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Beetle Bailey, 2/4/18

Wow, this is a … very specific brand shout-out when it comes to Otto’s wine pairing? Really makes you wonder why he isn’t identifying the manufacturer of all those snack foods he found in his bed. Lay’s® classic potato chips! Snyder’s of Hanover® pretzels! Potato Stix, from Utz®! Really monetize this business! Anyway, if the point was to build brand awareness of Grand Estates Merlot from Columbia Crest Winery, mission accomplished, but if this was supposed to be a call to action, I regret to inform you that the Columbia Crest website currently appears to be inoperative.

Crankshaft, 2/4/18

Wow, considering Elvis probably died in part from all the prescription pills he was taking, that’s a spectacularly grim reference in the second panel! Crankshaft would be able to put himself out of his own endless misery, if he weren’t such a butterfingers.

Mary Worth, 2/4/18

Finally, someone has come up with something that could tempt Mary to make her deal with the devil Ted Miller and start hawking her muffins nationwide: the ability to afford a pied-à-terre in New York so she can live near handsome Broadway legend Ken Kensington, with whom Mary experienced a near-romance in a classic 2014 plotline. She could have Ken as her lover on the east coast and Dr. Jeff on the Pacific! You really can have it all … when you’re rich!

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Mary Worth, 2/2/18

I suppose “Saul Lewman” is here because Mary Worth doesn’t want to run afoul of the notoriously litigious Newman’s Own foundation, but think about the implications here: Mary and Toby live in a universe where Paul Newman was never born, and where his counterpart had the somewhat more recognizably Jewish name “Saul Lewman,” but still became a famous leading man. Does that mean that Mary lives in a world that was, in the mid 20th century, less anti-Semitic? Did the Holocaust never happen in the Maryverse???? This is a can of worms that can’t be unopened!

Spider-Man, 2/2/18

Having never really read Spider-Man comics books as a kid, and having refused to see the James Garfield Amazing Spider-Man movies because of the absence of J. Jonah Jameson, I’m not really familiar with The Lizard, a super-villain who hasn’t made much of a pop-culture impact. Is his deal that he’s a real asshole who’s mean to everyone? That’s what I’m getting from his appearance here. Not that I’m complaining, mind you!

Dennis the Menace, 2/2/18

Mrs. Wilson covers her mouth in astonishment, as she suddenly makes the connection between George’s odd sleeping hours and the reports of a portly and stealthy masked vigilante who has been rumored to fight crime on the city streets in the wee hours of the morning.

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Mary Worth, 2/1/18

This Great Muffin Caper storyline is turning into quite the morality play, isn’t it? Everyone is urging Mary to cash in on her muffin business, and by describing what Mary would gain from such a move, revealing what they themselves most deeply desire. Ted, the salesman who never quite hit it big, imagines that she could “make a mint”; Jeff, as always starry-eyed over his beloved, wants the rest of the world to appreciate the joy she brings into the lives of everyone she touches. And Toby? Toby, who spent her boho youth as an artist in Greenwich Village and is spending her trophy-wife early middle age occasionally showcasing her kitschy figurines at unjuried art shows in downtown Santa Royale? Toby wants Mary to experience the fame that she fears will forever elude her, if only so she can experience it second-hand.

Gil Thorp, 2/1/18

Meanwhile, the Milford boy’s basketball team has toppled La Junta, the cadre of high-ranking military officers who had seized control of the U.S. government some months before. And yes, it’s laudable that they restored democracy, but shouldn’t they be focusing on winning the Valley Conference?