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Beetle Bailey, 12/12/23

One of the whole points of Beetle Bailey is that the title character is lazy. Or, I guess if we’re being more charitable, despite the fact that he’s enlisted in the notoriously hierarchical U.S. Army, we could say he simply refuses to do things that he doesn’t feel like doing, even if he’s ordered to do so — that he’s “somebody who’s caught in the system that they have to resist in order to exist,” in one of Mort Walker’s more poetic descriptions of his most famous creation. This is all well and good and honestly entertaining when Beetle is refusing to peel potatoes or mop the floor or whatever make-work tasks Camp Swampy has on offer; but today’s strip, which features an terribly injured man trapped in a burning car, his dog howling out in desperate hope that someone can help his master before he dies in one of the most horrifying ways imaginable, makes Beetle’s bit of doing a real half-assed job at everything, including providing or calling for assistance in an emergency, somewhat less comical.

Mary Worth, 12/12/23

Who’s the worst possible person to try to introduce to the idea of a polycule, and what’s the worst possible way to do it? I’m tentatively going to go with “Keith” and “like this.”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/25/23

Well, the Harwoods are going to feel pretty foolish when they learn that it wasn’t Rene’s high-powered lawyers that got him sprung out of jail. The cynical answer isn’t always the correct one, guys! Now, it is true in fact he’s free because he’s using the Mirakle Method to build an army of hypnotized disciples, some of whom are in highly placed positions of power, who will follow his every whim, but I say we should wait a bit to see how that plays out before we get too worried about it.

The Lockhorns, 11/25/23

This is the sort of statment that you would expect someone to deliver with a wistful sigh, and what makes Leroy Leroy and makes the Lockhorns great is that instead he’s just seething. Stupid highway full of assholes. Stupid Robert Frost and his stupid poetry, planted in the lyric and narrative traditions while pointing the way towards modernism! Screw him! Two roads diverged in a yellow wood my ass.

Beetle Bailey, 11/25/23

Some people will tell you that America’s military budget is hopeless bloated. But I for one would be willing to pay higher taxes if it means that our brave soldiers could have decent internet access so they could access high-quality streaming pornography and didn’t have to jerk off to annotated romance novels. I just respect the troops that much.

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Gil Thorp, 11/21/23

Hey, remember earlier this year, when Gil Thorp did a ripped from the headlines story about about a player who got terribly hurt during a game, only unlike the headlines, where professional athletes refused to return to play, the high school students were forced to forced to finish the game while their friend might’ve been dying? Well, looks like it’s happening again, and this time the injured student is Coach Luke’s son, still playing for Valley Tech even after his dad had to take a job working for his hated rival Gil Thorp. Why do these gruesome injuries keep happening to Valley Conference players? Probably for the same reason that the games continue after the kids are medivac’d off the field: because none of the adults involved care whether the student-athletes live or die.

Mary Worth, 11/21/23

“Did you know that this huge, beefy hunk is also a man-whore, who has impregnated at least one woman, via sex? Do with that information what you will, though if what you’re going to do with it is masturbation or dissociative fantasies during your thrice annual marital encounter with Ian, please feel free not to tell me.”

Beetle Bailey, 11/21/23

I know Beetle is using “neat” in the first panel to mean “tidy” but it’s hard for me to not read it as just “good” in general. He likes beds! He spends a lot of time in them, and has come to appreciate the ones that are especially interesting or high-quality.

Hagar the Horrible, 11/21/23

Hagar and his warriors have all suffered battle wounds during their latest raid, and their loved ones are waiting for them as they return to Norway, doing their best to nurse them back to health. That’s not a joke or anything, just a thing that’s happening in this comic strip!