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Beetle Bailey, 4/4/23

I think an underrated and probably quite realistic aspect of Beetle Bailey is that its motley crew of characters, thrown together by their duty to the military and forced to spend almost all their time with one another, for the most part don’t really care for each other and their relationships could degenerate into open brawling with very little provocation.

The Lockhorns, 4/4/23

It gives me no pleasure to say that this panel does not live up, in my opinion, to The Lockhorns’ usually high quality standards. There’s nothing realistic Loretta could’ve said that text-to-speak would’ve botched into the names of these objects, and I feel the choices of what we’re seeing are aiming for an “LOL so random” vibe that is not what we come here for. That said, it is very in character for Leroy to not ask for clarification but to instead buy all of these obviously incorrect items, perhaps spending his entire day going from store to store looking for them, just to come home and rub Loretta’s mistake in her face.

Blondie, 4/4/23

I don’t really have strong feelings about panels two or three of today’s Blondie. But the first panel? The one where a stone-faced news anchor announces “National Humor Month” next to a smiley-face graphic, while a curmudgeonly old man says “Humor month?! With all the problems in the world today?” It’s perfection. No notes.

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Hi and Lois, 3/30/23

“Oh, are you giddy with anticipation over a fresh new year, full of infinite possibilities? Well, have you considered that, since those possibilities are truly infinite, some of them … are bad, actually? That you could experience lows almost as intense as the highs you’re experiencing now, and indeed have, just as recently as last year? Just a thought to leave you with, I’m going to go ruin somebody’s else’s week now. Maybe I’ll tell Trixie that the sun is millions of miles away and doesn’t think about her at all!”

Mary Worth, 3/30/23

I was about to yell “STOP TALKING ABOUT EUTHANIZING PETS ON DATES, ED” at our poor burned out doctor, but you know what? The last date these two had, he couldn’t shut up about euthanizing pets, and then he tried to blow her off and she basically begged him for another one, so I guess he knows what he’s doing.

The Lockhorns, 3/30/23

Holy crap — Leroy whined about the ability of his cell phone to accommodate the fact that he uses it constantly and someone (presumably a Baby Boomer) tried to burn him by handing him an old landline phone? Folks … you’d better believe that the Lockhorns are Millennials.

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Blondie, 3/29/23

I’ve always been a “work at home in my pajamas” guy rather than a “carpool” guy, but my understanding is that carpools that consist of the same people generally follow the same route every day, so I’m honestly not sure why Herb needs directions suddenly. I guess there could be a detour or something and this could end up like one of those ’80s/’90s exploitation thrillers (usually called something like DETOUR) where innocent middle-class types take a wrong turn into the wrong neighborhood and suddenly have to fight for their lives against the criminal element. That honestly seems more likely than, say, any of these losers somehow getting a new job that requires them to learn how to drive to another office building.

Dennis the Menace, 3/29/23

At least Blondie had that little detail to keep me interested in a strip that was basically a “ha ha, how about that Siri, amiright folks” joke. Today’s Dennis the Menace doesn’t even have that level of texture to it, it’s just “Alexa! It’s a thing that exists, that children know about!” Honestly, doing jokes about digital assistants are a mid-’10s thing, even syndicated newspaper comics should’ve moved on to jokes about generative AI by now.

Safe Havens, 3/29/23

Here’s Safe Havens, a strip I don’t think I’ve ever talked about before, but it’s about time travel and space travel and, uh, some other stuff, and say what you will about it (or don’t, I certainly haven’t) but at least it knows that the hot tech jokes in the year of our lord 2023 should be about generative AI.

The Lockhorns, 3/29/23

Oh, man, not to smugly say I told you so, but: If Loretta were posting a pic of their dinner on Facebook, that would be a sure sign the Lockhorns were boomers. A deliberately badly staged photo and a snarky, self-deprecating comment on Twitter? Gen X. A Leroy reaction vid captioned: “POV: you are feeding your husband inedible slop” on TikTok? Zoomers. But Loretta is gonna slap a filter on that plateful of brown goo, making it look like she took a picture of it with a Polaroid camera in 1977, and you know what that means: THE LOCKHORNS ARE MILLENNIALS.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/29/23

OH MY GOD HUGE MUD MOUNTAIN MURPHY NEWS EVERYBODY! He looks … like this now? I have literally no idea what aesthetic he’s trying to make happen here; I’m not sure how to map “Secret Service Agent” onto a musical genre and honestly wish Buck were here to rattle off the names of a bunch of arcane categories so I could get my bearings. Anyway, it’s obviously funny that Mud Mountain has made this stylistic change, but it’s much, much funnier that he’s doing it on a cruise. If it doesn’t work out, well, what happens in international waters isn’t binding, career-wise, right?