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Beetle Bailey, 2/23/23

The joke here is clearly that Otto is imitating Beetle’s typical slothfulness, but wouldn’t it be funny if this were a lead-in to Sarge murdering Beetle, and this is the last thing the title character to this long running comic strip ever sees? Well, “funny” may not be quite the right word, unless you’re like me and have been reading this strip every day for years, waiting desperately for something, anything, to happen in it.

Hagar the Horrible, 2/23/23

Say what you will about Hagar the Horrible, but unlike many gag-a-day strips its team of gag writers works hard to keep track of the lore. Like, Hagar is canonically illiterate, which is why they’re careful to have him say “I was told” in the final panel. Anyway, what do you think the book is? Based on that description and the historical setting, I’m guessing it’s the Bible, in the form of a lovingly illuminated manuscript plundered from an Irish monastery that Hagar and his warriors burned to the ground.

Mary Worth, 2/23/23

“I want to be friends with him … but from a distance! Why can’t he understand that the most precious form of friendship is the kind where you’re never in the same room at the same time, and also you don’t like each other?”

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Mary Worth, 2/20/23

This upcoming court battle is going to settle an important precedent: can legal action be taken against someone for stuff they do in your hallucinations and dreams? Normally this would seem to be a slam dunk to get thrown out of court immediately, but I can see a judge learning about Wilbur’s whole deal and gruffly saying “I’ll allow it,” then saying the same thing when the jury somehow imposes the death penalty.

Beetle Bailey, 2/20/23

Wordle was made public in October 2021, and went viral a couple months later when the ability to turn your results into an emoji grid was added. In other words, Beetle Bailey has name-checked a popular culture thing a mere 14 months after it entered popular culture, which is really shocking for a strip that only started depicting the Army as racially integrated in 1970.

Gil Thorp, 2/20/23

“Kaz leaving was a gut punch for me. Devastating. Something I’ll never get over. My best friend, gone, leaving a hole that can never be filled. Oh, wait, you’re asking about the team? They don’t really give a shit. They’re teenagers! I honestly don’t think they can tell most adults apart.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/20/23

Can you imagine if a guy you’d been seeing casually announced that he’s moving to be closer to you, but then mentions that he’s also doing it to be closer to Buck Wise? That’d be a real emotional roller coaster, and one that by rights ought to end either with a breakup or a written agreement that you never have to be in a room with Buck for more than ten minutes at a time.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/19/23

You probably don’t remember (because why would you, remembering inane Rex Morgan plots for you is my job, literally), but way back in early 2020, roots country legend Truck Tyler caught some kind of persistent respiratory virus before it was cool, and was also sleeping in his car, so Buck arranged for a free room in a depressing, half-empty motel to serve as a makeshift isolation ward, which Truck used as inspiration for a new song that became a viral hit on, let’s say … TikTok? … which I assume means that lots of teens are now LARPing as depressed old roots country singers down at the Glenwood Motel these days. Truck still has a standing offer of a free room there are a result, in case this nice diner waitress wants to have sex in the most depressing place she’s ever had sex in her life.

Family Circus, 2/19/23

I can think of few acts more humiliating than calling your wife from inside your car to have her stop your children from throwing snowballs at you. Yet Big Daddy Keane has no shame about it! Look at him grinning smugly in panel three here. “This is a great use case of a cellular telephone!” he’s thinking to himself. The man deserves what he’s about to get.

Mary Worth, 2/19/23

Oh hey by the way Estelle is being tormented by visions of Wilbur in animal form while she tries to sleep, if you were wondering! Will murdering him finally make the nightmare images go away? Probably not, but I for one am willing for her to take that chance.