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Gil Thorp, 7/16/15

Huh, for some reason I had thought football phenom True Standish was a senior, and had just blown into town to help Milford win the Valley Conference title trophy, aka “the Golden Cock,” before graduating to become a backup quarterback at a second-tier Big Ten school for the next three years. But it looks like we’ve got another year of his laid-back, good-natured antics to go! Today I mostly like the way True’s less-talented teammates are laughing it up in panel two. “Ha ha, you’ll be courted by important people who can advance your career, while we’ll hang out here drinking off-brand soda and watching other people jet-ski! High five!”

B.C., 7/16/15

The idea that our beloved (?) B.C. characters comprise the entirety of a tiny, isolated band of hunter-gatherers is probably the most accurate depiction of paleolithic humanity in this strip to date. Here’s hoping the accuracy continues and we get a good look at what happens when power relations in a society without organized political structures shift: fratricidal violence.

Mary Worth, 7/16/15

Oh, OK, maybe this will be the drama behind this mysteriously still ongoing Mary Worth storyline: Adam is psyched to be working with Terry, while Terry is only kind of enh about it! This strip can squeeze another three to five weeks out of that for sure.

The Lockhorns, 7/16/15

One of the main appeals of zombie apocalypse fiction — of apocalypse fiction of all types, really — is this: that though the world depicted is one suffering from terrible trauma, it’s also one where the constraints of our current lives have suddenly been swept away. In all likelihood you’d be killed in the opening hours of the plague or uprising, of course, but there’s a visceral thrill in imagining yourself in a new situation, with your boring money troubles and domestic squabbles vanished along with the restraints of traditional social morality. But the Lockhorns are so dead inside that even this mental escape is impossible for them. They know they live in the worst of all possible worlds, and that this is the only one there is.

Pluggers, 7/16/15

You’re a plugger if you’re extremely careful to respect the trademark rights of patriotic American companies like Johnson & Johnson, but the French communists who run Chanel can go fuck themselves.

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Funky Winkerbean, 7/15/15

Oh, hey, remember Crazy Harry’s dark premonition from last week? It turns out that he was remembering what everyone else apparently forgot: that when they were teens they travelled through a time pool (like a hot tub time machine, but less exciting, I guess) to the far-off future of 2015! Presumably most of these characters have had their memories of the experience suppressed for timeline-maintenance reasons, but like all the Mad, Crazy Harry can see through the universe’s veil. Anyway, this strip’s last time travel storyline began relatively cheerfully before degenerating into cancer talk and generalized grim maundering, so I’m excited to see what’s in store for us! We’re already getting off to a good start here, as all the teenage characters firmly believe that they’ll be long dead before they turn 50. Nope, just one of you!

Mary Worth, 7/15/15

This Mary Worth plot, in which Terry has given into Adam’s stalker-tastic behavior her true feelings, has definitely gotten into “Wait, is this storyline still happening? I thought it had stopped happening” territory. I just want to point out that “having good connections within the company” is probably code for “we threatened the HR director with a brutal beatdown, because violence and the threat of violence is how we solve our problems.”

Judge Parker, 7/15/15

Oh yeah, Neddy’s ex-boyfriend surprise-proposed to her last week and I didn’t tell you about it because it turned out to be pretty boring? Certainly more boring than dickering over shipping containers was. Anyway, I’m posting this strip mostly because I’m assuming that Sophie’s line in the final panel is supposed to be a sick burn, which is hilarious to me. “He hasn’t been the same since his first wife left him! Almost as if his whole vision of how his life would go was shattered as the person he loved more than anything in the world betrayed him! He’s been real erratic ever since for some reason I can’t undertand.”

Beetle Bailey, 7/15/15

Welp, it’s “Miss Buxley Wednesday” in Beetle Bailey, and you know what that means: let’s take a cute enough joke premise and then make it vaguely sexually gross for no reason!

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Mark Trail, 7/12/15

“Mark, that old grizzly is in the backyard again!”

“Cherry, did you know that there are only eight species of bears on earth?”

“Well, yes. But that grizzly is acting strange and kind of aggressive. Say, have you seen Rusty?”

“With their conservation status listed as ‘vulnerable,’ sun bears are struggling to survive in the jungles of Southeast Asia.”

“Wait … oh no! Rusty’s outside! Rusty, no! Don’t alarm that old bear!”

“Despite being the smallest of the bear species, they can extend their tongues out nearly 10 inches when trying to reach a meal of bees, termites, ants, beetle larvae, or honey.”

“No, Rusty, oh God! That bear is so hungry!”

“While living in jungles provides plenty of food for sun bears and there is no need to hibernate, tigers and snakes are occasional dangers…”

“My father is running out to help him — dad, it’s not worth it! It’s already too late!”

“However, their biggest threat comes from mankind through habitat loss and commercial uses such as traditional medicines and the pet trade.”

“Oh god, it’s got my father! My poor father! He’s locked his jaws around him! I can’t look! And all you can talk about it … sun bears …” [choking sobs]

Panels from Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/12/15

Good ol’ Abbey has been a beloved member of the Morgan family for more than a decade but hasn’t gotten a lot of panel time lately. I do appreciate her extremely skeptical expression in panel two here though. “Wait, you want me to fight wild animals for you? Oh, hell no. I weigh, what, fifteen pounds? Twenty, tops?”

Mary Worth, 7/12/15

I was going to make a joke about Adam having won over Terry “so soon,” but I guess it has only been three and a half months, which isn’t really that long in the grand scheme of things. Man, it feels like forever, doesn’t it?

Momma, 7/12/15

Real talk: Momma would have her children killed, mummified, and entombed with her like an Egyptian pharaoh if she could.