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Mary Worth, 8/27/18

Oh hell yes y’all it’s a god-damned Charterstone pool party! This is a long and honored Mary Worth tradition, which we’ve enjoyed since the very early days of this blog, but I don’t think we’ve had a truly proper one in more than four years, and the last one led to the story of Olive and her magical psychic tummy, so I am pretty jazzed about today’s developments.

What hilarious plot awaits us? It’s possible that we’re going to learn that Mary, her hands afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis, can no longer mush canned salmon paste into a proper shape before sticking it in the oven, downgrading her usual salmon squares to varying and irregular “salmon snacks.” But the smart money is on this natty old man and his adorable dog. Remember the time when Mary found an injured dog and brought it back home to Charterstone and was glad to discover the condo rules allowed dogs because otherwise she’d have to lay waste to all who opposed her? Anyway, the point is, this dog is more than welcome to hang out by the Charterstone pool and rub its butthole directly on the glass tables in the common area.

Six Chix, 8/27/18

As someone who has a phobia of bees and needles (I mean, what’s a bee but a weird yellow fly with a needle on it’s butt, really) you’d think I’d find this strip terrible triggering, but I actually kind of like it! I mean, I assume its purpose is to bring on vertiginous nightmares, right? I particularly enjoy the lady in panel two going strabismic with terror.

Beetle Bailey, 8/27/18

I love how everyone in the car looks genuinely horrified by the prospect of Sarge’s violent, volcanic anger. Sure, Beetle is regularly pounded to goo and seems to bounce back easily enough, but will the same logic apply to his fellow soldiers? Or will they be left thoroughly dead, a misshapen mass of broken bones and pulverized organs? Sarge’s court-martial, where he breaks down crying and sobs “I thought … I thought they’d just go back to normal. Beetle goes back to normal!” will be of little consolation to their grieving families.

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The Phantom, 8/24/18

So the Phantom’s daughter Heloise has been locked in a battle of wits with her father’s arch-enemy, the Nomad, and it is not going well for her! The Nomad slipped some bogus info to the TSA at the airport where he stashes his private plane to arrange this little interrogation, and I have to say that I find it both hilarious and terrifyingly plausible that some TSA guys would say, “This random guy we’ve never met tells us he’s overheard a teenage girl saying that terrorists … are good??? Set the entire country’s threat level to orange and get ready for a seven-hour interrogation!”

Six Chix, 8/24/18

I’ve noticed that several recent Six Chix strips set in a therapist’s office have included a discreet box of tissues located near the patient’s couch, which I think is a nice bit of verisimilitude. At least it’s something to cling onto here, where we otherwise have to try to figure out whether this hippo (?) is, like … hovering over the bird, or crushing it, or if they’re both on the couch, or what.

Marvin, 8/24/18

“Five! Five is exactly the right number of coffee shops for a city to have.”

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Six Chix, 8/17/18

The best thing about today’s Six Chix is the knowing smile on the bartender’s face. She’s thinking, “Heh heh, this guy’s right, and it’s great to work in a place where you get the ‘inside scoop’ from people who can provide insights you might not have thought of yourself!” The worst thing is everything else, it’s a horror-nightmare in which gigantic, sloppy-drunk fly-monster from some hell-dimension is yelling out of its uncanny proboscis at the television about one of the current administration’s dumber ongoing storylines.

Mark Trail, 8/17/18

Oh, hey, remember earlier this week when I couldn’t remember who Becky was? Well, it turns out she’s Dr. Carter’s assistant, who we all thought was a diligent archaeologist who insisted on cataloging every artifact they discovered for future scientific study, but in fact is running an artifact smuggling ring! I mean, if you consider walking ten feet away from a tour group in a different temple than the one you found the artifacts in and then pulling an ancient artifact out of a sack and handing it to some other dude who also has a sack a “ring.”

Mary Worth, 8/17/18

Haha, check out Brandy’s face! That is definitely 100% the face of someone who completely believes in her boyfriend and believes in us too! Yep, gonna be smooth sailing from here on out.

Crankshaft, 8/17/18

If you ever wonder what it’s like running the most popular newspaper comics blog on the internet, imagine looking at this Crankshaft comic and thinking to yourself, “Is there a joke here? Is it supposed to be character-driven, like we’re supposed to have enough of a feel for Max’s personality that we think it’s funny he did this? Or maybe it’s … wordplay of some kind,” and then you say the phrase “Max Axelrod loves my arugula” out loud, to nobody, in your home office, multiple times, and finally you just throw it up on your website and say I DUNNO, MAN