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Crankshaft, 8/1/25

OK, fine, I guess if I’m doing Crankshaft two days in a row, I will explain why Ed and Jeff were in an airport yesterday: It’s because Pam accidentally spilled bleach on Jeff’s inexplicably beloved Winnipeg Blue Bombers shirt, and so to make it up to her husband she bought tickets to an actual Blue Bombers game for him and Ed, and now they’re flying from Cleveland to Winnipeg (a route many in the aviation industry call “the saddest city pair in North America”) to see some red-hot Canadian Football League action. Anyway, today I’m mostly mad about Jeff saying “No pun intended,” for two somewhat contradictory reasons. On the one hand, “passed the quarterback test” is barely wordplay, like homeopathic levels of wordplay, like “pass” and “quarterback” are in the same sentence but they’re not really relating to each other in any kind of grammatical sense applicable to football; and yet, on the other hand, because this is Ed Crankshaft we’re talking about, a pun was absolutely intended. The man hasn’t gone more than three sentences without intending a pun in his entire life.

Beetle Bailey, 8/1/25

Say what you will about Beetle Bailey, but I always respect just how grim the strips about the Halftracks’ failing marriage are. Like, look at the General’s face here. A lesser strip would have him be cheerfully blotto, but he actually looks genuinely distressed, like he spent the entire trip home perseverating about the fact that he’s returning much later than he promised and he knows he’s really going to hurt his wife’s feelings. And for what? Booze? He doesn’t even really enjoy it anymore! He’s got a real problem!

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Mary Worth, 7/31/25

I guess the “Olive uses her psychic powers to save Mary from certain death” moment was just a prelude to the main plot, “Olive gets bullied,” which, as far as I’m concerned, BORING [comically exaggerated snoring noises]. There’s been lots of dark talk about how Olive’s psychic “gifts” come with “challenges,” which I guess means these girls are bullying her because she’s psychic, and I’m sorry, but the kids today have access to both the original Carrie with Sissy Spacek and the 2013 remake with Chloë Grace Moretz, so they should know that you do not want to antagonize the weird psychic girl! You want to be kind to her, so that once she snaps and starts using her powers to explode the heads of her enemies, she’ll accept you as an acolyte! Youths are not prepared for the reality of the modern-day educational landscape!

Crankshaft, 7/31/25

At first I assumed “old people” here was a euphemism for “unadventurous white midwesterners,” but unadventurous white midwesterners will fuckin’ go to town on jalapeño poppers and hot wings, so I genuinely don’t know what Ed’s after here. Can his increasingly rickety digestive system simply no longer handle spice? Does he need some nice lady to cut corn off the cob right there at his table, or possibly chew it up and spit it into his mouth?

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Herb and Jamaal, 7/30/25

It seems like just yesterday that Herb stormed into Rev. Croom’s office, declaring that he was ambivalent about believing in a creator God whom he couldn’t perceive with his senses. In fact, it was 11 years ago, but I guess that’s practically yesterday in newspaper comics terms, ha ha! Anyway, in the subsequent decade, it seems Herb has resolved his doubts by means of Pascal’s wager, though I have to say that “liv[ing] in the netherworld” is a pretty tame euphemism for “experiencing eternal physical torment as a damned soul in hell,” and maybe not really as motivating as he thinks.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/30/25

“Speaking of which, uh, that’s not your legal name, right? Like, I figure at some point before we get married I’m going to finally get to see some ID, and I’ve really had my fingers crossed that we’ve been working with a Mud Mountain/Fergus situation here.”

Intelligent Life, 7/30/25

Actually, fellas, most of the shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery and the Walt Disney Company are institutional investors like pension and mutual funds, along with individual retail investors who are making decisions based on the companies’ financial positions rather than fandom affinity, so I’m not sure “the geek community” is the right word choice in this situation!

Pluggers, 7/30/25

Hey, buddy. You think a lot about peeing? Or pooping? When you look at a bathroom, do you think to yourself, “Do I have to pee or poop right now? Might as well give it a shot. Better safe than sorry!” Well, I’m sorry to inform you that you are, canonically, a plugger.