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Beetle Bailey, 7/11/26

The thing about the daily comics is that they’re still drawn as if the black and white version is canonical, even though probably most people who read them now see them online, in color. That means that if you want your imagined audience to know that Sgt. Luggs really dolled herself up for this date only to be humiliated by Sarge’s combo gluttony/cheapness, you have to draw her lipstick in black, even though you’ll give online readers the impression that she’s “gone goth” in an attempt to distract Sarge from his pathological need for food (it didn’t work).

Hi and Lois, 7/11/26

Genuinely love that Lois just had the Flagston home inkjet printer spit “NO JUNK FOOD” in 490 point font out and handed it to Hi on his way to the supermarket. I assume he doesn’t even have a list beyond this. “Just follow your instincts and then buy the opposite,” she said.

Crankshaft, 7/11/26

Real talk: I have zero idea who these people are supposed to be. Is it Mopey Pete and Mindy, and he’s put on a lot of weight in the last year and she’s caught whatever he has that causes the visible eyebags? Or are they day players, hired because everyone in the regular cast steadfastly refused to deliver the line “I’m glad we went with Harry to that abandoned amusement park today”?

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Mary Worth, 7/5/26

For years, one action item has popped up repeatedly in Charterstone condo association meetings: replacing the doors on the apartments, because they’re cheap and thin and easy to hear through. “Anyone walking by can snoop on your conversations!” residents complain. “Well, we’re going to have the improvements subcommittee look into that,” Association President Mary Worth says. “We’ll need to research new doors that can offer more privacy, but won’t cost too much — after all, a big expenditure like this could cause your association fees to skyrocket! And then we need to find a reliable contractor, of course.” In reality, there is no “improvements subcommittee,” and Mary has no intention of taking away one of her prime tools for assessing when her meddling intervention might be required. And now poor Tommy is paying the price, hearing something that nobody should ever have to hear: Wilbur Weston, of all people, shit-talking him.

Crankshaft, 7/5/26

I referred to the Starlight Ballroom (in Chippewa Lake Park) as “bombed out” the other day, and was mostly joking, but, uh. This panel pretty much makes it look like a bit of loredumping background detail in a post-apocalyptic movie, a monument to a dead but once-great civilization (ours) tagged with some of the most depressing lyrics penned by the Kinks (people living in post-apocalyptic ages love doing pointed, arch graffiti that caters to Boomer cultural knowledge, this is just science).

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/5/26

Boy, wow, Rex and June both seem real intense about the twins’ extremely low-level “scam,” huh? Almost like they’ve been fleeced by more ambitious scams before and are very bitter about it. Well, have they considered that if they provided goods and services worthy of repeat business, they wouldn’t have been grifted in the first place? The twins are happy to hand over hard-earned (via scamming) money to Jordan in exchange for his delicious food, so maybe the Morgans just aren’t operating at a don’t-get-scammed level.

Dick Tracy, 7/5/26

So the mysterious hacker gang members are named “Wallhack,” “Lootbox,” and “Widescreen”? Come on. Come on. I’m a 51-year-old man and the last video game I was fixated on was Civilization II and even I can immediately tell how incredibly cringe this all is. And Widescreen should have a big wide flat head, to match his name. Come on! This is Dick Tracy, have some self-respect.

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Crankshaft, 7/3/26

Ugh, fine, I guess I’ll update you on what’s going on in this Crankshaft flashback: Harry Dinkle’s drunk dad was all set to debut a new song at the Starlight Ballroom, but then nobody showed up because they all liked Elvis now, and he threw the sheet music to the ground and stormed off, and later Eugene and Lucy picked it up. Anyway, then Dinkle Sr. drove away in a white-hot rage right into the lake, where he died! “That’s how he would’ve wanted to go out,” says Harry, about to play his father’s last song in the bombed-out ruins of the Starlight Ballroom. “At a real emotional low point.”

Judge Parker, 7/3/26

Hey, remember the early days of my coverage of this strip, when Sophie was a weird, unsettlingly adult-like child? Well, Neddie has scooted off to take a Hollywood meeting (you can tell because of the sunglasses) with her former roommate/writing partner and left Sophie in charge of Charlotte, who is the strip’s current weird, unsettling adult-like child, I guess to help her learn that someday she’ll grow up and become as normal and annoying as everyone else in this strip.

Crock, 7/3/26

Wow, a nose so big a maître d’ mistakes it for an entirely separate person? Can you imagine? That’s definitely the sort of thing that would lead someone to seek cosmetic surgery!