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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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Blondie, 7/4/20

There’s been an uptick in Alexa jokes in the comics lately, which I assume can be chalked up to the fact that digital assistants are now common enough to be more or less universally familiar, but novel enough to still be a little strange, basically exactly where iPods were in 2006. Still, I do always wonder about the possibility of paid product placement. Amazon is one of the most powerful and wealthy corporations in the history of the human race, and while a lot of people would argue about whether it’s possible to have too much money, I think we could agree that having so much money that you can spare some on advertising in Blondie is a bad sign.

Mark Trail, 7/4/20

Hey, remember a few years back when Mark adamantly defended magazine writing as “a good career for me to provide for my family?” Well, fuck that noise, he’s got a chance to sell out to Hollywood and he’s taking it.

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Blondie, 7/1/20

Today is a day when we get a particularly good look at Dagwood’s flesh-turtlenecky, which is a thing I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about over the years, like wondering if Dagwood has skinned another human being and turned their flesh into a ritual garment, or if this is a Portrait of Dorian Gray situation except instead of a painting aging it’s Dagwood’s torso that becomes increasingly wrinkled and leathery while his face and arms remain smooth and youthful. Anyway, the whole conversation in today’s strip seems really unlikely — why wouldn’t Dagwood say the actual name of the sportscaster he supposedly resembles, for one thing — and it seems more realistic to me to imagine that what’s really bothering him is that someone asked him “Hey, what’s up with your fuckin’ neck, man?”

Funky Winkerbean, 7/1/20

“Also, I’m not really retired! I mean, people say I am but I keep showing up to work so I must not be? So I don’t think I’m the right guy to answer this question for you.”