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Beetle Bailey, 2/9/21

I guess the point of this strip is that each of these characters is responding to the question of what to get Sarge for his birthday in his own way, according to his own character (in Beetle Bailey, “character” means “whatever dumb on-the-nose collection of tics and running gags they’ve accrued over the years”). So, Plato wants to give him a book, because he’s a nerd; Killer wants to give him a box of candy, because he’s so monomaniacally focused on getting laid that his only context for gift-giving is the cliches of heterosexual courtship; Zero wants to to give him a comic book, because he’s dumb (?); and Rocky wants to give him a music mix, because he’s named “Rocky” due to the fact that when he was introduced into the strip, his one-note character was focused on liking rock ‘n’ roll music, which was as novel then as omnipresent personal computers were when Specialist Chip Gizmo was introduced in the early ’00s, because that’s just how long Beetle Bailey has been around. Anyway, I wanted to point out that all of these people are giving Sarge something they’d like, not something that he would actually want to receive. Can you visualize Sarge reading a book? Of course not. Only Beetle’s proposal is actually thoughtful. Sadly, it will not be appreciated.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/9/21

After kicking off his life as a diagnosed diabetic with one last indulgent fast-food meal, Buck’s blood sugar numbers got real bad, but then he came home and exercised, and they got OK again! Is this … how diabetes works? I don’t know much about it but I do know that Rex Morgan, M.D., is a rigorously fact-checked comic that aims primarily to spread accurate medical information, so I’m just going to assume that this is, in fact, how diabetes works. Good job, Buck! Looks like you’re on your way to a healthy lifesty[finally gets to narration box at bottom of second panel] OH NO

Pluggers, 2/9/21

I mean, duh, of course he’s not going to fold up his underwear. The wrinkle lines are a further turn-on for fans of the sick sex thing that Pluggers, in one of 2021’s biggest surprises, has become.

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Apologies for giving you a double-dose of Funky Winkerbean today, but sadly I need two days’ worth of strips to provide the proper context for today’s commentary. Pretty amazing that I’m a guy who has to provide multi-day context for today’s Funky Winkerbean strip, as a job! Ha ha, a lot of choices have been a made that cannot be undone anymore, much to think about, etc., but the point is that this week’s strips take place at a band teachers’ convention and much of the content has involved band-themed puns on signs that characters gently smile at, as in yesterday’s strip:

Funky Winkerbean, 1/29/21

But not today! No, today’s strip is about band-themed puns on signs that character gently frown at:

Funky Winkerbean, 1/30/21

Why is the first pun smileworthy while the second is frown-inducing? I feel like this is the Rosetta Stone that, if I could just crack it, would allow me to truly and fully understand the Funkyverse. Furthermore, I assume that if I could achieve such a state of Funkyligthenment, I would be free of my compulsion to read and analyze the strip every day. Sadly, full understanding is still beyond my grasp, leaving me doomed to continue to gawk at Funkyworld in half-comprehending rage for the indefinite future.

Mary Worth, 1/30/21

Oh, it turns out the source of Eve’s anxiety attacks is PTSD from an abusive marriage, which isn’t very much fun at all! We’ll let you know when this strip returns to a more enjoyable level of wacky interpersonal drama.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/30/21

“I decided that risk was a lot of trouble for not a lot of payoff for me personally, so I stopped taking it. Guess you’ll be seeing a lot more of me around the office than you probably want to, ha ha!”

Crock, 1/30/21

They could’ve just ended this strip after the first panel. Get it? Because Crock sucks ass and is never funny! I alone have the guts to say this, no matter how much abuse I take for daring to speak the truth!

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/28/21

Rex Morgan’s Kelly, the teen daughter of the Morgans’ receptionist, has been a particularly acute victim of comic-book time in the strip: she’s gone from a midriff-baring, mom-sassing punk-dating rebel to a chunky-sweater-wearing good girl without having gotten appreciably older in the process. Admittedly, getting blackmailed by a toddler who spotted you fooling around with your boyfriend is the sort of thing that might put you on the straight and narrow! Still, it’s sad that Kelly’s total transformation isn’t good enough for her mom, who apparently will be sending her to a nunnery in short order.

Shoe, 1/28/21

I know that one of Shoe’s go-to bits is Shoe or the Perfesser, who eat at Roz’s literally every day, telling some unsuspecting stranger that the food there sucks, actually. Still, I feel like the items on the menu whose names already include a joke about how they’re hazardous to your health should be exempt from this. You’re overloading the concept! Is it dangerously rich and delicious, or prepared in a dangerously slapdash manner that violates various health and safety codes? The hapless bird-man who has unwittingly wandered into the crossfire of the long-running passive-aggressive Shoe-Roz conflict looks baffled, and rightly so.