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Beetle Bailey, 8/4/20

It’s bad new for the General that the “Halftracks hate each other” bits seems to have fully detached from their usual scheduled weekend slot and are now just popping up on any old day. It’s great news for me, though, because I’m a black-hearted sadist who can’t get enough of these gags! Anyway, today’s joke is that even sleep cannot free General Halftrack from the all-consuming psychic pain that his marriage causes him; only alcohol’s consciousness-obliterating powers can do that, and only briefly.

The Lockhorns, 8/4/20

Speaking of marital misanthropy, the rather abstract Lockhorns art style makes it difficult to really convey the sort of grunge you actually want a cleaning person to take care of — does anyone actually pay someone to pick a couch cushion off the floor? — but honestly I’m reasonably sure the Lockhorns don’t have a cleaning lady, and that the “cleaning lady” is like George and Martha’s fake son in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with Loretta bringing her up every time the papers start piling up.

Funk Winkerbean, 8/4/20

[clapping excitedly] EVERYBODY’S GONNA DIE

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/2/20

Man, Funky Winkerbean is really going for it with this fire, huh? This strip strongly reminds me of one from 2009 (note to self: embark on a rigorous journey of self-discovery to learn why I have instant recall of eleven-year-old Funky Winkerbeans) where Funky gets a text from his doctor about his cancerous prostate while a TV in the background drones on about the collapse of the economy. Today’s strip has a different vibe, though, in that the foreground action is actually upbeat for once. I’m assuming that everyone’s happiness is going to be upended when the fire destroys, you know, everything, but it would be kind of funny if we never hear about it again, but we should just keep in mind that it was there during a happy moment, like a skull hidden in the corner of a painting from one of the Dutch Masters to remind us of our own looming mortality.

Judge Parker, 8/2/20

I’m not really sure if calling the wife of one of your opponent’s primary backers is the “obvious angle,” actually, but I guess I’m only beginning to appreciate how byzantine and vicious the politics are of a small suburban town in Connecticut (?), where I assume the primary job of the municipal government is to negotiate contracts for snowplowing services.

Mary Worth, 8/2/20

Aww, despite her initial hostility, Madi has finally made friends with both Mary and Greta. Will she also bond with Saul? I hope not! I hope she keeps leaving her clothes all over his condo for the next three months, until her CIA assassin dad comes back to collect her!

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Funky Winkerbean, 8/1/20

So earlier this week in Funky Winkerbean, a bunch of characters we’ve never seen before were playing golf, which I did not comment on because (a) golf, snooze and (b) how can I hate these people I barely know and what’s the point of discussing Funky Winkerbean anymore if isn’t about how much I hate someone in the strip? But anyway there was a panel where someone hit a ball from the rough and caused a few sparks, then we cut away for some Starbuck Jones film talk (SNOOZE) and now … there’s a fire? A big fire. It’s gonna burn everything. All of Hollywood? Will both the new Starbucks Jones movie and Lisa’s Story be delayed, or cancelled, by the conflagration? You have my attention, cleansing flame. You have my attention.

Crock, 8/1/20

Huh, we all thought that Crock took place during the French colonial occupation of Algeria, but maybe it’s … actually in Iraq in the early ’00s? Sad that the conflict has so isolated Grossie and Maggot from the outside world that their only source of news is a bunch of 8 by 11 sheets of paper tacked up on a wall somewhere.