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Beetle Bailey, 5/15/05

Here’s what offends me about today’s Beetle Bailey: the joke is not only par-for-the-BB-course lame, but could have very easily been made into a daily strip (just take panels three, four, five, and eight) without reducing the meager humor content at all. C’mon, Walker (Walkers?): while you were idling on the links, Bill Watterson was fighting tooth and nail to get you extra non-fungible Sunday space! The least you can do is take advantage of it. Since Beetle Bailey has a well-known affection for single-panel strips that presumably take less time to draw, you’d think the strip could at least offer mega-panel Sunday editions that would allow more loving detail to be lavished on Miss Buxley’s breasts.

Here’s what doesn’t offend me about today’s Beetle Bailey: the idea that Sgt. Snorkel is going to be disappeared into to some Abu Ghraib-style hole, locked in a cage, forced to wear a dog collar, and interrogated by military intelligence until he begs for mercy. That’s just good clean fun. Go easy with the glow-sticks, boys!

I do have to say that the center panel reminds me that I like the shoes in Beetle Bailey. It’s like the Keep On Truckin’ Guy joined the army and moderated his stride a bit. Also, General Halftrack’s over-the-phone thought balloon joins Mary Worth’s earlier soundless sound in the annals of cartoon oddity:

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Yes, it’s that time again, everybody: time to reveal what kinds of sickos and perverts are out there plugging their filthy and baffling search terms into Google and other, lesser, search engines. The latest crop included: “past mother’s day foxtrot comics -dance -suicide -waltz” (because you sure don’t want any alarming dance-related results), “can god bring you back from the dead to have super powers” (he only did it once, I’m sorry to say), “funny things to put on a gravestone,” “when bc was funny” (I suppose there must have been a time), “hilarious comics about adultery” (is there any other kind?), “angry fat kid rapping” (Brent really seems more befuddled than angry to me), “hair styles of the rich and filthy rich,” and “how to tell if you have high cheekbones” (“Step 1: Get a mirror”). Also, someone sent me a secret message via the search engines: “how are you today josh? read any good comics?” Very well, thanks, but no, I haven’t today.

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Hagar the Horrible, 5/14/05

I’m not even going to dwell on the ostensible humor content of this strip. I mean, I really think a pair of bloodthirsty Viking warriors and one of their Valkyrie-like mates could think of “something” to get the attention of the waiter that’s a little more forceful than standing on the furniture. That “something” should at a bare minimum involve the severed head of the maître d’ and a rusty pike if any of our diners want to have a hope of entering Valhalla in gore-soaked triumph.

But what I’m really worried about his the The Horribles’ domestic situation. Specifically, what kind of married couple goes out on a date to a fancy romantic restaurant and brings the husband’s dorky sidekick along? Couples in trouble, that’s what kind! Are Hagar and Helga so terrified by the prospect of staring across the table at one another with nothing to say that they’ve dragged Lucky “Third Wheel” Eddie (or maybe that should be “Lucky” “Third Wheel” Eddie) along to break up the long, painful silences with his patented brand of deliberately-missing-the-point comedy? Or maybe I’m coming at things from the wrong angle: maybe Lucky Eddie has become so well-beloved by the hardcore Hagar the Horrible audience (which, against all logic, I feel must exist somewhere, or else why does the strip persist in existing?) that every time he fails to make an appearance in the strip, angry letters pour in to King Features Syndicate. Perhaps some day, after Hagar and Helga have converted to Christianity and gone off to raise sheep in Iceland, the strip will follow the lead of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and be called Hagar the Horrible and Lucky Eddie, with decades passing between appearances of the former. It’ll be just like Joey, but (and I can’t believe I’m typing this) not as funny.