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Mary Worth, 6/21/22

One of the minor world-building things in the Star Wars movies that has always bothered me is how languages work. The humans speak English with each other (side note: I’m sure there are specific in-universe Star Wars terms for “humans” and “English” but I absolutely refuse to look them up); some of the droids and aliens (ditto in-universe Star Wars term for “alien”) also speak English, but then some of the aliens and droids speak gibberish and beep-boop, respectively, but humans can understand them and they can understand humans; yet other times, English and gibberish/beep-boop speakers can’t understand each other, and C3PO or whoever needs to translate. Also, sometimes the gibberish gets subtitles and sometimes it doesn’t, but I think that’s a narrative choice that isn’t meant to represent anything in-universe.

Anyway, my point is that it’s kind of interesting to see Jared addressing his cat as “Mister Solo” and the cat responding in what might as well be alien gibberish that he appears/pretends to understand, which makes me think it would be fun to do an alternate dub of the Star Wars cross-language scenes where the aliens are speaking in English and humans like Han Solo are speaking in gibberish. Thinking about this has both expanded my mind about how communication works in real life vs. fiction, and a franchise that despite its missteps I still have a lot of affection for, and has distracted me from the actual content of this storyline, which is “My boyfriend put me in the hospital but the PA who tended to my injuries was so nice I got horny for him and am going to break up his relationship.”

Dustin, 6/21/22

Speaking of unpleasant horniness, there are a lot of Dustins where Dustin tries and fails to pick up women, but honestly they really just feel like he’s going through the motions — he’s doing it because he thinks he’s supposed to, not driven by any particular romantic or sexual desire. Sadly, our first real encounter with Dustin’s sexuality occurs today, and it takes the form of him talking to his father about how sure, ballet is for nerds, but at least you get to see a bunch of sexy gals in tight-fitting clothes, eh? Eh? You can sit there in your tuxedo with a boner, thinking about banging a ballerina? There are no good Dustin characters, is what I’m saying, and you can sympathize with Dustin for being the strip’s strawman terrible young person character while acknowledging that he is also terrible in every other capacity as well.

Curtis, 6/21/22

Speaking of unpleasant horniness, is June the official month for accidentally walking in on middle-aged dudes in the shower? Like, did a memo go out about it? Will this memo be used at a future civil trial for emotional distress, hopefully?

Beetle Bailey, 6/21/22

But …… it’s not a false alarm at all? Because he is not, in fact, wearing a hat? Perms don’t go “over” hats? That’s now how perms work????? Honestly, we make fun of the Camp Swampy soldiers for never actually being deployed into combat, but I feel like not knowing what “false alarm” means illustrates just what a liability in wartime they would be.

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Crock, 6/13/22

Crock has been in perpetual reruns ever since its creator died and his son decided that doing the thing so many people in this industry do where they continue putting out their father’s strip would be not that much fun, actually, so despite the up-to-date dates on these they were all published years or decades ago. Generally this doesn’t matter much because Crock is “timeless” (detached from any kind of reality as we know it so it can indulge in its elaborately unfunny internal universe) but every once in a while you get a strip like this, with an out-of-nowhere SLAM on some long-irrelevant bit of pop culture detritus. The big question here: is this a wholly justified attack on The Da Vinci Code, the novel from 2003, or on The Da Vinci Code, the movie from 2006? And is its selection as the rerun strip for today meant as an attack on The Da Vinci Code, a stage play that will be running in London for most of this year, or is that just a coincidence? (Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon would, of course, say there are no such thing as coincidences.)

Curtis, 6/13/22

Speaking of out-of-nowhere slams, Curtis has this intermittent running bit where Curtis wildly overestimates the edginess of some webcomic and it feels like a beef with a specific webcomic but I’m not sure which one? I hope they’re aware of Curtis’s laser focus on them, though. I hope they opened the comics pages today and saw Curtis saying to them “Are you just doing Crankshaft jokes? We already have a Crankshaft, buddy, we don’t need you” and felt that burn deep in their soul.

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Beetle Bailey, 5/3/22

Man, I really respect the second panel here for unleashing the full-throttle refusal to give a shit that makes Beetle Bailey the strip we all know and read every day for some reason. Just a bunch of people, some of whom we know and some we don’t, standing around a … void? with no furniture? because that’s what a “rec room” is, in the army? I guess???? Anyway, the fact that everyone’s facial expressions range from mild excitement to vague annoyance is just icing on the cake. Bravo, it doesn’t get more Beetle Bailey vibes than this.

Curtis, 5/3/22

“Ignorant,” Curtis? Derrick and Onion clearly paid attention in class when you were supposed to be learning about Greek mythology, which is more than you can say.

Dick Tracy, 5/3/22

“Yes, your honor, we have Stuntman Mike’s evidence on this. No, I don’t know his last name. I don’t know if he’s actually a stuntman, either. I only talk to him on the computer and his face is always blurred out. Look, are you going to give me a no-knock warrant to raid this day care center or am I going to have to start leaking to the press that you’re a soft-on-crime lib the next time you’re up for re-election?”