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Beetle Bailey, 12/12/23

One of the whole points of Beetle Bailey is that the title character is lazy. Or, I guess if we’re being more charitable, despite the fact that he’s enlisted in the notoriously hierarchical U.S. Army, we could say he simply refuses to do things that he doesn’t feel like doing, even if he’s ordered to do so — that he’s “somebody who’s caught in the system that they have to resist in order to exist,” in one of Mort Walker’s more poetic descriptions of his most famous creation. This is all well and good and honestly entertaining when Beetle is refusing to peel potatoes or mop the floor or whatever make-work tasks Camp Swampy has on offer; but today’s strip, which features an terribly injured man trapped in a burning car, his dog howling out in desperate hope that someone can help his master before he dies in one of the most horrifying ways imaginable, makes Beetle’s bit of doing a real half-assed job at everything, including providing or calling for assistance in an emergency, somewhat less comical.

Mary Worth, 12/12/23

Who’s the worst possible person to try to introduce to the idea of a polycule, and what’s the worst possible way to do it? I’m tentatively going to go with “Keith” and “like this.”

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Slylock Fox, 12/11/23

I think we all (and by “we all” I mean “me and you hapless fools who somehow cannot get enough of my Slylock Fox commentary”) have long ago agreed that the animals of Slylock Fox are living in the ruins of our own civilization. In our ongoing discussion of this strip, we seek to determine which technologies and social habits they have retained which they have rejected or have failed to keep working. Today, for instance, we learn that the animals understand intuitively that operating automobiles is a dangerous business that must be regulated by the state, and yet have apparently lost the capacity to manufacture or use the simple radar gun. Instead, the police must detain anyone suspected of reckless driving until one of the higher animals arrive, in the hopes of getting the offender to offer an anecdote that serves as an accidental confession when subjected to basic algebraic analysis. Seems like an overly elaborate way to run a highway patrol to me, but in this reality I would almost certainly have had my face eaten off by a beaver in the process of achieving sapience long ago, so it wouldn’t be my problem.

Shoe, 12/11/23

If you’re asking about the original Fantasy Island series, Shoe, it broadcast its last episode on Mary 19, 1984. There have been occasional attempts at a revival, but none were anywhere near as popular as the original, and the latest reboot was cancelled on May 8, 2023, after two seasons. Or are you asking what happened to the world of Fantasy Island, its compelling and mysterious setting, after the cameras stopped rolling? Well, my friend, you might want to explore the rich world of fan art and fan fiction, on World Wide Web sites such as DeviantArt, Tumblr dot com, and An Archive Of Our Own! Truly, amazing new worlds limited only by our collective imaginations await you!

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Dustin, 12/10/23

A problem in comics in which nobody ages is that the viewpoint characters birth year gets later and later, even though their creators get older and older, creating an increasingly dissonant portrayal. This just gets exacerbated in strips like Dustin, which were deliberately created to do Generation Gap commentary, and whose Boomers vs. Millennials origin has now drifted confusingly into Gen X vs. Zoomers without getting any of the signifiers right. Like, Dustin’s parents now are clearly in the early-to-mid 50s, an age range I know [cough] a little bit about, and I’m here to tell you that in 2023 those people are not the ones somehow leaving the house without their wallet but with a checkbook. Anyway, I guess the final panel is supposed to be from the viewpoint of the customer service worker, who’s visualizing Helen as being from a different era, but I’m choosing to believe that Helen is actually so charmed by the fancy, old-fashioned process of writing a check that she feels like a pretty, pretty princess.

Dennis the Menace, 12/10/23

Look, I understand that the daily and Sunday strips for many legacy properties are done by entirely separate creative teams because … well, actually, I don’t understand why that happens, but I do understand that it’s a thing that does happen, and I think that if it does, the daily people and the Sunday people should check in with each other once in a while, you know?

Shoe, 12/10/23

I actually really appreciate the way that Skyler locks heavy-lidded eyes with us in the little mini-panel in the middle of this strip. “Brace yourself for the punchline,” he’s telling us. “It’s gonna suck ass.”