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Beetle Bailey, 6/4/20

Being a general is a decently big deal. And yeah, technically, when I say “general” I mean “general officer”; only a four-star is truly a “general,” amd Halftrak is a one-star Brigadier General, but the point remains: by law there can be no more than 231 in the Army as a whole, which is more than I expected but still isn’t a lot. What I’m trying to say is that this comic strip inspired me to read the “general officer” article on Wikipedia and click on several of the links therein, and I definitely learned quite a bit but also came across nothing that altered my original thought here, which is that it’s probably kind of concerning that General Halftrack’s staff is just forging his signature on things.

Mary Worth, 6/4/20

After what I’m pretty sure were seven solid weeks of Dawn’s love triangle concluding in the dullest way possible, this week’s storyline has given me serious whiplash as it zigs and zags through various possibilities! Is it about Toby failing as a baker? Is it about Saul Wynter’s dying family? Or is it about the god-damn millennials [aide whispers in my ear] ahem, I have been informed that many millennials are now well into their 30s at this point and they’re calling the new crop of kids “zoomers,” so, as I was saying, is it about the god-damn zoomers, always staring at their phones and swearing and disrespecting their elders, who never did any such thing? Is Mary gonna have to teach this tween terror some respect?

Mark Trail, 6/4/20

Folks, as prophesied, it’s time for an Andy story in Mark Trail! The story so far is that Andy accidentally got closed up in the back of this truck, which drove far away from Lost Forest, and now appears to be ready to maul the hapless truck driver to death. Sorry, truck driver! It wasn’t your fault Andy wandered into your truck, but you will be suffering the consequences!

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Shoe, 6/2/20

A thing I find genuinely interesting is how in some strips, slowly, over many years, the title character is edged out of the protagonist slot and replaced by their previous #2. Thus, Blondie is now about Dagwood more often than not, Funky Winkerbean spends loathsome amounts of energy on the antics of Les Moore, and Shoe mostly follows the life of the Perfesser. In this case, he’s the marginally more sympathetic character, and this strip demonstrates that pretty well: you can tell that having to write this pun, which some high-priced consultant hired by the private equity firm that just bought the Tattler-Tribune says will “boost engagement,” makes him hate himself very, very much.

Mary Worth, 6/2/20

Oh, man, it’s not just Toby in this new plot, but Saul Wynter, too! Remember Saul Wynter? The old grump who got a dog to replace his wife, but the dog died, so Mary forced him to adopt a new dog? Well, it turns out one of his dear childhood friends has passed away, and even though it sounds like they hadn’t been in touch for a while, it’s nice to know that Saul’s entire life is still dominated by constant emotional loss.

Judge Parker, 6/2/20

yesssssss

judge parker senior has the ‘rona

JUDGE

PARKER

SENIOR

HAS

THE ‘RONA

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Mary Worth, 6/1/20

Finally, our long national nightmare is over! No, not that nightmare. Not the other one either. No, I’m talking about the interminable Dawn love story plot, which has finally wrapped up (for now [ominous music sting]) so we can move on to something important, like … a Toby plot? Sure. Absolutely. I will accept a Toby plot, fine. She’s going to fail at something, right? Baking, this time? I will definitely accept a Toby plot where she fails at baking.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/1/20

Newspaper comics are a weird medium — at once ephemeral but also in many ways demanding years of accumulated reading to truly understand the characters. For instance, you know and I know that Les is supposed to be the sympathetic protagonist of this strip, but … how would you expect anyone else to know? How is this not the beginning of a story where the wife murders her husband and all the readers at home root for her to get away with it?

Blondie, 6/1/20

Ha ha, that sure is a topical joke! I guess you two have given up on trying to not to give coronavirus to each other, though, huh? Just breathing droplets onto each other’s faces and whatnot. Anyway, is someone going to explain why the bird is wearing fuckin sunglasses or what.