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Beetle Bailey, 4/1/10

It’s frankly time to confront the crucial question that I’ve been avoiding for the entire history of this blog, namely: What kind of terrifying man-beast is Beetle Bailey’s Cookie? At first glance, his character design may appear to be nothing more than “Sarge in a chef’s outfit”; thus, it would seem advisable to keep the two characters from sharing panel space so as to not call attention to this fact, but remorseless narrative logic impels Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC to create scenarios in which notorious binger Sarge heads down to Cookie’s mess hall, for food. Anyway, seeing the two of them together leads one to contemplate the differences between them, the primary one being the hair. Specifically, the … shoulder hair? I’m a pretty hairy dude, I’m not going to lie to you, but last I checked I didn’t have two big tufts of, ugh, flesh-colored hair concentrated on my shoulders, up there at the top of my otherwise smooth, hairless arms. Nobody does, in fact, because that’s not generally how hair grows on humans, which brings us back to our initial question about Cookie, who is some kind of horrible abomination, gross, and thanks, Walker-Browne AHI LLC, for writing a gag that literally forces us to contemplate this freak’s body hair, and the places where it does and does not grow.

And what about his ears? His bizarrely plump ears? Eaaaaauuurrghhh.

Funky Winkerbean, 4/1/10

Naturally, there is only so much room for happiness in the soul-crushing Funkyverse, which means that anyone’s even modest triumph must displace the proud achievements of others in a terrible zero-sum game. The supply of misery, of course, is infinite.

Dennis the Menace, 4/1/10

In a particularly non-menacing display, Dennis plays on April Fools’ Days joke on Mr. Wilson that involves not vandalizing his car. Those brake lines better be cut, kid.

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Family Circus, 1/24/10

I’m pretty sure that the panels here have been both mislabelled and put in the wrong order. Our story begins in panel two, which is the moment when Mommy realizes that she needs to leave her kiddie-vomit-smeared life behind her, forever. In panel one, she wakes up alone in a single bed in some fleabag hotel, grateful to be forever free of her suffocating family. Among the responsibilities she’s left behind is hygeine, and in panel three her fellow elevator passengers take disapproving note of her noticable body odor. To her, that funk smells like freedom, sweet freedom.

Beetle Bailey, 1/24/10

The reasons why the soldiers of Camp Swampy would want to stand by and cheer as their seargant suffers physical pain should be obvious. But what’s with the rigamarole with his being ordered into the dentist chair? Does it serve any purpose other than to turn the perfectly servicable daily strip represented by the bottom row of panels into a Sunday strip? My guess is that odor of Sarge’s decaying teeth and putrefying gums was becoming so noticeable and distracting that his dental health had to be improved in the interest of maintaining unit cohesion.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/24/10

“Yeah, you kids today and your moral ambiguity! In our days, heroes were heroic, like Speedball, who’s named after an awesome combination of heroin and cocaine!”

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 1/24/10

Sorry, Dennis, the only way these lines might qualify as “menacing” would be if afterwards you headed down to the graveyard to find some well preserved corpse bits to piece together.

Panels from Rex Morgan, M.D., and Judge Parker, 1/24/10

Fun fact that newcomers to the soap opera comic scene might not know: Judge Parker and Rex Morgan have different artists, but are both written by the same guy, Woody Wilson. I’m assuming that his scripts for both strips today included prominent use of the phrase “ass crack.”

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Gil Thorp, 1/14/10

Feast your eyes on panel one, everybody, because you’ll see that rarest of sights: Coach Thorp engaged in actual coaching! Assuming, of course, that you consider responding to desperate pleas for guidance with irritating, unhelpful gnomic pronouncements to constitute “coaching,” which, you know, Gil clearly does!

Since it includes the creepy, menacing figure of Steve Luhm sitting in the bleachers, panel one is also setting up an extremely common Gil Thorp sight: Gil finding some random community member who’s willing to take on coaching duties (without pay, naturally). First it was the mother of a member of the girl’s basketball team, who couldn’t stop shouting suggestions from the stands; then it was some crazy old man who just started showing up at baseball practice one day; so now, sure, let’s let the janitor do it, why not. And what intriguing advice he has! Micah, the key to basketball glory is to be loud and obnoxious, like your sister! You know, one I was just hitting on! Yes, you’re right to be sweating freely.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/14/10

OK, this is officially the saddest and weirdest Funky Winkerbean yet, and it’s a strip that pretty much specializes in sad and weird. “Crazy” Harry lives up to his nickname, telling Mopey Pete that only here in this dingy pizza parlor is he allowed to verbalize any happiness whatsoever, because otherwise They will have some kind of unspecified but unpleasant vengeance to dish out. Briefly he imagines himself to be Linus in the pumpkin patch, with … an expression of happiness being insincerity, and the “happiness police” being the Great Pumpkin, I guess? Point is, the guy’s clearly insane, but somehow this rambling madness will convince Pete that Montoni’s is the place where he wants to wile away the time until his death from a massive coronary.

Mary Worth, 1/14/10

Meanwhile, over in the comic strip that specializes in weird and hilarious, we finally learn what drove apart Wilbur and Abby: a sinister gang of scowling pompadoured Richie Riches. Look at them, striding around with their jackets on and their collars defiantly open! What free-spirited young lady (or dead-eyed zombie, if panel two is an accurate depiction) could resist them, even she was already carrying another man’s child? Particularly if it was an unlikeable, Wilbury man’s child?

Panel from Apartment 3-G, 1/14/10

I’ll tell you right now: I’m kind of a fan of classic old radiators! We have them in our house, and I love ’em! And Bobbie, those radiators are nothing special. Come on, there’s not even any decorative work on the metal! Also, I used to kind of be a fan of crazy ladies! And relationships with them generally lead nowhere good. So I think “Um” is really the best response in this situation.