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Mary Worth, 8/17/21

Ha ha, remember that time Wilbur got drunk and obnoxious on a double date with his Estelle and his ex and his ex’s new hot young boyfriend, and she dumped him but he and Mary bullied her into taking him back? Well, you’d think he’d have taken the romantic lesson that he’s on thin ice and should probably stop being an asshole, but I guess instead the lesson he learned was “I can be an asshole and Estelle doesn’t have other options and will still never leave me,” because here he is, angrily yelling at her cat for stealing his spotlight on Piano Date Night.

Beetle Bailey, 8/17/21

I genuinely love that Beetle Bailey, despite being in no actual physical danger, has gone “method” during this war game and decided that, if he were captured by an enemy unit, he would absolutely not do the thing where he only tells them his name, rank, and serial number, but instead would lead them back to his command post. (This is assuming, of course, that what were seeing is the sort of military training exercise where participants are split into “blue” and “red” teams, and not an actual civil war.)

Crankshaft, 8/17/21

I’m not sure Crankshaft has actual fans, but for regular readers like myself, the final panel of today’s strip, in which Crankshaft is emotionally ground down by his failing body and intrusive thoughts about his rapidly approaching death, is definitely “fan service!”

Gil Thorp, 8/17/21

Oh no! Carter has been ambushed and dragged before a secret meeting of the Council of the Red Polo Shirts! He will be shamed as the Council ritually strips him of his own red polo shirt, right before he’s executed for golfcrime.

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Mary Worth, 8/16/21

Oh, snap! Did Drew get emotional closure on the whole getting-dumped-by-Ashlee situation? Nope! Did we ever really find out why Ashlee skipped town, exactly? Not really! But too bad, we’ve spent all the time we can on Drew on his problems, because it’s been way too long since we spent some time on Wilbur motherfucking Weston and all his problems! Now, I know from this strip it looks like Wilbur doesn’t have any problems. Honestly, it looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world! But believe me, folks: this is a man with some problems, and we’re going to hear about them in gruesome detail.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/16/21

I’m not sure which possibility suggested by this strip is more hilarious to me: that the climactic “Les and Lisa discuss the disposal of Lisa’s cremains” scene of Lisa’s Story: The Movie was filmed on a tiny set in front of a greenscreen, or that they built that little bench as “fun” prop for this hot Hollywood party, to remind the cast and crew what it’s all really about (it’s about how Lisa died of cancer, and her husband is and has been extremely noble about it).

Beetle Bailey, 8/16/21

Like most Americans, I’m into gritty, “edgy” reboots of existing intellectual property. So obviously I was deeply disappointed that today’s Beetle Bailey didn’t pay off on the promise of the first panel, which implied that we’d see a story where the denizens of Camp Swampy wonder if Beetle Bailey committed suicide.

Gil Thorp, 8/16/21

CSI: GOLF SCAMS: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT

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Daddy Daze, 8/15/21

When I first read this strip, I felt an immediate spike of anger when I got to panel four. “Damn it,” I thought. “It’s Superman for whom the ‘secret identity,’ Clark Kent, is the façade. Bruce Wayne is the real man and Batman is the persona. How dare they print this garbage in the newspaper!” But then I took a step back. Do I really care that much about superheroes? No, I do not. Have I actually given this subject that much thought? No, I have not, and upon reflection I may just be repeating sentiments from a David Carradine monologue in the 2003 Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill. “Paul” or “Daddy” or whatever you want to call him is just a sad, lonely man projecting complex semantic meaning onto his infant son’s incoherent babbling, and who am I to criticize whatever coping mechanisms he feels are necessary?

Funky Winkerbean, 8/15/21

A fun thing to remember is that Mason was introduced during the first “let’s film Lisa’s Story” plotline, and at that point he was part of the empty-headed cadre of Hollywood ghouls who couldn’t possibly do justice to the sad story of Lisa dying of cancer. He later evolved into a “good guy” character, a transformation that climaxed him into agreeing to make the right kind of Lisa’s Story movie, but every once in a while the strip remembers “Oh, right, this guy is the sort of vapid movie star that a thoughtful person like Les would hold in contempt,” so despite being blown away by how good the rough cut of Lisa’s Story: A Mason Jarre Joint was, Les still gets to feel superior because Mason is doing social media content for his fans on Instagram, like a whore. Never mind that without those fans this terrible cancer movie wouldn’t have gotten the money to be made at all! Anyway, I like how Cayla seems genuinely dumbstruck to learn that someone might do something to make other people happy.