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Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/26/11

Oh, thank goodness, this tortuous negotiation is over. Berna will go to Rex and June’s financial advisor, “Dex,” who will be Rex wearing a fake mustache and speaking in a comical fake British accent, and who will urge her to invest her lottery winnings in the series of Cayman Islands-based shell corporations that Rex and June have set up for just this sort of eventuality. With that settled, Rex will go and deign to spend five minutes with whatever patient has been coughing his or her lungs out in the waiting room for the last hour.

Shoe, 1/26/11

Well, that’s because doing homework is an essentially boring activity to look at, and television as a medium is all about visual excitement! The comics, by contrast, seem to feature child characters doing their homework all the time. This … this could be relevant to the state of the medium.

Dennis the Menace, 1/26/11

Dennis refusing to join Margaret in a little light necromancy? Definitely non-menacing.

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Beetle Bailey, 1/23/11

This is, without doubt, the saddest Beetle Bailey I’ve ever seen, sadder than all the “Beetle and Sarge have a forbidden love for one another” strips combined. Never mind the fact that Beetle’s family lives in some kind of bygone day when hand-written letters constitute the only means of communication at a distance; Beetle’s brother’s speculation that the soldier no longer loves his family is all the more heartbreaking for being so matter-of-fact. But the real emotional gut punch comes in the final panel. Little Chigger is young or stupid enough to think that the mere receipt of a letter is enough to maintain the emotional ties within the Bailey family; but the expressions on the faces of his parents show how devastated they are by Beetle’s affectless, demanding letter. They’ll send the money — if that’s the only way they can keep the thin thread between themselves and their son in place, they’ll do it — but something inside them has been snuffed out.

As a side note: Beetle’s brother is named “Chigger”? Really? As you may or may not know, Hi and Lois‘s Lois is Beetle’s sister, so we have to wonder what her real name was — Ladybug? — before she got married and fled this sad, creepy family for good.

Crankshaft, 1/23/11

Oh, look, it’s another cheery day in the Funkyverse. Today, we learn that you can either be driven mad by the horrible scratching of the vermin that live in your walls, or you can turn up the TV and be deafened with awful news about our nation’s economic crisis. Those are your choices!

Panel from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/23/11

Here’s the question I want to ask, doctor: why are you having Loweezy lower Li’l Tater into that enormous pie shell? How many more infants will you need to complete your monstrous baby pie, and who will be eating it?

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 1/23/11

Ah, the narcotic of television sedates unruly children and elders alike, putting them into a trance-like state so that they won’t bother you with their irritating opinions or desires. I preserve the first panel here mainly to note that Dennis the Menace has finally caught up to 1999, with unsettling results.

Hagar the Horrible, 1/23/11

Ha ha, it’s funny because spending time doing things with your wife that she enjoys is worse than the most heinous physical torture!

Hi and Lois, 1/23/11

Ha ha, it’s funny because an open and honest relationship with your wife will be seen by your male friends as a betrayal!

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It’s Thanksgiving in the United States, everybody! What are you thankful for?

Mary Worth, 11/25/10

Are you thankful that some terrible combination of painkillers and terror hasn’t led you to make an ill-advised proposal of marriage to Mary Worth?

Dick Tracy, 11/25/10

Are you thankful that Dick Tracy is finally going to take on the killer whose name everyone knows — the police? (“My God, 911 is a joke!” Dick muses.)

Dennis the Menace, 11/25/10

Are you thankful that you’re not forced to drink glasses of gravy, like Dennis and Joey? I’m not. I’m sad that I’m not allowed to do so. Enjoy your gravy, everybody!