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Beetle Bailey, 6/6/18

May 27, 1994: the day the Pentagon ordered General Halftrack’s troops to prepare to be deployed to support Operation Deny Flight in the Balkans, and, receiving no reply, determined that the existence of “Camp Swampy” in their records must be some kind of clerical error.

Crock, 6/6/18

It’s fairly grim that Schmeese has spent years tied to a post, awaiting the imminent execution by firing squad that never seems to come, and I’m glad to see Lt. Poulet acknowledge that this is just part of a larger pathology on the part of the Legion — that a seeming eternity engaged in this grinding colonial war has driven him and his fellow soldiers mad and capable of any kind of cruelty.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/6/18

Never has the process of creating art and the final artistic creation itself dovetailed so closely together as they do in the “Claude Barlow” Funky Winkerbean strips, in which a man writes truly awful puns and then smirks to himself in unbearable self-satisfaction.

Judge Parker, 6/6/18

“Plus we hear you’re fucking Randy Parker, and that’s gotta be a great way to get the inside info you need to break some stories, right?”

Family Circus, 6/6/18

The fact that this panel doesn’t depict Jeffy attempting to eat the candle just shows that the Family Circus lacks the courage of its convictions

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Family Circus, 5/17/18

I feel reasonably confident in asserting that this art is repurposed with only the punchline changed to be more “contemporary,” which of course leads me to wonder what the captions were for the innumerable previous times it ran. Here are my best guesses:

• 2009: “I wonder if Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall because he couldn’t believe the 3-D effects of the hit movie Avatar.”
• 2001: “I wonder if Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall because he forgot 9/11 and didn’t support our troops.”
• 1993: “I wonder if Humpty Dumpty fell of the wall because he was busy doing the Macarena.”
• 1985: “I pity the fool who falls off a wall!”
• 1979: “I wonder if Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall because of” [checks Wikipedia] “stagflation and the Iran Hostage Crisis.”
• 1974: “You know who was a real bad egg? Richard Nixon!”
• 1968: “Daddy says if you don’t vote for Nixon you’re probably a Communist, just like that stupid egg that fell off the wall.”
• 1960: “I wonder if Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall because he he drank too much of the soda Daddy keeps in his pocket!”

The Lockhorns, 5/17/18

Sure, we all know the Lockhorns will go to any length in their attempt to destroy one another emotionally. But violating HIPAA? Too far, Loretta. Too far.

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Shoe, 5/12/18

Today’s Shoe is one of those strips that really drives home the care that’s been put into coming up with grotesque chimeric body plans for the strip’s bird-people characters. There’s something in particular about putting clothes on them that drives it home: the Perfesser, in particular, is very obviously not wearing pants, as that would make the fan of tail feathers emerging from his suit jacket impossible; one must assume, in panel one, that his tie, too long for human fashion, is in fact meant to be decorously draped over his bird-junk. His “sexy” interlocutor, in constrast, exhibits a number of mammalian characteristics — not just the hourglass figure, but the long cascade of hair, plus the feminine eyelashes protruding so far from her face that they’re visible when her eyes are not, though their very troubling length seems to imply that they’re fake. Maybe her hair is too! Maybe all the non-bird-features on these creatures are in fact cosmetics or surgical enhancements, adding status in their weird bird society! God, this strip is an endless nightmare.

Mark Trail, 5/12/18

I guess I’ve made my peace with the fact that Mark and Cherry showing off their hot bods is something this strip is going to do from time to time, but I will not sit back and accept the fact that Rusty is ripped. When he looked like Ted Cruz but somehow also handsome that was bad enough, but those pecs? Too far.

Family Circus, 5/12/18

“Instead of a heart, I drew a circle because all our misshapen human organs will be replaced by a powerful, glowing orb when The Change comes!”