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Beetle Bailey, 9/5/23

A lot of Beetle Bailey’s M.O. boils down to “We thought of a joke, which of our long-ish list of one-note characters that we’ve accrued over the years can we assign it to?” Reading panel one, I though Rocky, as the camp’s resident rock-and-roll loving bad boy, was a bad choice for this, but once I realized it was about one of the soldiers being rejected by his family and forced to make a home in a cruel institution that doesn’t want him either, I changed my mind, this is a good one.

Dick Tracy, 9/5/23

Look, this may be a “Minit Mystery,” but do we have time to spend a whole strip on some Grade A Wholly Innocent [change this later if necessary –Eds] Beefcake? Yes, yes we do.

Dustin, 9/5/23

“Ha ha, get it? Wait, no, actually, that metaphor doesn’t really make sense. Sorry, I’m still workshopping this bit. Anyway, long story short, you’re dying.”

Judge Parker, 9/5/23

I’m sorry, Gloria, are you keeping meticulous accounting records of a criminal fucking conspiracy?

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Mary Worth, 9/4/23

Folks! Mary Worth is taking a moment off from her tale of old people engaging in state-sanction monogamy in order to acknowledge that Hot Labor Summer is here and she is all in favor of it. Whether you’re a Hollywood celeb member of SAG-AFTRA or a hotel maid organized by Unite Here, Mary is happy to come to your picket line with delicious muffins, bottled water, and personal-sized bottles of sunscreen.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/4/23

Snuffy Smith, on the other hand? Snuffy absolutely supplements his chicken-stealing and moonshining revenue by occasionally signing up with the Pinkertons to help crack some skulls if the miners in the next holler over get a little too big for their britches.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/4/23

Rex Morgan, meanwhile, is focusing on the complex modern-day economy that complicates the traditional division between labor and capital and leaves various independent contractors and entrepreneurs entangled in their attempts to extract ongoing revenues from intellectual property. I’m kind of sad that we never got to see the conversation between Mud and Buzzy Cameron where Buzzy explains that they need to set up a trust account for Rene’s rightful share of his music revenues, in case the court decides to award it to his many victims or whatever.

Shoe, 9/4/23

What’s the age cutoff for a heterosexual woman who unselfconsciously refers to a platonic female friend as a “girlfriend”? 40? 50? Anyway, it’s too bad nobody younger than whatever age that is reads newspaper comics, because they might be briefly intrigued, though ultimately disappointed, by the idea that Shoe is about a pansexual bird polycule.

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Mary Worth, 9/3/23

For those who haven’t been keeping up with Mary Worth in the aftermath of the Saul-Eve engagement, what happened was that Mary ran into them down at the jewelry store, and she was like “Is that a wedding ring?” and they were like “Yeah, we’re getting married!” and she was like “Can I come?” and they were like “Uh, yeah, sure.” It’s very funny when someone invites yourself to your wedding and you feel like you’re not allowed to say no for whatever reason, but it’s extremely funny when someone does it when you were planning a wedding with no actual guests. You think it’s just going to be you, your beloved, and Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor for some reason, but nope, here comes Mary! She’s gotta be involved somehow!

The Phantom, 9/3/23

Today’s Phantom is great and I frankly think more legacy strips should, when they run into narrative trouble, just do a strip where they have the strip’s creator, who’s been dead for 25 years, try to come up with the next plot twist. Bonus if you depict them working in what appears to be the office of a private investigator in a 1940’s film noir.

Panel from Slylock Fox, 9/3/23

Man, you know things are getting dark when even cultural elites like Sir Hound are saying things like “Those humans are getting to be a real problem … one that requires a solution. A final solution, if you will.”