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Mark Trail, 8/1/19

A while back, I asked whether Mark Trail, the comic strip, knew how mines work. Today we can see that the “blame game” has already started and the other characters are making Doc in particular feel bad about not knowing how mines work, despite the fact that obviously nobody involved knows how mines work. “It was probably confusing!” says Mark. “An hour ago, when I said ‘Good job, Doc — you led us right to it!‘ by ‘it’ I meant ‘a small cave, definitely not a mine, those are definitely two different things and I can easily distinguish between them!’ God, what a dope you are, Doc.”

Mary Worth, 8/1/19

Is this whole relationship going to revolve around quickly entering bodies of water together? I was going to make fun, but, you know, people can and have done a lot worse.

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Dustin, 7/30/19

Oh, snap, is Dustin about to get get catfished? Seems that way! Now, I don’t mean to be rude to elder brethren, and clearly there are gullible marks and savvy sharps of all age groups, but just as a general rule, you might expect it to be the older folks in this strip who are more likely to by successfully cybergrifted, wouldn’t you? But you have to keep in mind that while Dustin presents itself as a relatively even-handed strip about the little foibles and frictions that arise when Baby Boomers and Millennials live under the same roof, it’s mostly about how Dustin, in particular, is the dumbest motherfucker alive.

Gasoline Alley, 7/30/19

I’m not saying any of us could’ve predicted this, necessarily, but if someone had asked, “Which long-running continuity comic strip is going to feature a shiny object snatched away from a major character by a keen-eyed corvid?” we’d all have said “Oh, Gasoline Alley, no question.” I for one support the choice to set this episode in Gasoline Alley’s hitherto unexplored “Little Jalisco” neighborhood, because seeing Rufus getting roasted by passersby in Spanish is definitely funnier than it would be in English by an order of magnitude.

Six Chix, 7/30/19

Oh wow, is this a comic strip about witches fighting against death itself, with one particularly angry witch stealing the scythe used to reap souls, for her own inscrutable and possibly terrifying purposes? This is an extremely metal development! All the money in entertainment today is in massive cross-platform tentpole franchises, and Six Chix has clearly been trying to make that happen with interrelated storylines like “I Fucked A Bigfoot” and “What If Bigfoot Were A Lady In Sexy High Heels” and “The Bible: A Quentin Tarantino Film,” but let me gently suggest that “Witches vs. Death” has a lot more potential.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/30/19

Oh, uh, it looks like when I jokingly said that the villain in this new age grifter storyline would be Rene the art forger I was … right? Huh. Huh. You know, when longtime writer Woody Wilson handed this strip over to Terry Beatty, the storylines got a lot less over-the-top and there have honestly been fewer cartoonish villains, which is why it’s particularly funny to me that Rene, who was an amiable and kooky character during the Wilson era, is now the sinister mastermind behind literally all crime.

Mary Worth, 7/30/19

Man, you’d think the whole point of having a meddling busybody of a condo manager is that at least you wouldn’t have to worry about fully clothed college students making out in the pool. C’mon, Mary, you’re slacking on the job here!

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Mary Worth, 7/28/19

Hey, Hugo, “joie de vivre” is a phrase, not a “saying,” first of all, and you know what? We do have that phrase in the English language, and it’s “joie de vivre”! Because English just incorporates whatever words and phrases it wants from other languages, and then English speakers use them in day-to-day conversation, so they become part of English! Coup d’etat? Deja vu? Those are English now! Our language grows and changes because we don’t have a government-appointed commission trying to keep it pure, like French does! And that’s why we’re number one! [gets a chant started to the rhythm of “USA USA”] ANGLOPHONES! ANGLOPHONES! ANGLOPHONES!

Beetle Bailey, 7/28/19

What’s your pick for the most unsettling part about this fantasy Beetle has about being unable to escape the drudgery of Army life even after death? To me, it’s the fact that, even though he and Miss Buxley are married indicating this is in some indefinite future, he seems to have died at more or less the same age he is now, not when he was old or anything. What did he die of? What did he die of???

Panel from The Lockhorns, 7/28/19

“It’s ridiculous! There’s no context where ‘hard time’ designates a length of time! It’s a reference to how you spend your time, or where (like in prison). This isn’t clever wordplay at all! It’s just a confusing non sequitur and you need to cut it out.”

Dennis the Menace, 7/28/19

So, uh, Dennis got into a fistfight with a kid up the street! Like, I’m not even sure if I have joke to make here but I feel like it’s worth bringing to your attention. He punched that kid right in the face!