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Beetle Bailey, 10/17/06

I don’t have contact with anyone in the army right now, so I have to assume that Beetle Bailey is an accurate picture of what life is like in the American military today — and a very troubling picture it is, too. I’m not sure what’s worse: Beetle stewing over getting punched in the face by his superior officer, the chaplain urging Beetle to just submit to the abuse, or the idea that a “turn the other cheek” philosophy makes for good soldiering. Beetle pointing to his bruise in the second panel looks like something out of a Lifetime movie about domestic violence starring Judith Light.

One Big Happy, 10/17/06

First pants-wetting jokes, now pants-crapping jokes. Let it never be said that One Big Happy doesn’t push the boundaries of acceptable child-centered family-newspaper comedy.

Judge Parker, 10/17/06

“Hoo hoo, Sam, look, if I put this cigar under my nose, it looks like a mustache! Hee hee! Isn’t that funny? Oh, wait, I forgot, you’re on the phone, you can’t see me.”

By the way, Sam came home from work this evening to find his wife wearing something low cut with a bottle of wine and a lit candle set out, glowing at him with a thousand-watt “let’s get it on” stare, and yet this is how his evening is ending. Maybe Reggie Black is onto something with his “not the marrying kind” smears against the Randy Parker campaign.

Mary Worth, 10/17/06

Oh my God, Mary Worth is the queen of bitch. “I’m sorry, were you still giving a second thought to what’s-his-name, with the mustache, whom we drove to his death? You pathetic, weak-kneed little fool. And now you’ve interrupted my favorite sex fantasy: you know, the one where Dr. Jeff Cory wants to have sex with me and I turn him down.” This heavy-handed shift is presumably meant to indicate that we’re ready for the next storyline, which will involve Dr. Jeff’s triumphant return from the exotic and cleft-palated east, but I’m still hoping that the ghost of Aldo will haunt the proceedings yet. Best case scenario: Jeff, newly awakened to a life of service and kindness to his fellow man by his trip to Cambodia, hears the description of Aldo’s doom and recoils in horror. “Why … you’re all a pack of murderers! Sociopaths!” He flees Charterstone in disgust, while the Fearsome Foursome stares on uncomprehending. “What’s his problem?” huffs Ian.

Gil Thorp, 10/17/06

I … I don’t know what this means, but … it seems kind of gay to me. “Stormy” needs your life-breathing-nipple-based heroism, Sean, whether you like it or not.

By the way, faithful reader/madman jonnya offers this hilarious instigation for you to buy crap from my store:

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Pluggers, 10/7/06

“Hi Cousin Mabel! How are things in California? What? 4:30 in the morning? No, I think you’re wrong, my watch says 7:30. ‘Time zone’? Oh, I forget that you crazy Californians always have to do things differently! Ha ha! Yeah, I know we go through this every time I call, but I just don’t understand why you silly liberals don’t get on real American time.”

Seriously, though, I can derive no other message from this strip other than “Pluggers will call you at a totally inappropriate time just to save a few cents a minute on long distance,” or, to put it more succinctly, “Pluggers are assholes.” I note that contributor Lauren Williams is herself an inhabitant of Santa Barbara, California, which is one of the lower plugger-density cities in America, so I have to assume that she’s not admiring the plugger’s thrifty ways but rather attempting to publicly humiliate her plugger relatives who call her in the dead of night. Sorry, Lauren, but you should know by now that pluggers don’t feel any shame.

Judge Parker, 10/7/06

Yeah, Raju’s going to have a pretty awesome time at that party, all right.

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Apartment 3-G, 10/3/06

Wow, for a strip that had to tiptoe its way around what was blatantly supposed to be an extramarital fling a few months ago, Apartment 3-G sure seems to have enthusiastically transformed itself into a Viagra commercial today. I like the way Margo and the Professor are all smiles throughout the exchange, to show that Margo’s impotence cracks are all in good fun. Gina, meanwhile, looks suddenly concerned in panel two, as if she hadn’t considered this possible downside to her old-man-snagging ways.

Beetle Bailey, 10/3/06

Ha, ha, it’s funny because General Halftrack and Beetle are both cowards! But is it also a cutting commentary on the array of active and retired generals who have questioned Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s leadership in the Iraq war? Who says it can’t be both! Well, I do, because this is Beetle Bailey, so it’s really only the first thing. Except for the “funny” part.

Fox Trot, 10/3/06

The interlinked man-woman symbol pendant is a nice touch, and the “beetle music” line is groanworthy, but neither should distract from the fact that Jason is using his iguana as a prop to hit on his mom. Ick. And ick.

Mark Trail, 10/3/06

OK, arrow-ass-bear-whose-arrow-seems-to-have-mysteriously-disappeared-but-we-know-it’s-still-you-probably, you need to remember that you are a vicious, 1,000-pound beast, with flesh-tearing fangs and razor-sharp claws. The fact that you allowed this pasty, defenseless, hairless ape to bop you on the snout with a tree limb — as if you were a dog to be chastised with a rolled-up newspaper! — and ran away, leaving all of the human’s internal organs safely inside his body, brings shame to all wild bears everywhere. You’re not expected to try to understand the hostility towards you, just react to it with savage carnage.

Judge Parker, 10/3/06

GAYEST. JUDGE PARKER. EVER.