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Panels from Beetle Bailey, 9/18/11

I have to admit that I’m starting to warm up to the “General Halftrack is an angry and increasingly disoriented old drunk” theme that’s appearing with greater and greater frequency in Beetle Bailey. Today we see that the booze just fuels his paranoia. It’s easy to imagine that everybody hates you when you already hate yourself!

Six Chix, 9/18/11

Like her prudish mother, our protagonist finds the display of the human body shameful even in private, and so is quick to cover her boyfriend’s genitals with a well-placed word balloon.

Pluggers, 9/18/11

I thought I would feel great satisfaction when the befuddled, ignorant man-beasts of Pluggers started to die off, with their corpses displayed for our amusement. Instead, I’m only experiencing a certain shamed emptiness. Let this be a lesson to all of you who yearn for the death of your enemies!

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Gil Thorp, 9/17/11

Year after year after year after year, Milford’s football season begins with a fiery pagan ritual during which the violent gods of the gridiron are propitiated for good luck with human sacrifice. I’m a little disappointed that this year’s flesh-searing mayhem has been relegated to a single panel, and even there serves only as a backdrop to more classic half-assed coaching from Gil. “Yeah, your only hope of winning this year is, uh, not suffering a season-ending injury! There’s probably more to it than that, but since you almost inevitably will suffer a season-ending injury due to poor coaching and your own incompetence, there’s really no point in me getting into it. Why not save yourself time and just go accidentally catch on fire over there?”

I like that Marty Moon and/or Gil Thorp refuse to tell us which team Paris and Ottewill play for, so we don’t know whether this dramatic early-game touchdown is good or bad for our heroes. It’s almost as if they expect you to have paid attention to the last few weeks of strips? But surely they can’t be that naive.

Shoe, 9/17/11

This strip certainly makes good use of the aphorism it picked out of Bartlett’s! Few things say “quiet desperation” more than someone so hung over that they need to wear sunglasses to the dark, sleazy bar where they’re going to try to pick up a sullen drunk.

Pluggers, 9/17/11

Pluggers know that the key to not being arrested for their horrifying collection of illegal pornography is to keep it analog.

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Gasoline Alley, 9/15/11

In attempting to banter with a rustic innkeeper, Nina reveals far, far too much about her and Skeezix’s sex life.

Pluggers, 9/15/11

Pluggers are haunted by the fear that if they were to die, neither they nor anyone else would notice.