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Crankshaft, 7/13/15

Golf is one of those things that I simply don’t get. I don’t get the appeal of watching it or playing it. Which is fine! I certainly don’t object to anyone else enjoying themselves watching or playing it. It’s just one of those things, like S&M and Mad Men, that I’m happy so many people derive enjoyment from but that isn’t for me.

The somewhat irritating thing, though, is that, unlike S&M (but like Mad Men), a lot of people who are into golf think that everyone is into golf, that golf is a universal cultural touchstone, and that anyone who isn’t into golf is weird or suspicious. This is certainly true of syndicated newspaper comics, where golf jokes abound and presumably sail over the head of most of the children who are the ostensible targets for a lot of comics, along with non-golf-mad adults like me.

This is an overly wordy way for me to set up the fact that it took me a while to remember, based on my one or two visits to actual golf courses, that those big white spheroids are things that mark where you’re supposed to tee off or something, and the joke is that Crankshaft needs new glasses. I’m still not sure about this, actually, because I can’t figure out what to Google other than “big white spheroids that mark where you’re supposed to tee off” and that’s not producing useful results, but I’m pretty sure I’m right. But before I figured that out I was a pretty baffled as to (a) what was going on and (b) what “prescription” Crankshaft’s friend was talking about. Was it a metaphor for … testicles? Does Crankshaft need a new prescription because his testicles are all swole up, and about to hurt like someone just hit them with a golf club? Is this an old man thing? Is this what I have to look forward to as I age, testicle-wise? You can see why I’m pretty invested in the interpretation of the joke I eventually settled on.

Beetle Bailey, 7/13/15

With gay people now allowed to serve openly in America’s military, the transgressive thrill is gone from Beetle and Sarge’s relationship, and Beetle has moved on to something new that makes him feel sexy and dangerous: bed-fucking.

Family Circus, 7/13/15

I don’t know what I find funnier here: how irritated Big Daddy Keane looks or how smug Billy looks. You kids won’t be smirking once your dad narcs you out to LucasFilm and you find yourself on the receiving end of a massive trademark infringement lawsuit!

Herb and Jamaal, 7/13/15

Life is violent and uncertain! You could die horribly at any moment! Why not reveal your repressed erotic feelings to the ones you love the most? There’s no time left to lose!

Lockhorns, 7/13/15

Please tell me there’s literally a line of greeting cards you can send to your enemies where you wish the eternal damnation of divine punishment upon them! “Some theologians say that the true torture in hell is separation from God/ Well here’s God/ and here’s you/ Look how far away you are/ Writhe in the eternal darkness/ Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha”

Marvin, 7/13/15

I was going to question the credentials of a doctor who goes around wearing bunny ears, but this guy seems to believe that Marvin has a severe and possibly fatal medical condition, so let’s hear what he has to say!

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Marvin, 3/8/15

Ha ha, it’s funny because Marvin holds his grandmother and her affection for him in contempt, but pretends he loves her because he wants cookies! You know what, maybe go back to the poop jokes, they’re less grim.

Dennis the Menace, 3/8/15

Ha ha, it’s funny because Dennis almost got this baby killed! The real menace is whoever just dropped this toddler off at the Mitchells’ house and then took off into the night, along with Dennis’s parents.

Crankshaft, 3/8/15

This is the kind of Daylight Savings Crankshaft enjoys! The other kind, the kind that the U.N. cooked up to weaken American vitality and sap our precious bodily fluids — that kind he’s not a big fan of.

Hagar the Horrible, 3/8/15

Ha ha, environmentalists, amiright? Always trying to save nature, despite the fact that nature is evil and must be destroyed!

Panel from the Lockorns, 3/8/15

If there’s one thing Leroy has learned from his many years on this Earth, it’s that life is terrible and death is preferable in every way.

Panels from Judge Parker, 3/8/15

Are you guys ready for the Erotic Education of Neddy Spencer? Because it’s definitely happening.

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Momma, 2/25/15

Momma usually wrings laughs from the wildly imbalanced nature of the relationship between Momma and her adult children: she wants them closer, despite the fact that they’re all kind of terrible, and she herself is terrible to them in various ways, and they pull away. If that doesn’t sound funny to you, then congrats on being a decent human being, but to the extent that the conceit works, it works because Momma is cartoonishly terrible and not at all self-reflective. That’s why today’s panel three, in which Momma watches her fleeing son and poignantly reflects on her own unbearableness, is definitely one of the more depressing things the newspaper comics have to offer today.

The Lockhorns, 2/25/15

The self-loathing both halves of the Lockhorns feel is an integral part of this feature’s shtick, of course. Leroy wants so badly to disappear into comforting nothingness that he can’t even bring himself to photograph his own face.

Mark Trail, 2/25/15

You know who doesn’t go through a bunch of agonized self-reflection, ever? Wolves! Wolves feel really quite good about themselves and their totally rad ability to form an awesome, bad-ass pack and just straight up eat a whole moose. Old Ripper becomes the first Mark Trail animal to get a name other than “Lucky” that I can remember, though like the old mother moose, Ripper is old, because you have to respect the strip’s animal-identification traditions.