mozart In The Jungle to be so goofy that I’ve worked hard to learn as little as possible about the show, just because I want to savor that name out of context. But now? Now that I’ve seen Holly suggest it as tonight’s viewing, as she flashes bedroom eyes at Funky? Now it’s forever tainted to me. I still don’t want to learn anything about the show, but mainly because I fear it will cause me to have reason to think back upon today’s Funky Winkerbean, which can only depress me.

Beetle Bailey, 2/23/20

Beetle will only be satisfied by the eternal darkness … of the grave.